Page 1 of Sweet Caroline
PROLOGUE
MILES
Ten months ago
Bent tones speed toward me and drone away, like some kind of fucked-up accordion. Blinding lights, angry voices, blaring horns—every jumbled sensation crescendos and whips past, like the Doppler effect or some shit.
Wait.I frown.Isn’t that a weather thing?
With effort, I lift my head, blinking against flecks of cold that dot my heated cheeks.
It’s snowing?
My feet seem to drag on the asphalt. Loose gravel skitters away from clumsy steps.
Fuck. Gotta piss.
I slop my attention to the left, blurred vision crawling to catch up with where I point my face. A grass median with a ditch.Piss ditch.Perfect.
Lights slice the dark to pieces as I lurch ditchward.Pissditchward. Even in my mind, the syllables slur.
Tires screech and swerve.
Someone shouts, “The fuck is wrong with you?”
I turn toward the voice.
Headlights sucker-punch my eyeballs. I wince and spin away, stumbling back. Slipping on the wet slope.
There’s a sickening crack when I hit the ground.
White-hot pain shoots from my fingers to my shoulder. My face skids in slo-mo across icy grass and something sharp gashes my lip open at the corner of my mouth.
Fuuuuuck.
The taste of metal on my tongue. I spit out blood then roll onto my back, groaning when pain stabs through my now-fucked arm.
Above me, clouds drift past. The moon looks like a pierogi. Or maybe a fat banana? Pierogi-banana.
Get help.
I shift a bit, clawing for my phone.Shit.Can’t reach my ass pocket like this.
Guess this is where I die. A drunk dumbass in a piss ditch.
I close my eyes.
Snow on my face. Cold and wet.
Blackness.
Blankness.
Then…beeping.
Head throbs.
Might throw up.
