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The car slammed to a stop. Farrow pulled the handbrake in front of the park regulations sign.
I gripped the door handle, stifling a growl. The place was deserted, the Prius the only car in sight in the pitch-black night.
I watched her profile while my pulse slid back to normal. The way her eyelashes stuck together from the rain.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, text after text. No doubt from Eileen.
I couldn’t bring myself to care. For a woman who claimed to not want romance, she sought me out far too many times for my liking.
Farrow turned to face me. “Look at you.”
She gathered my hands in hers. Mine shook so bad, they jerked around, hitting the center console and seat.
Heat crept up my neck, warming up my cheeks and ears. I was embarrassed, and terrified, and furious, andalive. So fucking alive I choked on too much oxygen.
I’d never veered so far out of my comfort zone before. To me, entering an unsecured car was the equivalent of jumping off a plane without a parachute.
And entering one in the rain? Might as well ask me to slit my wrists first.
“Who hurt you?” She stared at me with angel eyes that saw good where there was none. “Who did this to you? Why are you like this?”
I stared at the trees ahead, watching as they swayed like praying people at a vigil. “I’m not the talk-about-your-feelings type.”
“I’m not the fuck-your-engaged-boss type.” She squeezed my hand, reassuring me in her own way. “We’re both out of our depths here.Talk.”
And in that moment, when it felt like the woods would swallow my secret and take it to its grave, I decided to make a tactical error forno other reason than to please this woman.
I moved the wrong stone.
“When I was 12, Dad and I picked up his anniversary gift for Mom. The pendant.”
Her eyes widened. “The other pendant in the set.”
I nodded. “On our way back, a truck slammed into our car and flipped it over. Dad shielded me with his body and died.”
I’m the only Sun in the world that brings darkness.
“Zach—”
I interrupted her, speaking with crisp, flat vowels. “But he didn’t have the privilege of dying instantly. Neither did I. A rake pierced through his body, turning his death into a slow and agonizing ordeal. The entire time, he watched me, his eyes turning redder as his face became bluer.”
Farrow sucked in a breath but didn’t say anything.
I carried on. “I watched him lose his life in real time.”
Even now, I could still see him dying before me. It didn’t take much to conjure the image.
Bile hiked up my throat. I swallowed it down, forcing myself to spit out the rest of what happened.
“Because of the way the car tipped, gasoline leaked into the engine. They had to take the car apart piece by piece before they got me out. For hours, my father’s dead body lay on top of mine, his blood dripping onto me.”
Farrow squeezed my hand tighter, encouraging me to continue.
“At first, the blood poured on top of me like a current. But eventually, it slowed to drips—splashing onto my face every now and then. I don’t even remember Dad’s last words.” I swallowed, pressing my eyes shut, knowing it wouldn’t erase the memory but wishing it could. “It rained that day. So goddamn cold, Dad must’ve felt it in his bones as he took his last breath.”
The air left her lungs in awhoosh.
I knew she pitied me. That most people would. Which was why I refused to tell anyone this. Not even the therapist Celeste Ayi sent me to until I turned sixteen.
