it, and I always wore the trendiest dresses. “Pants and T-shirts now, Rosalie,” I sighed to myself. I had turned into one of those permanently exhausted soccer moms without even having a child.
I’d gotten the black eye four days ago, when Jack thought I was coming on to the delivery guy. If that boy’s gaze had lingered on me, it wasn’t because he had found me attractive. More like he had found me pitiful, with my sad wardrobe, sad eyes and birds’ nest hair. I simply stopped putting in the effort. I had no reason to anymore.
I thought he was going to kill me that night. I fell asleep as he was still kicking and hitting me, as always, deaf to my cries and pleads and reassurances that I only ever loved him, that I would only ever love him.
But I was alive and driving way over the speed limit now. I focused on my body and made my leg release the acceleration to slow down before the cops did pull me over and he’d have a trace of me.
Next, I inhaled and exhaled like I was in a stupid Lamaze class. After five or ten minutes, I could feel my body unfreeze, and my knuckles were no longer white. Something similar to peace was starting to warm me up, when something else, decidedly physical and less God-sent hit me, and I lost control of the car.
More pain, worse than I had endured even at the hands of my husband, made me cry out, and the shattered glass of my windshield got half-embedded into my skin. If I hadn’t been wearing my seatbelt, I would’ve died, I just knew it.
As it stood, I was simply hanging off my seat, the car turned over by the force and speed the other one had rammed into me. My brain felt foggy, like I was in a daze, trying to process why the world was turned upside down all of a sudden. I swallowed a cry of pain and fear, and I wiped my tears.
“No more crying, Rosalie. It’s okay, you’re alive, you can work around this situation.”
I gingerly unhooked my belt and untangled myself from the mass of things, mine and someone else’s, and I tried to leave the vehicle. It turned out to require some strength to pry open the jammed passenger door, and I still had use of only one hand, with the added disadvantage of having hurt my right arm, too. It must have taken me about fifteen minutes to squeeze through the small passenger door window. I had to break the remaining shards of glass and then grit my teeth as my jeans caught the pieces I couldn’t break, which cut into my skin. However much it hurt, no matter what nasty scars my escape might leave, it was worth it. I would fight for my freedom.
“Hello?” I asked, calling the last remnants of my strength, but no one answered me. The car that had crashed into me was a black 4x4 Land Rover. “Hello?” I tried again and peeked inside. The other driver was a female, and she seemed to be unconscious. I could see a large gash on her forehead, bleeding heavily.
I let myself fall back inside the Chrysler and felt around for my phone, ignoring the glass pricking my fingers or the bleeding from my thighs. I needed to call 911. Whoever the other woman was, she looked way worse than I did, and she probably didn’t have much time. I dialed the number and waited. Nothing, it wasn’t ringing. I looked at it and sure enough, it had no signal.
I propped myself on my hands and lifted myself back up from where I was, bearing the pain and discomfort, nearly falling face first and adding to my collection of bruises, scratches, gashes and broken bones.
I was straddling the bent door and roof of my car, trying to get a better signal from a higher place.
“911, what is your emergency?” a God-sent woman finally answered.
I was just about to give her the details of my accident, when the other woman turned into… into a bear! A legit bear, with fur and all. I shook my head, blinked a few times, but no. She was a bear!
“What the fuck?!” I screamed in fear and tried to get away. In my panic, I fell on my ass, but my figure was shielded by the bulk of my ruined car. I could hear the bear noises echo in