Page 91 of Every Beautiful Mile

“I’m fine, promise.”

She returns the squeeze before closing her eyes.

I stare through the windshield and imagine each droplet of rain is a memory of Ethan the angrily squeaking wiper can purge from my mind.

Making drinks behind the bar. Wipe.

Paddle boarding down the river. Wipe.

The blue-green color of his eyes. Wipe.

Holding hands in the night market. Wipe.

The way he kisses. Wipe.

The wiper clears the windshield long enough between awful memories for me to see something big and brown flash in front of us.

“What the—”

My words are cut off by a slam.

Everything that happens next is a blur.

A metallic crunch.

Sudden pop.

The dig of the seatbelt across my chest.

Exploding airbags.

My grunt on impact.

Marin’s yell.

We spin like a top in the middle of the road, smoke billowing out of the engine as dust fills our lungs.

Then—stillness.

And shock.

Marin garbles out a sound next to me that I can’t make out as I fumble with a seatbelt that’s digging into my skin.

“Marin!” I shout. “Marin, are you okay?”

My pulse pounds in my ears as she sobs something next to me and I climb to the space between our seats.

I crouch down next to her on the dishes that have flown from the cabinets.

“Marin, talk to me.”

Panic surges through me as I cup her face in my hands.

She blinks her eyes open and scrunches her dust-covered face.

“I’m fine. What happened?” she croaks.

“Mom?” Finn calls from the back.

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