by Tia Lewis
Then, silence.
“Hello? Abby?” The call was still connected. The time was still counting down on the dashboard display. “Abby? Talk to me!” My heart raced, panic flooding me with adrenaline. She had screamed. Why had she screamed?
I went over the hill I had seen her go over—and I saw why. A car, wrapped around a tree. Crumpled metal, broken glass, the smell of gasoline and smoke. Flames coming out from under the hood. My entire life flashed before my eyes at that moment, but not because I was about to die. Because she was my life, and she could be dead. Everything was so fucking clear in that one split second between seeing the car and knowing it was her, and pulling over to the side of the road.
There were houses on either side—we were in front of one. I saw lights go on in there while I leapt from the SUV and dashed to Abby’s car. She was still inside, buckled in, unconscious. The flames were getting bigger, closer.
“Abby! Abby, wake up!” I tried the door, but it was jammed shut from the force of the impact. I threw myself against it a few times, hoping to jar it, but it wouldn’t work. In my panic, I didn’t know what to do. She was out cold. Maybe dead for all I knew. A thick trickle of blood ran down the side of her head.
The people who owned the house came out. “Call 911! Now!” I screamed. “There’s a woman in here!” One of them ran back to the house while the other, a man, came over to help me. “Do you have a fire extinguisher?” I asked, running around to the other side of the car to try the passenger side. Nothing there, either.
“Yes, in the kitchen. I’ll go get it.” He ran inside. Meanwhile, I couldn’t open the back doors, as they were locked. I pulled off my shirt and wrapped it around my arm, then slammed my elbow against the glass once, twice. On the third try, the glass shattered. I opened the back passenger side door. The flames had grown higher, thick black smoke coming from under the hood and seeing into the car.
“Baby, wake up! Please, wake up!” I unlocked the door with shaking fingers, then climbed inside. She was still immobile. The fire was spreading further every second. Pretty soon the inside of the car would start to burn. I had to get her out. Adrenaline surged through me as I leaned over her seat to unbuckle her belt, only I couldn’t quite get to it at first. The way she had slumped over made it almost impossible to reach.
The homeowner came running with the extinguisher, but it was pretty useless compared to the fire that had started lapping at the console. Smoke started filling the car, a thick black smoke that choked me. I opened the other back door in the hopes of it leaving the car before going back to the buckle. “Come on!” I screamed. It was jammed. I pressed the button again and again. It was getting hot in there. So hot. “Help me!” I didn’t know who I was asking for help. Not Abby. She might have been dead, she was so still. I saw her chest rise and fall. No, she was alive, but breathing in the smoke.
There were more people around the car now, talking and pointing. The fire was almost too much to bear by then. Flames touched the seat next to Abby. I felt the hair on my arm burn as I struggled to get her out of the car.
Finally, at last, the belt released. I pulled her, knowing she could have a neck or spinal injury but also knowing I couldn’t leave her in a burning car. Her body started moving, but not enough—her legs were pinned. I climbed almost all the way over her to access the seat controls, and when I found the bar under the seat I pulled it up. The seat slid back. The metal scorched my hand, but I hardly felt it.
That gave me enough room to slide her body out of the front seat. She was on fire, her dress starting to burn up. I beat the flames out with my hands. I sensed rather than saw two people behind me—the smoke was too thick to see through. “Help me!” I coughed, and they reached in to take Abby by the shoulders and pull her out along with me. I took her feet, which had been burned. The soles of her shoes were half-melted.
They laid her on the grass, but that was too close. “Move! Move!” I yelled, then lifted her and carried her further away, closer to where I had parked. The fire trucks showed up just as flames engulfed the car. I sat with her body over my legs, holding her close to my chest. I rocked her back and forth, talking to her, saying whatever came to mind. None of it made sense, but nothing made sense in my head. Why wasn’t she waking up? Her face was sooty from the smoke, her eyes still closed. She was so still. I brushed her hair back, noticing how some of it had burned off. She had come so close.
