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“Mom!” I couldn’t stop screaming.
The sheriff snatched the cellphone out of my hand. “Mrs. Hayes?”
Within seconds, people started shouting for help on the other line and his eyes went wide.
“What’s happening?” I frantically questioned. “Where is she?”
He took one last look at me and then traced her location from my phone. I sat there in a state of shock as he ran into the driver’s seat.
Grabbing the intercom off his center console, he reported, “We have possible 11-80 on Himes Avenue. No information on whether there are any injuries. I need all officers on route there immediately.”
He turned on his emergency lights, ordering, “Put your seatbelt on.”
The next thing I knew, we were driving onto an intersection where chaos was all around us.
Firetrucks.
Ambulances.
More police cars.
A huge crowd on every corner.
It wasn’t until I saw her car completely totaled that I grasped what had happened. My terrified gaze shifted to the other car in the accident that was completely totaled too.
I swear my heart stopped beating when I realized the two body bags on the floor that I truly lost my shit.
I just knew.
I was her son.
We were one.
“No!” I yelled from deep within my core, trying to open the door.
“Son, calm down,” the sheriff ordered.
“I’m not your son!” I banged on the door with my shoulder over and over again. “That’s my mom!”
The rest played out in slow motion. A nightmare that would eternally haunt me.
“No!” I shouted with everything inside of me.
Adrenaline coursed through my veins, throbbing through my bloodstream. Taking over every inch of my body. My vision tunneled, seeing nothing but the disaster I caused. If it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t have ever crashed.
She was the only love I’d ever known. The only light that surrounded the darkness that lived around us.
I prayed to God.
The saints.
All the angels that this wasn’t happening.
This wasn’t the way she was supposed to die. Not at my hand. Not in a car accident. She didn’t deserve it.
“Please…” I begged for I don’t know what. “Please…”
I couldn’t move. I was barely breathing.
The truth was too much for me to bare.
Too much for me to witness.
Too much for me to live through.
Slowly, I sank further into my despair. Into my own personal Hell, tuning everything else out as I pulled my knees close to my chest like I did when I was a little boy watching my parents fight.
Nobody protected me from the reality of my life.
I let the tears fall down the sides of my face as my mind betrayed me. Image after image of my mother played out in front of me.
Her smile.
Her laugh.
Her comforting scent.
The way she lit up a room.
Her voice.
Her tears.
The way she hugged me, holding me so tight against her body. I willed myself to look away, but I couldn't. I forced myself to face what I had done. Remembering the love her eyes once held for me with so much adoration and devotion as if I was the love of her life.
Every time she told me she loved me.
Telling me how she’d always be there for him no matter what.
Promising me I was a good boy. I’d forever be her good boy.
I broke down.
Bawling.
Crashing.
Falling apart from the inside out.
Then out of nowhere, I saw a little girl yelling, being dragged away into an ambulance.
“Momma!” she screamed like I was. “Where’s my momma!”
The next moments were witnessed through the blink of my eyes.
“Wilbur! I need my piggy bank! Get my piggy bank!”
Blink.
Stretchers being dropped to the cement road.
Blink.
Her being carried on top of it.
Blink.
Her lifeless body being wheeled away.
Blink.
“Momma!” the little girl shouted, mirroring the torment in my soul.
“I want my momma!”
Blink.
She was being tied down onto the stretcher while blood coated her eye from a nasty cut on her eyebrow.
“I want my piggy bank! Please!” she begged uncontrollably.
Blink.
My dad’s car pulling up.
Blink.
Anarchy…
Blink.
Madness.
Blink.
Nothing but darkness.
Blink.
Dad yelling at me, “What did you do? What the fuck did you do?”
Blink.
“This is your fault! This is all your fucking fault!”
Blink.
Him fighting with the cops.
Blink.
Me suddenly out of the backseat of the sheriff’s car.
Blink.
Walking to the other vehicle in the car accident I caused.
Blink.
Shards of glass in my hands.
Blink.
Nothing but darkness.
Blink.
She died that day because of me, but the devastating truth was…
I died right along with her too.
Thirty-Six
Haven
“Peach…”
My heart hammered against my chest while my stomach churned. I felt like I was going to be sick. There was something in the way Hayes was looking at me that left me breathless.
I wanted to ask him if it was true, but I couldn’t find my voice. After months of wanting to know the truth, I was so petrified to know the answer to that one question which would now destroy us both.
Hayes was right.
He’d been right all along.
I wanted to look around, but I couldn’t will myself to look away from him. Our gazes were locked. Fused together like our tragic pasts were. Neither one of us broke the intensity of our stares as my emotions continued to run wild.
