been the hardest thing she’d ever said in her life. “I don’t think so.” Her voice was wobbly but clear. “It would never work.”
He hesitated for no more than a few seconds. “Okay.”
She checked his face for any sign of hurt or disappointment. She couldn’t see much of anything, but she assumed that was a good sign.
She hadn’t hurt him. He might feel awkward, but he wasn’t brokenhearted.
Not like she was.
“I’m going to...” She cleared her throat as she stood up. “If it’s all right, I’m going to take the rest of the day off. Just to be by myself. Is that all right?”
“Of course it is. Anything you need.” He made a gesture like he would touch her, but he pulled his hand back instead.
And there was nothing left for Ruth to do after that.
She said her goodbyes and left.
RUTH WAS UPSET ON HER way home, but she wasn’t distracted. At least she didn’t think she was.
Most of the time she drove automatically, keeping track of speed limits, responding to traffic lights, and watching for the cars around her. She never kept her phone accessible while she drove since it was a temptation even for good drivers and she wanted to set a good example for Kayla.
So she was upset, but she was still driving well and following the rules of the road.
It wasn’t her fault that, a couple of miles before she reached her apartment, a pickup truck on a perpendicular street failed to stop at the light soon enough.
The driver did try to stop eventually, after he realized he was running a red light. He slammed on his brakes and tried to veer out of the way of Ruth’s little sedan. And fortunately Ruth had started off at the green light slower than she normally would have. Those two things were what saved her.
The truck still hit her car but not at forty-five miles an hour. And it didn’t hit her driver’s side door where it would have done the most damage. It connected instead with the front corner, knocking Ruth’s car in the opposite direction with a violent jerk and doing some real damage to that section of the car but not seriously injuring Ruth herself.
The whole thing happened so quickly—so unpredictably—she had no idea what was happening. She didn’t see the car coming, and so she had no idea why her world was suddenly thrown sickeningly in the wrong direction.
The airbag came out with a whoosh. It scratched up the skin of her face. She was gasping as it deflated, and then she could breathe.
She blinked and sat and felt the stinging from the scratches on her cheeks and forehead. She turned her head to look around and figure out what the hell had happened. Her head hurt the way it always did when she fell down hard and her body was jarred.
She finally saw the pickup truck, stopped askew in the middle of the intersection. The driver was getting out.
That seemed like a good idea. She didn’t want to be in the car anymore. She reached for the door handle and bit back a little cry at the pain in her wrist.
What the hell?
How had she hurt her wrist?
She was still fumbling for the door handle when the man from the pickup truck was right there. And another man. She didn’t know who he was or where he’d come from.
She managed to pull the latch. One of the men opened the door from the outside.
“Are you okay, miss? Are you hurt? Please say you’re not hurt.” That was the man who had run the light and hit her in his pickup truck.
“I’m okay,” she gasped. “I think I’m okay. I want to get out.”
One or the other of the men helped her. She was too fuzzy to figure out which one was which.
Then other things happened. A lot of things. And all of it was loud and confusing and uncomfortable. The police came. Then an EMT. They made her get in the ambulance to go to the hospital even though she tried to explain that she wasn’t very hurt.
No one was listening to her.
Her car was messed up. It would have to be fixed. She needed a working vehicle, or she couldn’t work.
She was confused and upset, and various parts of her body hurt, and she wanted everything that was happening to stop for a few minutes.
She wanted Carter, and he wasn’t there.
TWO HOURS LATER, IN the emergency department at the local hospital, Ruth