“Please come back to me. Please. I need you.” I held her face close to mine, almost willing her to wake up. Demanding that she open her eyes to look at me. “Even if you wanna tell me off, just wake up and do it. Please, baby, please.”
“Sir? Sir, you have to let go of her now. We need to take her. Sir, let go now!” I realized two EMTs were trying to pry her away from me. I didn’t want to let her go, but I had to. They had to help her. They were gentle, at least, as they put her on a stretcher and stabilized her head. I wouldn’t leave her side, talking the whole time. Babbling. I wasn’t even making sense. I needed her to hear me, to know I was there. Why wasn’t she moving?
“Blood pressure’s dropping,” one of the EMTs said. “Come on! We have to go, now!”
“Let me come, too!” I begged, running after them.
“Sir, you need treatment as well.” They tried to shove me out of the way, but I fought, screaming her name. Someone in the ambulance put an oxygen mask over her face while another started an IV.
“Abby! Abby!” It took three bulky EMTs and a firefighter to hold me back as the doors to the ambulance closed. I watched helplessly as it pulled away, lights and siren going.
Then everything went black.
25
Max
A cool breeze ruffled my hair and made the tears on my cheeks feel icy cold. I only noticed in the back of my mind, unable to care too much about what was happening around me. All I saw was what was directly in front of me. A big pile of fresh flowers, and the wooden casket underneath them.
“Why did you do that?” I whispered, my words carried away on the breeze. “Why did you run away from me? I wasn’t going to hurt you. I wanted to make everything right.”
I knew why she had run away. I had pushed her away. No matter how I had tried to save her, it wasn’t enough. If I hadn’t pushed, it wouldn’t have happened. She would still be with me.
“You only ever wanted to love me,” I whispered, and the tears welled up in my eyes. They were no comfort—I should have known well enough since I’d already cried so many of them. Until I was sure there were no more tears left in me. It wasn’t easy. I wasn’t used to crying, but then I wasn’t used to losing the only person I had ever loved, either.
I would never get the chance to tell her. I should have told her a hundred times, from all the way back when we were kids. I had loved her since then since we were young, but I was always too much of a coward to admit it. It didn’t make any sense. It all seemed ridiculous, looking back. I couldn’t remember what I was so afraid of anymore. But it was too late.
She was all alone in that casket. Everybody else had left. Her family. My family. The team and colleagues. Just the two of us, again. Only it wouldn’t be for long. They would make me leave while they lowered her down to the ground. I couldn’t watch them do that. Not to her. Not to my Abby.
My Abby. She had always been mine. I thought back to the time we’d been together, and all the memories hit me at once, almost hard enough to knock me down. I wished they would. I wished they’d knock me down so hard I would never get up. Because it was all my fault. She was gone, and it was my fault she was gone, and I wanted to go with her.
“I never deserved you. And this is my punishment. I have to live the rest of my life without you in it. I just wish I could have told you that I always loved you. Why didn’t I tell you? You deserved somebody who had the guts to tell you and to love you the way you needed to be loved. You deserved so much better than me.”
I looked up at the sky. How could it be so blue when the world was over? There
was nothing left anymore. I could throw myself into the hole they’d dug for her, and it wouldn’t matter because I would be leaving nothing. “Why did you do this?” I asked no one in particular. God, maybe, only I didn’t believe in God anymore. Not when he could take away the life of somebody like her. No matter how hard I wished and prayed, he wouldn’t take me in her place. So why should I believe in him?
“I would do anything.” I looked back at that shiny casket. “I would do anything.”
“I would do anything.” I opened my eyes to the sound of beeping. A slow, steady rhythm. It was dark. Cool. The ceiling in front of my eyes.
What had happened? Did I have an accident outside the cemetery? Did I throw myself into the grave like I had wanted to? I had to be in the hospital. It was the only place in the world with that steady beeping noise.
