I grab the edge of my door to steady myself, blinking hard, trying to force everything back into focus. And then I see it. Her car. What’s left of it.
The front is crushed in, metal folded in on itself like paper, smoke curling up in thin, ugly lines. The windshield is cracked, spiderwebbed in a way that makes something inside my chest seize so violently I can’t breathe.
No.
No, no, no—
“Ishika—”
My voice comes out wrong. Too loud. Too rough. I can’t see her. I can’t see her.
My feet move before my brain catches up.
I’m running.
Stumbling more than running, really—my legs don’t feel steady, my head still spinning from the collision, but none of that matters because—I can’t see her.
“Ishika!”
I reach her car, my hands shaking so badly I almost miss the handle the first time. It’s stuck. Of course it is.
“Fuck—”
I yank harder, my palm slipping, heart hammering so hard it feels like it’s going to tear through my ribs.
“Open—open—”
It gives.
The door jerks open with a sharp sound. And then—
There she is.
For a second, everything goes quiet.
Too quiet.
She’s slumped forward slightly, the airbag deflated around her, her hair falling over her face, unnaturally still. No.
No.
“Ishika—hey—hey—”
I reach for her, my hands hovering before finally touching her shoulders, too careful, too afraid of what I might feel.
“Hey, look at me.” My voice cracks. I don’t even register it.
“Look at me, Sunshine—come on—”
There’s blood.
A thin line of it, trailing from her temple, slipping past her cheek. My stomach drops.
“Ishika—” her head shifts slightly as her eyes flutter open. Air rushes back into my lungs so violently it almost hurts.
“Oh my—”
I don’t even finish the sentence.
