“Because we definitely want to coordinate showing up for breakfast together,” she says, making me rethink her crush. At least until she adds, “Otherwise, how will anyone mistake us for a couple at breakfast and pressure us to kiss?”
“Whoa,” I chuckle. “How you doing there, Poppy?”
With her eyes on the dreary road ahead of us, she angles her face toward me and puckers her lips suggestively. “Come on, Ollie Pop. Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking it.”
And then she starts to giggle.
And I start to laugh.
And then everything changes.
It happens so fast, I don’t even have time to yell a warning. One second, Poppy’s giggling with her eyes crinkled in the corners, the next we’re sliding sideways across black ice. The snow-covered fields rush past us in a blur. She yanks the wheel hard left, overcorrects, and we spin once—twice—before the back tires catch the edge of the asphalt and send us careening off the narrow country road.
The car plunges nose-first into the drainage ditch, deeper than it looked from the road. We hit hard, the impact throwing us forward against our seatbelts. The airbags explode outward with a loud pop, smacking us both in the face. They deflate just as quickly, leaving behind a cloud of white powder that burns my throat and makes my eyes water.
I’m too shocked to process. For a moment there’s nothing but our ragged breathing and thetick-tick-tickof the hissing engine. The headlights are mostly buried, but there’s just enough lightreflecting off the snow in front of us to show me Poppy’s dazed, red face.
“Are you okay?” I ask Poppy. I reach both hands out, taking her face carefully. Her eyes are dazed, and her nose and forehead are red with what looks like a rash. She blinks and coughs. Her hair is dangling down, covering half her face.
“Are you okay?” she asks, echoing me like she didn’t hear me. “Oliver, I’m so sorry.” The words come out in a half-sob.
“It’s not your fault,” I say. She sobs again, and I take her face gently, firmly in my hands and hold her gaze. “Poppy, this wasn’t your fault.”
Her eyes slam shut. “Yes, it was,” she whispers. She reaches for her seatbelt, but I stop her.
“Wait,” I say. I put my feet firmly down, bracing for when I unbuckle and the seatbelt stops holding me up. “I’m going to come around the car and pull you out, okay?”
“I can do it,” she says, but her eyes are big with panic, and her breathing’s too erratic.
“No. Stay there,” I say.
I unbuckle and push against the door, but it won’t give. I shove, and nothing happens. Thinking fast, I climb awkwardly into the backseat, cursing my big, dumb size as I try to maneuver into the smallest back seat that ever existed. But when I’m finally back there, I try the back door, and it opens.
I step out, and my foot sinks two feet into the snow. The car is nose-down in the ditch, with the driver’s side tilted higher than mine. My door is buried nearly to the window in packed snow and earth—no wonder it wouldn’t budge. I pull out my cell phone to call 911, and I curse. No service. I scan the empty road in both directions, but the road is dead.
We’re on our own.
I trudge around the back of the car to Poppy’s side and throw open her door. “Okay, ready? I’ll pull you out.”
“I can do it,” she says, but she doesn’t sound right. She’s shaking her head as she fumbles with the buckle. “This is my fault. This is my fault.”
She unbuckles and tries to swing her legs out, but she falls forward and cries out in pain.
“Poppy!” I scoop her up and pull her from the car, holding her in my arms. “What is it? Where are you hurt?”
She wraps her arms around my neck and buries her face against my shoulder. Her body’s shaking—with shock, I’m sure. “I rolled my ankle in Wilson this morning. Right before I got to the café.”
“You what?” I ask angrily, thinking back to every time she’s gotten out of the car today. She stayed behind me so I wouldn’t notice. And like an idiot, I didn’t. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She starts crying, which makes her shaking worse. “I’m sorry, Oliver. I know I shouldn’t have been driving, but I didn’t think it was that bad. It was so selfish of me?—”
“WHAT?”
She cries harder, and I kiss her head, her hair soft and smelling like coconut. “You silly, silly little elf,” I grumble. “I’m the selfish one. I should never have let you keep driving so long or so late. If I hadn’t pushed you, this never would have happened.”
“You didn’t push me,” she cries into my shoulder. “I did this. It was so stupid?—”
“Yeah, it was stupid. You hid your injury because you don’t think you matter enough. I should have driven.”
