Page 2 of Every Chance After

Losing myself.

That same drowning sensation envelopes me. The quiet. The dark. Sinking into it. I go deeper, trying to find that damn rod.

Disaster only takes a second. One stupid, ridiculous, devastating second. Disaster can happen with one mistake. The heavy droop of my eyelids, my arms going slack, and tension evaporating with the gentle sinking of my head as my body overrules me.“Good luck, babe! Well, good luck, babe, you’ll have to….”

Have to get home…Have to stop the world just to stop the feeling… Whack! My head spins into a vicious pillow fight between my brothers and me. Colin’s pillow side-swipes my face, followed by Gil’s weaker attempt at my side and Luke’s attack from the other.Fucking assholes!Watch for Marigold!

Is that her? Screaming?

The music vanishes discordantly behind a deafening collision. I choke awake, my head snapping forward and then back. Not pillows. Airbags. The truck’s alarms blare under screeching tires as my boots slam against the brakes. I jerk the steering wheel behind the airbag, but it’s too late. No control.Sometimes, nothing can be done.The truck careens, zigzagging across the road and twisting to a perpendicular end mid-road, facing the wrong direction.

The world stops.

Shoving the bags away from me, I blink repeatedly.Fucking hell, what just happened?

I move my extremities and check myself over.I’m okay. I think I’m okay.But my first relieved breath is cut off in a devastating glance up. Through the shattered windshield and the steam jettisoning from the bent hood, I barely make out another car, a blue orb, shoved off the road like a discarded matchbox toy in the tree-lined ditch.

I’ve hit someone. I’ve fucking hit someone!

Disoriented but functioning, I wrench my door open and emerge on wobbly legs. Glass crunches under my rubber boots as I stumble toward the other car. Dizziness threatens to overwhelm me, making me slow. But soon, I refocus as my brain processes the sight yards away from me—a mangled car cupped by trees like a fallen nest.

I did this. This is my fault.

I move toward the wreckage, boots dragging over glass and my vision clearing. An airbag deflates. A door screeches open. A red-haired woman stumbles out. Heels. White lace. Blood.

Is that a wedding dress? Is that a… knife?

A debilitating second passes as I close the distance between us. It’s a fucking nightmare. Ithasto be. Any second, Colin will whack me with a pillow again. Or the dogs will bark. Anything to shake me from the senselessness of what I’m seeing—a bride stepping from a car wreck with a pearl-handled knife jutting from her lower gut.

It can’t be real.

She doesn’t think so, either. Frightened and stunned, her eyes go from mine to the knife plunged almost sideways into her abdomen. In eerie disbelief, she seems to assess the situation, grabs the handle, and yanks the knife out, dropping it with a shaking hand. Now, a step away from her, it clinks against the concrete between us, joining her chilling moan at the fresh pain.

It’s real.

Blood pours through her delicate fingers as she tries to stay upright. She wobbles on her white, blood-stained heels before they twist under her, and she falls.

I catch her, my arms reacting before I tell them to. We drift downward like feathers caught together in the wind.

Easing her against the glass-covered pavement, her red hair sprays fan-like behind her.

This is my fault. She’s bleeding because of me.

Bleedingheavilybecause of me.The red inkblot around her midsection spreads over her white dress alarmingly fast.

“I… I’m sorry,” I choke, head still spinning, “I’m sorry. What can I?—”

“He forgot the cake knife. It kept sliding across the seat, so I put it…” Her voice trails into a pained grunt, and she gulps for air.

“Breathe. Just breathe.” The words shuffle out from another memory—me calming Gil during a panic attack. “I’m here. I-I can help. I-I have to get my phone.”

“Stay with her,” a familiar voice orders gruffly behind me. “Ambulance is on its way.”

“How long?”

A beat passes. “Twelve to fourteen minutes.”

I spare a glance at the looming shadow—my fucking Uncle Wade. The universe is shitting all over me today. Even so, my head stops spinning, as if Wade’s presence jerked the needle off the skipping record.

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