Page 8 of Top Shelf

“Wha—what?” I ask. “What happened? How…is he—”

“He’s alive, but he’s unconscious. He’s at Layton Memorial. My mom didn’t want to call you, but I thought you should know.”

Click.

I sit there for a moment, my hand shaking. The tears burn in the backs of my eyes before they move their way down to my cheeks. I lower the phone to my lap as Tyson rushes to me.

“Sade?” he says, kneeling down in front of me. “What happened? Who was that?”

“I have to go home,” I mutter, and his eyebrows knit together. I push myself to my feet and push by him, into the bedroom. I grab my clothes from the ground where I irresponsibly threw them last night, and then I scurry into the bathroom. For some reason, having him see me naked again feels wrong right now.

Everythingfeels wrong right now. He knocks on the bathroom door.

“Sade, can you please tell me what the hell is going on?” he asks. I sigh, wiping the tears from my cheeks and throwing my hair up into a bun. I open the door.

“Dallas was in an accident,” I say. “I need to go home.”

His eyes dart back and forth for a minute, looking like he is calculating something in his head. Finally, he nods.

“Yeah, of course, okay,” he says. “I’ll get dressed, and we can head back.”

I nod.

“Thank you.”

The air in the car is thick with awkward silence. Neither of us has spoken a word since we started driving. It’s about a two-hour drive back home, and I am dreading every moment of it. I have tried calling his mom, his other sister, and Carrie again. But no one has answered. I dial my mom.

“Mom?” I ask.

“Where thehellhave you been, Sadie? Do you know what—”

“Mom, what happened? To Dallas?” I cut her off.

“Well, if you hadansweredyour phone, you—”

“Mom!” I say, so loud I surprise myself, and I surprise Tyson. She sighs.

“He went out for a drive last night. Ya know, with all that happened, he was feeling a little…well, you get the idea. Anyway, he was coming home on Wild Road, and you know those turns are so sharp, and I guess another car didn’t see him, and…” Her voice trails off, and the only thing I can hear is my own blood rushing through my ears.

“And what, Mom?” I whisper.

“A pickup truck hit him head on. He ended up going over the guardrail and into a little ravine,” she says. “He’s got a broken collar bone, a broken femur, and a concussion. They’ve done some brain scans and are waiting for him to wake up.”

There’s a long silence. I picture Wild Road for a moment, this backwoods road that goes from one end of town to the other. Windy and dark and wooded. A favorite road to ride on, but a dangerous one at that. Dallas and I had ridden it so many times.

And if I had stayed last night…

I shake the thought from my brain.

I know the accident wasn’t my fault.

But I can’t help but think…

No.

“Are you coming to the hospital?” my mom finally asks again. I clear my throat.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

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