Chapter 4

Lora's POV

I caught a bus back to the city from the stop just outside town.

The road out required a stretch on foot first.

At a sharp bend in the road, a truck came careening around the corner from the opposite direction, out of control, and slammed head-on into the bus.

My right leg was wedged into the gap between the seats. Blood ran freely. I couldn't move.

All around me there was impact, screaming, blood.

The air reeked of iron and gasoline.

People were strewn across the seats and the road, some moving, some not. Pieces of wreckage were scattered everywhere.

I felt like I had been dropped back into the day I turned five.

That year, my parents were heading back to the city after the holidays. Their bus took the same winding road.

I hadn't wanted to let them go. Before it was even light outside, I had slipped out of the house and run down the road to catch one last glimpse of them.

I watched the accident happen.

The tumbling wreck, the flying debris, my mother thrown from the window, those images had never left me.

The same road. The same devastation. The nightmare I could never fully outrun.

I'd woken from it dozens of times over the years, shaking and drenched in sweat.

Xander had known.

Whenever a nightmare woke me, he would wrap his arms around me and pat my back, slowly, over and over, and say quietly, "It's okay. I'm here."

Slowly, I had gotten better.

Now, surrounded by blood and broken metal, every memory I'd managed to bury came flooding back at once.

The world began to tilt. My heart hammered like it was trying to break through my ribs.

"No."

I couldn't catch my breath. A cramping pain spread across my lower abdomen.

Xander had once told me: the next time these memories came for me, I should call him right away. I shouldn't try to get through it alone.

I found my phone.

Still intact. Still working.

My hands shook as I pulled up the call screen and entered the number. It took me several tries to get it right.

It rang for a long time before someone answered.

"Xander."

But it wasn't Xander's voice.

A light, cheerful voice came through instead.

"You must be Lora? You're looking for him? He's in line getting me a drink right now. He's busy. Bye."

The line went dead.

My hand holding the phone slowly dropped.

Then darkness.

When I came back to myself, I was in a hospital bed.

The doctor looked at me with an expression of quiet sorrow.

"I'm sorry. You lost the baby."

I held the paper confirming the miscarriage, and what I felt, strangely, was something like relief.

Maybe this was how it was supposed to be.

Maybe the universe had decided this child didn't deserve to be born into a home with no love in it.

I looked at the cold words on the page and murmured to myself, "Well. He'll have one more gift waiting for him when the time comes."

I carefully tucked the report into the bedside drawer, then asked the hospital to preserve what had been lost, in case it was ever needed.

I checked the time. Two full days had passed since I lost consciousness.

Not a single message from Xander.

I stayed in the hospital three more days.

Five days total, and Xander had forgotten I existed. No calls. No texts.

Shea's social media, on the other hand, was thriving.

Day one: Xander taking her to the movies, then shopping.

Day two: cooking her an elaborate dinner himself.

Day three: riding the Ferris wheel with her.

They were doing everything couples do, and I mean everything.

Shea posted a photo of a bed.

Rumpled sheets. A man's dress shirt thrown across the pillow. She was bare-shouldered, leaning against the headboard, a faint red mark at her collarbone.

I knew she was posting it to get to me.

I let out a short, humorless laugh, screenshotted it, and saved it.

Then I tracked down her other profiles and went through them carefully, looking for anything useful.

On the sixth day, Xander finally remembered he had a wife named Lora and called.

"Why aren't you home? Where are you?"

My voice was steady.

"The hospital."

His tone shifted immediately.

"The hospital? Why? What happened?"

Still calm.

"Did you see the news? The highway pileup on the 26th? I was on that bus."