Pulling the hood up over me, I took his arm and bowed my head and let him lead me into the frigid air. It was biting and cruel, but the back door to the car was open, and the heater was blasting.
The driver said nothing as they pulled forward, the tires slipping on the ice for a moment before they found traction in the piles of salt.
“Holy fuck. It really is you,” the driver eventually breathed. It was a young man—barely twenty-one, I guessed by the roundness of his face. He was staring at me, and that was when I realized his eyes were red and glazed, and when he spoke, his words were slurred.
And from the smell wafting off him, it wasn’t from the cold.
Panic rushed through me, and I pulled my phone out, tapping on the app to see the driver’s progress. My heart sank down to the bottoms of my feet. The driver was still on his way. This person was not an Uber. He was a stranger.
Fuck, why didn’t I check first? This was fucking amateur hour for me, apparently.
I took a breath, then leaned forward. “I need to get out of the car.”
The guy laughed. “Relax, bruh. This’s fine. Iss fine.”
“You’re drunk.” I tried the door handle, but it was locked, and there wasn’t a button on the side to fix that.
He snorted. “I’m not even buzzed. I had, like, three shots max, and dude, I’ve been drinking sinnnncceee…I was a toddler.” He burst into laughter, then suddenly slammed on the gas, and the car lurched forward, throwing me into the back of his seat.
I pressed my fingers to my aching nose, checking for blood. My rage was boiling up. After everything that had happened over the last week, I was not in the mood for this. “Let me the fuck out, or I’m going to have you goddamn arrested. You have no idea how badly I will destroy you.” I tried the handle again, but the door didn’t budge.
“Bruhhhh. Chill.” Then he slammed on the gas once just as the road tipped down in a hill.
My heart leapt into my throat. “Hit the fucking brakes!”
“Bruh, I am!” But he wasn’t. He was still pushing on the gas, and combined with the ice and snow on the roads, we began careening down the hill. The car turned sideways after a moment, and then it began to spin. I had no idea how close the crowd was to us, but I said a little prayer that if we hit anything, it wouldn’t be them.
I couldn’t seem to make a sound. The moment was surreal as the car stopped spinning but kept sliding toward a building. A restaurant, I realized, because I could see the horrified faces of the people scrambling to get out of the way.
There was a sound—high-pitched and desperate—and it took me a moment to realize it was coming from me. I was finally screaming. And I felt, just for a moment, like I was outside of my body.
Then the tire hit something, and the car began to flip, everything going upside down.
For just a second, it felt like we were flying, and as I saw the ground rushing toward my window, I closed my eyes and braced myself for the pain.
But it never came. Before the car made impact, everything went dark.
“…with me. Okay? I’ve…in the…keep breathing.”
Breathing? Was I breathing? I became aware of the strangest juxtaposition of pain and numbness, like my body was directly split in half. My fingers were curled in…sheets? It was some kind of warm, scratchy fabric. I couldn’t seem to open my eyes and check, and either everything was missing from my hips down, or something was cutting off all my circulation.
I had legs, didn’t I? I’d started the night with legs. I tried to blink, but something was gumming up my eyes.
Where the fuck was I? Was it…god, was it cold or hot?
I couldn’t tell. I was shivering, but I also felt like the back of my neck was covered in sweat, and my face felt so fucking warm.
I tried to make a sound, but there was something in my mouth. I felt jostled from left to right, and then suddenly, the chaos of the world settled into total silence. Was this it? Was I dead? Asleep? Having some kind of night terror or sleep paralysis?
Fuck, I wanted to wake up.
And then came the sirens, somewhere off in the distance. They were faint, but something about them grounded me, and in that moment, I realized what had happened. I was in an ambulance. I’d been in a car crash, and now I was with EMTs.
The pain became very real for a second—searing hot, like all my nerves below the waist were on fire.
I tried to blink again, and my eyelids moved just a sliver. I could see a person—broad-shouldered and wearing a dark parka.
His hands were on me. They were—oh. They were so cold and calloused.
