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“Mom!”

The conductor will see us and brake. He will see us and stop. But the train doesn’t slow and no one brakes. I glance around, panicking, panicking, but all I see is white. Snow surrounds us. Snow hushes us. Snow will bury us. Who will hear one creaky car? Who will hear the whir of an old engine over the rumble of an approaching train? Who will hear the screams of a 13-year-old girl?

We rocket up the incline and slam under the gates. The little hairs on my arms stand straight up in my thick down winter coat and my lips burn like I’ve accidentally brush them against hot sauce, the kind Kyle likes with his taco chips when he watches football games.

I squeeze my eyes shut as bad feelings, horrible feelings, surge inside me. Feelings that this is it. I will never get to dance in Ms. Portman’s ballet recital. I will never graduate middle school. I will never eat a sandwich in the high school lunchroom.

We fly across the tracks and are airborne for a forever second. The car dips, front wheels slam onto the road with a thud that rattles my bones and the candy cane barriers crash across the flat hood. My eyes pop open, my head swivels, and I stare wide-eyed out the back window as the train thunders down the tracks behind us, sparks flying off its wheels.

We bump, rattling fenders and thumpy old tires down the decline and rocket toward the line of cars queued on the highway’s opposite lane. Maybe Grandma Berlinger in Heaven said a prayer for us, because we escape. I am flooded with happiness and silly words pop out my mouth. “We can still make ballet!” But then I spot the Wolfe boys crossing the two-lane highway and my breath catches.

Wyatt Wolfe and his older brother, Easton, wear headphones as they walk along the road a hundred or so yards in front of our speeding car. They are oblivious.

Wyatt has floppy black hair, a wiry build. We sit together during lunch, play mobile games, and study at the library. Wyatt is my escape from crazy mom and I am his from his angry dad. Wyatt was my first kiss at last year’s mixer. It was a meeting of awkward mouths lasting fifteen or so seconds before we separated – me giggling and him smiling sheepishly, rolling his eyes. When I stare up at the glow stars on my ceiling at night before I fall asleep, I imagine that some day I will marry Wyatt Wolfe.

Snow falls harder.

Meaner.

Wyatt wears a backpack, a thick winter coat, and galoshes that look just like mine. “I got those stupid boots you like,” he said in study hall last week, leaned back in his chair, and stuck his foot out in front of me.

“We’re twinning!” I extended my leg, and indeed we were wearing the same fleece-lined galoshes. We laughed and shared a look as my heart bumped around in my chest in a weird way.

Now the Wolfe brothers step out from across the path next to the tracks crossing the line of cars waiting for the train to pass and my heart falls into my boots. “Mom!”

Easton is three years older than Wyatt, a high school junior, almost a man. He glances up, spots us barreling toward them, and panics, one arm flying in front of his face.

But Mom doesn’t see because she’s absorbed in her phone.

“Stop!” I reach between the seats and punch her arm but she doesn’t slow down so I punch her again, harder. “Look!”

She finally glances up, her shoulders hitting her ears. “Fuck!” She hits the brakes.

We skid across the snow toward the Wolfe brothers and I scream. We plow into them with a series of sickening, heart-breaking thuds. The brothers bounce off our car, and fly through the air like broken birds.

“Damn.” Mom grimaces, the car screeching until we stop a dozen or so yards away, spinning out on an angle on the side of the road.

Nausea consumes me.

Nausea is me.

I can’t feel my hands.

I can’t feel my feet.

I claw at my neck because my throat is trapped in there and I have to get it out or I will suffocate and die. I tear off my seat belt.

Ruby, her lower lip quivering, points a shaky finger to the tablet on the floor of the car that had just flown out of her hands and smacked me above the eye. She bursts out crying and pukes, yellow liquid burbling out of her lips, spilling down her chin.

I gag. I push the door open and crawl out, collapsing knees first onto the pavement, my heart bursting out of my thin chest.

I am not a rickety shed.

I will survive the storm that blows through.

Using the car door I pull myself to standing, my legs like noodles beneath me. I stumble forward, my forehead throbbing.

Easton is laying in a snow bank, cursing. His left leg and right arm splay out, his blood has sprayed random patterns, so red on the white snow. Sirens ring in the distance.

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