I tried to move, but it wasn’t easy. My muscles were sorer than after the toughest game. And there was a tightness in my right arm. I turned my head, looking down. A line going in, tape over it. I moved my arm and felt the line pull a little.
“Where am I?” I was barely a whisper.
I heard a noise next to me. A tiny little woman. A nurse? She wore scrubs, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail.
“You’re in the hospital, Mr. Anderson. But you’ll be all right.”
I cleared my throat. Why couldn’t I talk? I whispered, “Where did you find me? At the cemetery?”
“Cemetery? No, but you would have been if you’d stayed by that car much longer, from what I heard. You’re a crazy man, running to a burning car like that. They had to sedate you to even get you to the hospital.”
Running to a burning car? Then it was a dream, being at the cemetery? That meant …
“Where is she?” My throat felt scratchy like I’d swallowed sand. I cleared it and spoke again. “Where is she?”
“Who is she, Mr. Anderson?” The nurse wasn’t looking at me. She was too busy doing something with the line going into my arm. What the hell did I need a line in my arm for? What was I even doing in a hospital?
“She. Her. Abby. Where is she?” I looked around, confused. My head felt foggy. But it had been a dream. It had to be a dream. She couldn’t be dead.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know who you’re talking about. Just get some rest now, Mr. Anderson.”
“No.” I sat up, ignoring the way my head spun. “I need her. Where is she? Tell me!” My throat felt like it was on fire. Fire? I looked down at my hands. Bandaged. The fire.
I struggled to stand. The nurse ran around to the side of the bed, calling for help. It didn’t matter—she was nothing, nobody. I’d faced three-hundred-fifty-pound linebackers and brushed her off like she was a fly on my arm.
“Tell me where she is!” I disconnected the tube from the port in my arm and pulled the monitors from my chest. I yanked the tubes from my nose, ranting the entire time. “Tell me! Where is Abby?”
“I don’t know who you mean, Mr. Anderson. That’s the truth. Please, stop this. Get back into bed!” I heard an alarm going off in the hall. I brushed the nurse off again and pushed my way out the door, where two more nurses were running into the room.
“Abby Morrison. Where is Abby Morrison?” I took one of the women by the shoulders, screaming into her face, shaking her.
“I don’t know! Let go of me!” I did, disgusted.
I ran down the hall, looking into every open door. “Abby? Abby?” I was shouting, almost screaming. She had to be somewhere around there. Nothing mattered more than finding her. I could hardly walk a straight line, but I pushed through and called for her. She would hear me and know I needed her.
A burly male orderly was heading for me, reminding me of a player on the field. He wanted to sack me. I tried to feint left, but he read my moves and wrapped thick arms around my waist. I screamed for him to let me go, but his arms were steel bands.
“Come on, Mr. Anderson. Back to your room. You’ve been injured.” It was chaos—beeping alarms, people all around me. Yelling at me, pulling my arms, trying to get me back to the room. And my screams over theirs. Why didn’t they understand? I needed her. I had to find her. Why weren’t they listening? Was I still dreaming?
“Is she dead? Tell me! Where is she?” I looked from one of them to the other and back again, all around me. The had me surrounded. “Abby!”
“Mr. Anderson, we’re going to have to sedate you again.” I looked around and saw a doctor standing there, looking pretty pissed.
“No, please, don’t do that. Please.” I looked him in the eye. “I don’t need that. I’ll be calm. I just have to see her. I have to talk to Abby.”
His face fell a little, and my heart sank. “I need to see her no matter what’s wrong with her. Don’t you get it? I don’t care how bad she is or how long I have to wait. Please, just tell me where I can find her. Please.” I was close to tears, I realized. I just needed somebody to listen to me. Why didn’t they care?
He made a motion for the orderly to let me go, and I took him by the lapels of his white coat. “Tell me. Where is she? Is she dead?”
“I’ll take you to her,” he said. “She’s on another floor. I need you to do something for me, please.”
