Adam looked confused, yet relieved. “That would explain a lot.”
“I have them with me, all the letters you sent that I never got,” she said. “I looked for you that day I got married to Ben. It wasn’t until last month when you were at my house that I realized it was you standing there watching me. I remember someone, a man staring at me from across the street on his motorcycle. You were there, weren’t you?”
Adam nodded.
“Why?” she questioned. “Why didn’t you say something? Or stop the wedding?” She swallowed to get rid of the dryness in her throat. She had dreamt of the day she would be with him again but had thought it would never happen.
“I’m sorry, I thought that...Well, I thought you didn’t want to be with me just like the letter said. And I saw you with him.”
“I waited for you to come back even after I received that letter. I want to know everything that has happened to you in our time away from one another,” Kaitlyn said.
“A lot happened, and I would love to tell you everything, if you stay.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she replied. “I had made the decision to marry Ben, but I didn’t know what I had done until…” She stopped talking, her mind going back to last month. “When you were in Illinois last month, did you find the photos in my bedroom?”
Adam’s face grew tense. “He hurt you, didn’t he? That man, Ben,” Adam grew angry. “He hit you? Beat you?” The bitter, angry words flew out of his mouth.
She closed her eyes as the images flicked like a slideshow in her mind. It felt like it was happening as she stood there, but she knew that Ben was gone, and she didn’t have to be scared or frightened anymore. She was safe with Adam. She had always been safe with Adam. “Yes,” she whispered.
“That bastard,” Adam snarled. “If he weren’t already dead, I’d kill him myself.”
She put a hand to his face. “Thank you for that, but he can’t hurt me any longer. There’s so much I need to tell you.”
“Me too,” he said as he pulled her into him and kissed her deeply, then whispered against her lips, “I want nothing more than to live my life with you,” he said. “But only if that’s what you want.”
She smiled. “I want that too.”
49
The Morning of the Accident
The morning Ben left his home in Illinois, he drove onto Interstate 80/90. He had a meeting at a bank in Toledo, Ohio. His plans were to drive there and be home by five that night. It was to be the last business trip he would attend because he was quitting his job. He made plans to meet his wife Kaitlyn at their favorite restaurant and tell her that he was dying. That he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. He was going to tell her that he was sorry for everything. But he wouldn’t tell her that he was leaving that night and taking her with him.
He’d thought about his plan nonstop since the doctor’s appointment when he was told that he had a few weeks to a month to live. He would have to tell Kaitlyn and then kill them both because he wasn’t going to leave her here. No, she had to be with him, if not in life, in death. He knew she’d fight him, but he had that all figured out too. They’d have their last meal at his favorite restaurant and then go back to their house. He would close off the bedroom after drugging her with sleeping pills and fill the room with carbon monoxide from a generator that he’d purchased after finding out the results. He would then lie beside her on the bed and they would die together, the way it was meant to be.
The morning rain had finally stopped, leaving the highway slick and wet. Ben crossed the state line entering Ohio. Once through the tollbooth, he accelerated, passing several cars. He had forty-five minutes to get to the bank and once again he was going to be late, but this time he couldn’t blame Kaitlyn. This time it was due to the fucking morons on the road this morning. Ben, his usual self, was fuming behind the wheel of his Chevy Malibu. One of the symptoms caused by his brain tumor, so the doctor had told him. He had always been angry since he was abused by his mother when he was little and then put into foster care, but the doctor had said the tumor started three years ago. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact day he started to feel different, but he had realized the change inside of himself and that he’d become more violent toward Kaitlyn, more aggressive, especially when the headaches surfaced.
“Come on, asshole, move it,” he yelled as if the person in the other vehicle could hear him. The car beside him finally moved forward, giving him the room to pass. He pressed on the gas, zooming in and out of traffic as if he were in a race to the finish line. The two-lane highway turned into three. Ben checked his surroundings before moving into the far-left lane to drive around the semi-truck that was blocking his view.
He sped up to 85 then 90 mph and moved into the left lane. As he accelerated around the truck, pain shot through his head. He closed his eyes for a split second then opened them. Sunlight ricocheted off the chrome-plated mud flaps on the semi-truck beside him, blinding him instantly.
He jerked the wheel, causing the car to swerve on the wet pavement. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel his knuckles turning white. The car hit the cement dividers separating the highway. His heart pounded in his chest, causing sweat to form along his brow and hairline, which then ran down the back of his neck. Ben felt the car move in slow motion as it slowly somersaulted into the air, standing straight up like a ballerina on her toes. A cold chill ran through him, as if the blood had drained out of his body.
Pockets of sunlight beamed down to the ground as his car stopped in mid-air. With bulging eyes, he peered out the windshield. His only thought was of Kaitlyn and what she had once said to him. They were driving through town after the rain had stopped, just like this very moment. She had pointed to the rays of sunlight beaming through the clouds and said, “God was taking new souls up to the heavens.” But he knew as he stared out the windshield, looking at the beautiful rays of sunlight streaming through the clouds, he wasn’t going to heaven like she said people do when they die. He didn’t deserve to go there.
His body jolted forward against the steering wheel and then slammed back against the seat. The car spun in the air, over the concrete wall, and into the westbound traffic, crashing upside down on the hood of his car.
He heard tires screeching and horns honking around him before they collided into his car. His body was broken, and the pain was worse than he’d ever imagined as he was pinned inside the vehicle. Airbags deployed, sending white powdered dust through the air and landing all around him. The sounds of metal crunching and glass shattering were the last things Ben heard before everything went black around him.
Acknowledgements
Here’s where I get to say thank you to all the people that mean so much to me and helped make my dream as a published author come true. First and foremost, I want to thank my readers for reading my books. I don’t know what I’d do without your support.
I would like to express my many thanks and appreciation to Steve Talaski for answering my many questions about firefighters and what happens at the scene of an accident. The procedures when arriving to an accident and at the hospital. I hoped that I didn’t annoy you too much with all the questions. Thank you again for all your help with writing this book. I greatly appreciate your input.
I would like to thank Dr. Vonda from First Editing on the wonderful job she did editing my novel. Thank you for making it into a great memorable book for everyone to read. I want to thank Deborah Bowman Stevens for reading through my synopsis and summary and critiquing my small flaws and missing commas. I can’t seem to ever get them right.
I want to thank my parents for believing in me and wanting nothing but the best for me. I love you both so much! Thank you to my daughter who has to live with my insane conversations about my work and the characters I create and have actual conversations with from time to time. I love you sweetie, you’ll always be my baby bird.
About the Author
Donna M. Zadunajsky started out writing children’s books
before she accomplished and published her first novel, Broken Promises, in June 2012. She since has written several more novels and her first novella, HELP ME! Book 1 in the series, which is about teen suicide and bullying.
HELP ME!, won Awards in:
The Great Northwest Book Festival-Winner
Global eBook Awards- Gold Medal Winner
The Great Southeast Book Festival-Winner
IPA Award- Winner in Grief Category
Reader Views Awards- In 3 different categories:
*Children-Teen 12-16-year-old
*Children-Young Adult 16-18 years old
*Best Teen/YA Book of the Year
eLit Awards- Silver Winner
Talk To Me, Book 2 was a Finalist in the Author U unpublished contest, 2016 and later published in 2017.
IPA Award- Winner in Death and Dying
The author is available for speaking on the matters of teen suicide, bullying and for author events. She is currently working on her next book. To find out more about the author and her books go to: http://www.donnazadunajsky.com
The Accident Page 24