“Like what?”
“Why are you so nice to me?” His voice sounds small and kind of far away, like his body’s here but his head is not. “I cause you so much trouble.”
“Not really,” I say, acutely aware of the fact that we’re now completely stopped in the middle of a dark road. “I mean, tonight sucks.” I lace my fingers with his. “Which is why, right now, I need you to turn the car around. Please. You don’t have to trust them, but please, trust me.”
He stares out the windshield, out to where our headlights meet the darkness. The fingers of his other hand tap on the steering wheel. “I do.”
He takes a deep breath, driving across the lane and then shifting into reverse to do a three-point turn. For the first time tonight, I think things will be okay. Forty miles an hour toward home is a lot better than twenty miles per hour in the opposite direction, no matter what the outcome.
And that—that’s the exact moment when everything goes to hell.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Ridley
IT’S LIKE SLOW motion when the other car hits us, barreling in with its blinding headlights. There’s no time to react. There’s no time to do anything. There’s no time at all.
Somewhere in the background Peak screams, or I do, and our car spins, and I think, I always thought dying would be my choice.
* * *
? ? ?
“Ridley!”
“Ridley, please, open your eyes.”
“Yes, he’s breathing. Okay. I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Ridley.”
I crack open my eyes, but it’s hard. I’m tired, and something is making them burn. I reach up to wipe it away, and Peak grabs my hand and pushes it down.
“Ridley! Help is coming. Just stay still, okay?”
Help. Yes, Peak said we needed that. I’m glad. I turn my head a little bit, and everything hurts. Everything really hurts, but I need to see her. I need to know she’s okay. She’s clutching her shoulder with her left arm, her right arm gone totally limp. That’s not good, I think, my eyelids drifting shut.
“Ridley, hold on.”
Hold on to what? I wonder. But when I open my mouth to ask, nothing comes out.
“Shh, baby, shhh. You’re okay. You’re okay. They’ll be here in a minute. They’ll—”
She’s still talking, probably. I think I can hear her voice somewhere in the distance, somewhere far away, somewhere I’m dreaming of, like if I listen hard enough, I can almost chase it back. I can almost get there. But I’m so tired.
She’s crying now. I can hear that much, and I want to open my eyes. I want to tell her that everything is fine, probably. If only I could make everything less red.
We were going home. It was going to be okay. She promised.
I’m so tired.
I should sleep.
I should sleep now.
“Ridley, open your eyes.”
“Ridley!”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Jubilee
I’M STILL SOBBING when my parents burst in, pulling back the curtain as I’m trying not to hyperventilate while the doctor tells me that my shoulder’s dislocated and I’ll need surgery to fix the bones in my wrist. I don’t even care, though—they can cut it off if they want—because Ridley wouldn’t wake up and nobody will tell me what’s going on.
A nurse told me he was okay when we first got here, but I’ve seen enough television to know that might not be the truth. They won’t let me out of this bed, and the doctor is just droning on about how they need to stabilize the injury and I need to calm down, and I just want to scream at her to shut up, because WHAT DOES IT EVEN MATTER ANYMORE?
Ridley’s hurt or worse, my audition is out the window, and I’ve been lying to my parents for weeks. I’ve lost everything that matters in one night. I’m hurt and I’m pissed and I’m scared, and I don’t even know what to do with any of this.
“I’m sorry,” I say when my mom and Vera wrap