Page 199 of Tell Me Something True

“I was on the bus with the team. It was a playoff game in a town two hours from here. The trip there wasn’t bad, but it started snowing heavily during the game, and by the time it was over, the roads were slick…”

His fingers began to tingle, and he rubbed them up and down the length of his thighs, focusing on the feel of the stiff denim beneath his skin. Leaning his head back against the couch, he shut his eyes. Inhaled for the count of four. Held it for four. Exhaled for the count of four. Held it for four.

It helped.

But not as much as the feel of Tabitha’s fingers, cool against the back of his hand.

“What do you need?”

Opening his eyes, he met her gaze. “This,” he murmured, turning his hand to link his fingers with hers. “Just this.”

“I think I can do better than that.”

Then, as if she knew exactly how badly he needed to hold her, she untangled her fingers from his and climbed onto his lap. Tucking the side of her head against his chest, she snuggled into him. “Better?”

Wrapping his arms around her waist, he exhaled. Kissed the top of her damp hair and nodded. “The roads were slick,” he said again. “Too slick for how fast the semi was going. It crossed the center line going around a curve. Dad tried to swerve, but there wasn’t much he could do. The semi hit their truck almost head-on. The bus had left about fifteen minutes after them…”Inhaling sharply, Tabitha stiffened and lifted her head, her eyes wide with realization. And horror. “Oh, Miles…”

He hugged her closer. “We got there shortly after the first responders.”

He remembered every moment like it was yesterday. The vibration of the bus. The muted sound of the engine. The flurry of white illuminated by a passing vehicle’s headlights.

“I was sitting in the back. We’d lost the game, and I was pissed. I sat by myself with my headphones on and pretended to be asleep so no one would talk to me.”

He’d been a fucking brat. A pissy, sore loser.

“I remember the tires of the bus sliding as we stopped, and I opened my eyes. Saw the flashing red and blue lights and then shut them again. I turned away,” he admitted gruffly. “All the guys got up and pressed their faces against the windows across from me…” He blew out a breath. “At first, they were all talking, exclaiming over how bad the accident was, and then, one of them must have recognized that the truck belonged to my dad because their exclamations turned to murmurs. Then to silence.”

It was that sudden quiet that had gotten to him. That had told him something was very, very wrong.

“The moment I saw my dad’s truck, I went ballistic. Coach and Mr. Hennesy, the driver, wouldn’t let me get off the bus, so I went to the back and opened the emergency exit.” He’d slipped and slid his way across the street in his sneakers. “Two cops working traffic had stopped me before I reached the truck.”

They’d had to tackle him and pin him to the wet, snowy ground, but they’d stopped him.

Even then, he’d kept fighting. Trying to get to his mom and dad.

“Once they realized my parents were in the truck,” he went on, “they let me stay, but kept me as far from the scene as possible.”

One of the cops had stayed with him, probably to make sure he didn’t interfere with the First Responders. But he’d also tried to comfort him. Had asked his mother’s name so the EMTs would know it. Had told him, again and again, that they were all doing all they could to save his mom and dad. To have faith.

To have hope.

But even though he’d wanted to believe him, Miles had known faith wasn’t going to do his parents any good.

And it was far too late for hope.

“It felt like I’d walked into a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. Dad died on impact.” He could still see his father’s body, so still, so lifeless, lying on the side of the road. “Mom was trapped in the truck and was still alive when they finally freed her, but her injuries were too severe, and she died on the way to the hospital. I had to tell Urban,” he continued, voice hoarse with grief, throat aching with it as he remembered making that phone call to his older brother. “We didn’t have anyone else. Both sets of our grandparents were gone, and other than an uncle in Arizona we’d only met a few times, we had no other family.”

Tabitha sniffed and Miles’s stomach dropped. He’d been so wrapped up in his memories, it took him a moment to realize Tabitha was crying. Big, heart-wrenching, silent tears that streamed down her face.

“Hey, hey,” he murmured, doing his best to wipe the tears away with his trembling hands, but they just kept coming. “Please don’t cry. Not because of me.”

She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, stilling his hands against her face. “I’m not crying because of you. I’m crying for you. For your family and what they lost. For your parents being taken away from you all, and each other, too soon. But mostly, I’m crying for the child you were. For the boy who witnessed something so horrific. And I’m crying for the man you are now. The man who still lives with that pain. Who blames that child for something out of his… out of anyone’s… control.”

He tipped his forehead against hers. Shut his eyes and just breathed her in. He didn’t know what the hell he’d done to deserve this second chance with her, but he wasn’t going to question it.

He wasn’t going to waste it.

“The nightmares I had when we were together… they were about that night. Or at least, variations of that night. Sometimes I’d be seventeen again, sometimes I’d be seven, sometimes an adult. The only thing that’s the same is that I always try to save them. Sometimes I’m in the middle of the road, screaming and waving my arms to warn them. Sometimes I’m in the truck, begging them to slow down. To pay closer attention. To pull over for just a minute. But no matter what I do, no matter what I say, no matter how the dream begins, the only thing that never changes is how the dream ends. I never save them. Not even once.”

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