“Hold on,” he said.
That was all.
Not a scream.
Not a panic.
Just two words, low and hard, and suddenly Emily understood that her husband had seen something she had not.
The road outside Mount Pleasant narrowed where dark pines crowded the shoulder and black water ditches ran along both sides.
Rain hit the windshield fast enough that the wipers could barely keep up.
Nathan sped up.
So did the truck.
The first hit was hard enough to throw Emily forward against the seat belt.
Nathan cursed and fought the wheel.
“What is he doing?” Emily cried.
The second impact came before Nathan could answer.
The car spun sideways.
The third hit crushed the driver’s side like paper.
Emily heard metal scream.
She heard herself gasp.
She heard Nathan say her name.
“Emily—”
Then everything became glass, thunder, and silence.
She woke up three days later in a hospital room.
Tubes ran into her arms.
Stitches pulled along her ribs.
Her left wrist was wrapped.
Her mother slept in a chair beside the bed with an untouched paper coffee cup in one hand, the cardboard gone soft from being held too long.
The TV on the wall was muted.
Rain tapped the window like a finger that would not stop asking to come in.
Emily did not understand at first why her whole body felt like it had been built wrong.
Then she turned her head and saw the flowers.
Not wedding flowers.
Hospital flowers.
White lilies in a glass vase on the windowsill.
The smell hit her before the memory did.
She tried to sit up and made a sound so small it woke her mother instantly.
“Emily,” her mother said, already standing. “Baby, don’t move.”
“Nathan,” Emily said.
