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Hours later, in the long, dark hour before dawn, Jake stirred restlessly. I was a fairly light sleeper and as soon as he started muttering, I woke up. Disoriented at first, I tried to make sense of my surroundings in the dark. I was lying on my side, with Jake behind me, his hand resting lightly on my hip. But he was tense, and that hand curled into a fist before he rolled away, taking half the blanket with him. “Hey, for fuck’s sake,” I muttered, trying to pull it back.
He shifted and the muttering increased. Should I wake him? He seemed pretty agitated. Maybe he’d settle down on his own. He was on his side now, facing away from me. I reached out, tentatively thinking of touching him, running my hand down his back soothingly, telling him to go back to sleep. Then I heard something that made me go completely still. He’d just said my name. Christ, was he dreaming about me?
“Stop. Emma. No.”
My heart started thudding and I didn’t know what to do. He…dreamt about me? How often? And what was it about? From his voice, it sounded like he was mad at me.
He rolled onto his back, gripping the blanket in tight fists, moving his legs restlessly. Just as I was thinking of turning on the lamp and waking him up, he started shouting. I couldn’t make out the words, but he was moving really violently, kicking his legs and turning his head from side to side. It was freaking me right the fuck out.
“Jake!”
“Emma! No! Emma. Jesus.” It was almost a sob. “What have I done? What have I done?Emma!”
That was it. I flipped on the lamp by my side of the bed and turned back to Jake. “Hey! You haven’t done anything!” I put my hand on his chest, giving him a hard shake. “I’m here. You need to wake up!” He woke with a start, but was still trapped by the remnants of the nightmare. The expression in his eyes was one of absolute horror and it tore at my heart. “Are you okay?” I tried to keep my voice low and soothing, but I couldn’t lose the tremble completely.
Turning to look at me, he said, “Em?” The crack in his voice almost undid me.
“Yeah. I’m here. It’s okay.”
“Jesus.” He hauled me to him, and I realized he was shaking all over. Not knowing what else to do, I wrapped my arms around him while he buried his face in my hair, trying to catch his breath.
“I killed you.”
Oh fuck. “No, you didn’t. I’m right here. I’m okay. It was just a bad dream.” I went to pull back, so I could see his eyes, reassure him, but he wouldn’t let me.
“You were dead. I crashed into you. There was blood everywhere. Your blood.”
He was holding me so tight it was almost hurting me, but I wasn’t about to stop him. What an awful nightmare. “I’m okay,” I said again. “I’m not dead. You didn’t kill me.” I repeated it again, then again, because I didn’t know what else to do.
Finally, the shaking started to subside and his grip on me loosened. I was able to raise my head and look at him. “It was just a bad dream. That’s all.” I brushed the hair back from his forehead, wanting so badly to soothe him but really not knowing how.
“I nearly killed you.”
“No, it was just a—”Dream, I was about to say, but he cut me off.
“No, back then. Right before my accident. I nearly killed you. That’s why I…” He pushed me off him, sitting up and leaning dejectedly against the headboard.
I frowned. “That’s why you what?” I sat up too, pulling the blanket up and tucking it under my arms. “You thought you nearly killed me so you…what?”
“Ididnearly kill you.”
“It was yourself you nearly killed, honestly.”
My frown deepened because that wasn’t the whole truth. I forced my mind back to that awful, terrible day. Driving back from New Bern, the radio blaring, wondering if I should call Jake. We’d had a fight earlier. Something stupid, I couldn’t even remember now what about. We hardly ever fought, so it had been eating at me. I wanted to make up and move past it, but didn’t know how to go about it.
Then I saw them, veering around a bend in the back road, speeding towards me, the car weaving from side to side. I remember swearing, my heart in my throat as I slammed on the brakes. Maybe Jake’s eyes met mine, I don’t know, but everything after that was a blur. His car jerked to the side, skidded in the gravel before flying across the grass. Something caused it to roll, and over and over it went before smashing into the trunk of a giant elm, a tangled mess of screaming metal and hissing steam.
I must have screamed. So much screaming as I bolted from my car, ran to him. Dante, dazed and with blood all over his face, pushing the passenger door open and tumbling out onto the ground. And Jake. Jake wasn’t moving. Dead. He was dead. That’s all I could think, over and over. And I was so fucking helpless.
But yeah… If he hadn’t swerved at the last moment, we would have had a head-on collision, which probably would have ended both our lives.
“I had that dream a lot back then. While I was in the hospital.”
“A nightmare that you actually crashed into me, you mean?”
He nodded.
