AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I was happy back home. I had friends. I had a life. And here I knew no one.
“Okay, how about this? Just give me one year, and if you don’t like it, we'll move back to Minnesota.”
My ears perked up. “Really? You aren’t just pretending?”
“Now, why would your mother fib to you?” The light turned green, and she drove forward. “A deal is a deal. But I think I will win; Braven Bay has a way of growing on you.”
I highly doubted that, but I didn’t correct her. “You have a deal, Mommy.”
She extended one of her hands toward me, “Shake on it?”
I approached the console to shake her hand, but everything flipped.
One moment we were driving calmly, and then the car swerved left. My mother cursed under her breath and tried to correct it, but it was too late.
The scene moved in slow motion. I watched it all play out like a terrible movie.
Headlights from the other side of the road flashed, and loud honking sounds could be heard before the unmistakable sound of metal smashing against metal and glass shattering.
I turned to my mother, who looked at me with horror painted on her features. She removed her hand from the steering wheel and clutched my hand in hers tightly.
“Close your eyes,” I heard her scream.
I did as I was told, my brain still not fully registering what was happening.
After I closed my eyes, I don’t remember what happened. I knew the car flipped at least twice. But during the initial impact, it was all somewhat of a blur.
My seatbelt kept me bonded to my seat, and my mother’s hand never once left mine.
When I opened my eyes again, I wasn’t in the car. Instead, I stood a few feet away, looking at the wreckage. I saw my mother’s Toyota mangled and destroyed. The windshield completely shattered, and blood spattered on the front. The rain continued to pour down, and the thunder roared, shaking the atmosphere.
To my left was the blue jeep that had hit us or whom we had rammed into. I could see a woman lying on the hood of the car, entirely still.
Mrs. Cane.
I was watching the accident.
I wanted to rush over to her, but my feet stayed rooted. My eyes set on the woman I had never met but had heard so much about. The blood and the rain darkened her blonde hair. Her face was turned away so that I couldn’t see her face.
“Mom,” the broken voice of a boy whose heart was breaking filled my ears. “Mom?”
That’s when I saw him.
“Nathaniel.” I tried to speak against the lump that had formed in my throat.
I watched him amble out of the car, his face and hands cut and bleeding, the side of his head also oozing blood. His face was the same but just younger.
“Mom!” He screamed, limping toward his mother. I could feel the brokenness in his tone, the helplessness that weighed on him. “Please, God. No, no, Mom, wake up! Wake up!” His screams were like razor blades to my chest. Sharp piercing sounds that clawed at my eardrums.
I wanted to move and help him but I was rooted in my place.
My gaze shifted back to our car. I could see my mother staring over at my body. My chest rose and fell slowly as I struggled to breathe. I could see the glass surrounding me and the sharp cuts it had made on my soft skin. My mother’s mouth pooled with blood, her eyes depicting the one emotion I didn’t want to see in them—fear.
A slight sparking sound filled the air just after the boom of thunder. This caught Nate’s attention. He looked at the car with tears in his eyes. But then my mother turned her head and looked into the eyes of the poor teen who clung to his dying mother.
A silent conversation passed between them. I didn’t know what was said, but somehow he understood what she wanted because he limped to the car toward the passenger side the next moment.
He tried to open the door, but it was initially useless.
