Page 2 of Never Quite Gone

We spent the rest of the coffee planning out the next few years like we were writing a script – the house we wanted to buy next spring, the family we might start building soon, the life we were weaving together one shared dream at a time. Each plan felt like another promise, another thread binding us tighter into this tapestry we'd been creating since that first two-dessert date.

The maître d' appeared with our coats, and Michael tipped him generously because he was physically incapable of not charming every service worker he met. Outside, the spring rain was falling in that gentle way that made New York feel like a movie set. Michael pulled our shared umbrella from his coat pocket – the fancy collapsible one I'd bought him last Christmas after years of him “forgetting” umbrellas and showing up to client meetings looking like a drowned architect.

“My hero,” I said as he unfolded it, and he bumped his shoulder against mine.

“Someone has to keep you from melting, Doctor. I hear surgeons are basically the Wicked Witch of the West when it comes to water.”

We stepped out into the rain together, shoulders touching under our shared shelter, and I thought about how lucky I was to have found this – this person who got my horrible medical jokes and made me eat dessert and planned Italian villas two years in advance. Someone who understood all my sharp edges and loved me anyway.

The night felt perfect in that rare, crystalline way that usuallyonly happened in memory. If I'd known it was the last time, I would have memorized every detail – the exact shade of gray in Michael's eyes when he smiled, the precise cadence of his laugh when I made a terrible pun about his molding crisis, the specific warmth of his shoulder pressed against mine under our shared umbrella.

But that's the thing about last times – you never know they're coming until they're already gone.

The taxi smelled like vanilla air freshener and wet leather, a combination that should have been unpleasant but somehow wasn't. Michael's hand rested on my knee, his thumb tracing absent circles that sent warmth spreading through my entire body. The ring on his finger caught the glow of passing streetlights, and I remembered the way he'd fumbled putting it on at our wedding, his hands shaking so badly that my sister had whispered, “Good thing he didn't become a surgeon.”

“Best anniversary yet,” Michael said, his voice carrying that content, sleepy quality it got after good wine and better dessert. In the darkness of the backseat, his profile was intermittently illuminated by the rhythm of passing cars, each flash revealing another detail I knew by heart – the slight crook in his nose from a childhood baseball incident, the stubborn curl that always escaped behind his right ear, the way his mouth curved up at the corner when he was truly happy.

“Every year gets better,” I replied, and for once, I didn't care if I sounded like a Hallmark card. Eight years of marriage had earned me the right to be occasionally, embarrassingly sincere.

The light ahead turned yellow.

Later, I would remember every detail of the next seventeen seconds with the kind of clarity that only comes with trauma. The neuroscience behind it is fascinating – the way adrenaline can crystallize a moment, turning it into something so sharp it cuts you every time you remember it. But in that moment, all I knew was that time suddenly felt wrong, like someone had adjusted the speed of the universe without warning anyone.

The truck came out of nowhere, a massive shape materializing through the rain like something from a nightmare. Its headlights carved through the darkness, turning everything into harsh shadows and blinding white. I saw the driver's face for a fraction of a second – young, eyes wide with horror, mouth forming a perfect 'O' of surprise. He was wearing a red baseball cap. These are the details that would haunt me later, the tiny fragments of normalcy that preceded the chaos.

Michael's hand tightened on mine instinctively. Our wedding rings clicked together, a small, metallic sound that somehow cut through everything else. I had just enough time to think about how warm his palm felt against mine, how familiar the weight of his fingers had become over eight years of holding hands.

“I love-” Michael started to say, and then the world exploded.

The impact felt like being hit by a planet. Physics became personal – every law I'd learned in high school suddenly applied directly to my body in ways I'd never wanted to experience. The car spun, and I watched the world revolve around us in terrible slow motion. Streetlights stretched into golden ribbons. Rain drops hung suspended in the air like diamonds.

The airbags deployed with a sound like a gunshot, filling the car with acrid smoke and white powder that tasted like chemicals and fear. Glass shattered in a terrible symphony, each piece catching the light like malevolent stars before they fell. Metal screamed against metal, a sound that would echo in my nightmares for months to come.

My doctor's brain kicked in, even as the rest of me was frozen in terror. The analytical part of my mind – the part that could stay calm during twelve-hour surgeries and coding patients – began cataloging everything with clinical detachment:

Impact angle: driver's side, approximately 75 degrees.

Speed at collision: excessive.

Type of impact: T-bone, maximum force concentrated at Michael's door.

Probability of survival: don't think about that don't think about that don't think about that.

The car finally stopped spinning, settling into a grotesque new configuration of twisted metal and broken glass. Rain pattered through the shattered windows, mixing with something warm and wet that I refused to identify. The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the gentle hiss of steam rising from the crushed engine and the distant wail of sirens that were already too late.

My seatbelt had locked, cutting into my chest with bruising force. I could feel glass in my hair, on my skin, scattered across the new suit I'd bought specifically for our anniversary dinner. Somewhere, a car alarm was screaming, its rhythm matching the pounding of my heart.

Training kicked in like autopilot. I ran through the standard trauma assessment, the one I'd performed thousands of times in the ER:

My own status: Conscious. Breathing. Pain in chest (seatbelt), right arm (impact with door), neck (whiplash). Possible concussion. No immediate life-threatening injuries.

But none of that mattered. Nothing mattered except-

“Michael?” My voice sounded wrong, like it was coming from very far away. “Michael, baby, can you hear me?”

The darkness in the car was absolute now, all the streetlights somehow pointed the wrong way. I couldn't see him. Why couldn't I see him?

I fumbled with my seatbelt, hands shaking so badly it took three tries to hit the release. Glass crunched under my shoes as I shifted, trying to reach him. The inside of the car had become an alien landscape, all familiar shapes transformed into threatening shadows.

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