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She’s safe.
I pull her into a hug so tight I’m worried I’m hurting her again, but before I can force myself to break away, she hugs back, holding me just as tightly. I bury my face in the place where her neck meets her shoulder, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. Tears burn my eyes.
She smells like jasmine.
She’s safe.
She’s my friend.
She’s safe and sound and willing to listen.
“I dream about the accident,” I whisper. I went to sleep shirtless; her fingers dig against my bare back. It doesn’t hurt, but the pressure keeps me grounded. It’s like Cooper’s hand on my shoulder, but better. “But it’s not just them. It’s… it’s Richard and Sandra, and my siblings. I even saw you, this time.”
She blinks, a stripe of moonlight illuminating part of her face. Her long eyelashes frame her eyes so beautifully. How come I’ve never noticed her eyelashes? I’ve looked at her so many times, and I’ve studied her like she’s a painting hanging in the Met, but right now, I might as well be seeing her for the first time. She has a freckle on her earlobe that I never noticed either.
“What happened?” she asks. “I know you were in the car.”
“All three of us went out to dinner,” I say. “The season had just started, and it was my dad’s first night off in two weeks. My mom’s birthday was coming up. I remember—fuck, I remember I didn’t want to be there. I thought it was boring, so I was happy that they let me bring a book to the restaurant.”
“What was it?”
“What?”
“The book.”
“It was a biography for kids about Joe DiMaggio.”
“Naturally.”
Her slight teasing makes my lips quirk up. “It was pouring that night. We got soaked in the thirty seconds it took to get from the restaurant door to the car. My parents were in a good mood, though. My dad had gotten off to a nice start for the season, and he bought my mother a diamond necklace for her birthday. Gave it to her early since he was supposed to be on the West Coast for a road game on the actual day.”
That diamond necklace, absurdly, didn’t break in the crash. Glass in my mother’s throat, but that necklace stayed intact, shining in the light from the sirens. Sandra has it now, along with the rest of my mother’s jewelry. She and Richard handled my parents’ estate, and all that stuff is in storage, waiting for me to do something with it.
“That’s sweet,” she says. Her thumb rubs over my knuckles. “I’m sure she loved it.”
“She did. And she loved that we got a whole evening with him. During the season—it’s hard, you know? He was around when he could, if there was a day in between series or a day game instead of a night game, but most of the year, it was Mom and me, and lots of phone calls.” I swallow, trying to dislodge the lump in my throat. It’s hard to imagine that being me one day, so it’s easier not to think about it. “It happened so fast. One minute we were driving, and the next, we hit a tree. They said that my father must not have seen the curve in the road, and by the time he tried to course correct, it was too late. The road was wet, and we just spun out.”
Her grip on my hand tightens. A silent invitation to continue.
I gather all my courage and say, “He put his arm out, trying to… you know. To save my mother and… and me. But it didn’t do any good. They took the impact head-on.”
“Oh, Sebastian.”
Her voice is so soft, and normally I would love to hear her speak with such tenderness, but right now, it might make me fucking cry. She doesn’t say she’s sorry, or try to placate me, or any of the things other people have done when they’ve heard this story. She just keeps looking at me, stroking my knuckles. Letting me set the pace of our conversation. I could stop here, and she’d roll with it.
But I keep going. I’ve never felt the urge to share all the details of this story with anyone, but it feels important, somehow, that I get to the end. I want her to know it. I trust her with it. With each stroke of her thumb against my skin, my panic fades a little more.
“So sometimes I just… dream of it again. I’m trapped in the backseat, and people I love die in front of me, and there’s nothing I can do but watch.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, staring at the hazy outline of our evening together: the empty tray that we’d eaten the pasta from, my beer bottle and her bourbon glass. My laptop, decorated with an OBX sticker, on my nightstand next to the Anthony Bourdain memoir I’m reading. After the mess with the photographer earlier, my evening ended up being perfect—because any time spent with Mia is perfect—but that didn’t matter once I fell asleep.
“I wish I could have helped them. I just froze. I don’t even think I screamed. I froze, and I stared at them, and eventually a passing car called in the accident. I didn’t even think to find one of their cell phones.”
“You were just a kid,” she says. “No one expected you to.”
“Still.” My voice cracks on the word. “Maybe if I actuallythought, I could have avoided losing them both.”
By the end of the sentence, my voice is loud enough that it echoes in the air.