“What? Anything.” He needed to hurry so I could get to her. She had to know how I felt.
“You have to get into a wheelchair, and you have to promise you’ll get back to bed and listen to the nurses when you’re finished.”
“Fine, fine. Just please.” An orderly brought a wheelchair out for me, and the doctor escorted me into the elevator, then two floors down. More of the accident was coming back to me. The fire. It was so hot. And Abby. She was unconscious. Did she wake up? Was she badly burned? I couldn’t feel pain in my hands, which could have been painkillers or might have been adrenaline.
“Room four-oh-nine,” the doctor murmured. I got out of the wheelchair even though I heard the two of them telling me to come back and ran to room four-oh-nine. The door was closed—when I opened it, my heart was in my throat.
I heard the beeping first. Like the beeping I heard when I first woke up. Monitors. And there she was. Bandages on her face, her hands and head. My knees went a little weak, my chest felt like somebody was sitting on it. I couldn’t breathe.
But she was there. She was real, and she was breathing, and she was alive, and I had a chance to tell her how I felt.
“Baby?” I fell to my knees beside the bed, taking one of her bandaged hands in one of mine. Her eyes were closed. She didn’t flinch when she heard me speaking. “Can you hear me, Abby? Please, let me know if you can hear me.”
Her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. Still, I took it as a good sign.
“Baby, you’re gonna be fine. I’m here with you, okay? I won’t leave you. I’ll never leave you again. Please, please, tell me you can hear me. I love you. Tell me you know I love you.”
Another flutter of her eyelids. Then, like a miracle from Heaven, they slowly slid open. I could hardly see her through the tears streaming down my face. She turned her head to look at me, and a small smile touched her lips.
“Max?”
“Yes, baby. It’s me. I’m right here.” I cried.
“You love me?” She mouthed it. I could make out the movement of her chapped, cracked lips.
“Yes. I love you. I’ve always loved you. You should have been mine since we were kids. I’ve loved you my whole life, but I was too damned stupid and blind to see it, and I almost ruined everything for us. Can you ever forgive me? Please? I’ll do anything to make it up to you. I’ll work for the rest of my life to make you happy, every day. I swear it. Please, forgive me.”
She smiled again, a tear trickling down her bandaged face. There were burns there, but I remembered the way she looked when I pulled her from the car. It was all coming back. There was nothing too bad. She would just need time to heal and get better.
“I love you,” she mouthed. I knew men like me didn’t get second chances all the time—sometimes they
never did—so when she said those three words I couldn’t believe my luck. I would spend the rest of my life earning her trust, but it would be time well spent. And I would probably never deserve her, not all the way, because she was just too special. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t keep trying.
I spent hours sitting there with her until the doctors knew it was no use trying to keep us apart. Eventually, they moved a hospital bed into the room with her so we could be together until it was time to go home. I would never leave her again.
26
Abby
He loved me. I loved him. But that didn’t mean everything was sunshine and lollipops. Two people could feel a lot of love for each other, but it didn’t mean they could live together.
Two days after the accident, I finally felt lucid enough to talk things out. The sight of Max’s bandages getting changed was enough to rip me out of my stupor. His seared hands looked terrible.
His hands. I gasped, which got his attention.
“I didn’t think you were awake,” he said, looking sheepish.
“Yeah, I feel like I’m always out of it,” I admitted.
“Painkillers,” the nurse said. “Believe me, with the burns to your legs and feet, you want help with the pain.”
“I’m sure,” I murmured. It already hurt enough with the meds coursing through my system. I couldn’t worry about that at the moment. The sight of Max’s hands brought tears to my eyes.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, my eyes wide as the nurse checked to make sure there was no infection, that it looked as though the burns were healing well. She seemed pleased, and I couldn’t imagine why. It was terrible looking. Maybe because I loved him. That might have been why it bothered me so much to see what he’d done to himself, and all for me.
“What do you mean?”