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“Pull over,” I demanded through my teeth.
“Nash, you didn’t,” Megan whispered, her voice trembling.
“I’m not high! I have—I have the chips! Look, they’re right here.”
He shifted to rise out of the seat, hand already trying to get in his pocket. The motion lengthened his leg, and with his reflexes off, his foot hit the gas. The wheel came loose of his slow, unsuspecting hand, the truck swerving into the oncoming traffic.
Megan screamed. I reached for the wheel as we barreled toward a truck that I knew, but I was too late.
We hit Keaton Meyer’s truck, and the world was so loud, it went silent. For a protracted moment, we hung in the air, gravity suspended as we flipped, glass hanging in the space between us, Megan’s limp body tethered to the seat with the lap belt.
But I could only think of Poppy until the world went dark.
And then I thought of nothing at all.
24
THINGS I SHOULD HAVE SAID
POPPY
The waiting room was too cold.
Mama and I sat side by side in silence, Allen on the other side of her, her hand enclosed in his. Wyatt paced. Keaton’s brothers sat in a cluster quietly. Evangeline sat very still, her eyes trained on the ground in front of her. The Daniels had just stepped outside to smoke. And nothing made sense.
It happened in my rearview mirror.
The flash of movement was so fast, I thought I’d imagined it until I saw two trucks, one on its side and the other upside down in the middle of Main Street. I’d pulled over, Mama and I bolting toward them. All I saw was Keaton’s truck, the driver’s side crumpled and concave and pointed up to the cloudless sky. The windshield was busted completely, giving us a clear view of Keaton in the front seat and Grant in the back, their bodies dangling in the direction of my sisters, who’d started to stir.
The town had converged, no one knowing what to do outside of calling 911, and within minutes, we heard the sirens as every ambulance in twenty miles rushed to us. But all I heard was my sisters crying, calling to their men, who were breathing but hadn’t moved.
It wasn’t until a little bit later that I realized who was in the upside-down truck that hit Keaton. Duke’s face was serene and soft and boyish as he hung upside down, his arms bent where his forearms rested on the smashed-in roof. Mama told me later that I screamed, that she had to stop me from running to him, but all I remember was seeing him broken and exposed and wanting to save him.
I couldn’t say how I felt—it was as close to an out-of-body experience as I’d ever had. Looking back, it was a blur, just flashes of images that would haunt me for all my days. All I remember was recognizing that I’d never known fear or pain until that moment. The helplessness as I was held back from crawling up to the window where my sisters wailed stripped me of everything, leaving me wild and feral and desperate to save them.
The fire department reached us in minutes, and we looked on as they shored up both vehicles and began extracting all the people I loved in the world from the two destroyed trucks. Keaton and Grant were stabilized first. Another crew pulled Duke and Megan out as the ambulances began to arrive. But no one would let me near them, no matter how I thrashed and begged. My sisters were next—when they stood on their own, my knees buckled with relief. Mama and I were there in a breath, holding them without words. Only tears.
We couldn’t get to Grant or Keaton. They wouldn’t let me near Duke either, so I stood on the edge of time and watched paramedics check his vitals and hook him up to IVs as the first helicopter landed. When Duke and Megan were loaded and gone, it was just minutes later that Keaton and Grant were secured in the second and on their way. My sisters and Nash, who was largely unharmed, were loaded into ambulances and on their way to San Antonio shortly after.
Mama rode with Daisy and I rode with Jo, who spent the duration crying and asking after Grant. But all I could think about was Duke, my luck, and the curse as I held my sister’s hand. I made the mistake of loving Duke, and look where it had gotten me. A painful election, a botched relationship, my heart broken, and Duke potentially killed.
As I clapped my hand to my mouth and cried in the ambulance, I wished it’d been me. As Jo comforted me from a gurney, I wished I was injured, unconscious, anything but unscathed. They wouldn’t have been in the truck if they hadn’t been going to vote for me. If I’d just dropped out, they would all be safe, and I could have had Duke.
