Page 26 of Remember Me

“You were there, right? The night of my accident?” The nurse had told me he had been the one who called for an ambulance. Hayes tensed beneath me, subtly enough that if I hadn’t been sprawled boneless against him, I wouldn’t have noticed.

“You were driving in front of me and hydroplaned. You went over an embankment and into a tree.” His voice is carefully bland.

“Where were we going?”

“Home.”

I leaned back to look at him. There was still that careful tone in his voice, as if he was debating what to say and how to say it. “Why do I get the sense that there’s more to this story than you’re telling me?” I asked, watching closely for the micro expressions that would give me some hint of truth. There. There it was: a tiny twitch of his left eye.

He set me back in my seat. “You were upset. I was trying to call you, get you to slow down, to talk to me. You wouldn’t listen.” His hands were back on the steering wheel, clenched tightly enough around it that his knuckles had whitened.

“What was I mad about?”

He looked at me and the pain in his eyes was stark. “Can we just let it go? It was arguably one of the worst days of my life. I just want to forget about it.”

“You feel responsible,” I whispered, the truth slamming into me. “Are you responsible?”

“No!” His expression was tormented, and bile rose in my throat. “Maybe.” The barely audible admission had the bile burning and I fumbled with my door latch.

“Birdie —”

“Gonna be si—”

The word was cut off by a stream of vomit. As I heaved in the parking spot, rain sluicing down over me, I was distantly aware of Hayes climbing from the truck behind me. He held his coat over me to block the worst of the rain and waited until I was finished, then handed me a bottle of water. I rinsed and spat.

He caught me as I turned to get back in the truck, pulling my back flush against his front. I was shivering from the rain; he was warm and a shield. I relaxed into him for a heartbeat before pulling away. “I’d like to go home now.”

I pulled away from him with a twist of my shoulders and climbed back into the truck. There was a metallic clang as Hayes slammed his hand against the side of the truck in an outward display of frustration. “Fuck,” I heard him mutter loudly as he walked around to his side and climbed in, closing the door with an angry jerk. “We need to talk about this.”

Although I had only ‘known’ him for a few weeks, his temper didn’t scare me. I guess part of me recognized that it wasn’t directed at me. He was angry with himself.

“There’s nothing to talk about. It was an accident.” I spoke the truth, and yet bitterness made me turn my face to the window. We had argued. Everyone did; that didn’t bother me. An accident had occurred. That was no one’s fault. It was the outcome that made my head and heart ache in equal measures.

It was the loss of me, and the possibility that I might never recoup that loss.

“Please don't break this heart, it's endured so very much, it survived the fall.”

Tyler Knott Gregson

November 28¦Birdie

THE PHONE RANGMONDAY MORNING ASIWAS STEPPING OUT OF THE SHOWER. I toweled the ends of my hair, squeezing the excess water gently from its long lengths, as I squinted at the unfamiliar number.

No more surprises. Yesterday’s revelation of Hayes’s presence — no, his involvement — in my accident was still a fresh wound. I couldn’t take much more.

Taking a deep breath, I pressed speaker.

“Hello?”

“May I speak with Bernadette Grant, please?” The caller’s voice was a male tenor I didn’t recognize.

“Speaking.”

“Oh! Fabulous. Ms. Grant, this is Rodney Toney from Toney and Associates.”

There was an expectant pause, during which I dried myself and with a few brisk movements, wrapped my hair in a turban. Its length was a heavy weight, especially wet. Not for the first time, I contemplated cutting it.

“Ms. Grant? Did I lose you? I think I lost —”

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