Absolutely not. This is not happening. I’m hallucinating.
I’m dreaming.
I’ve anticipated this day for so long that I’m dreaming, except my dream has turned into a nightmare.
Which means this—this woman I’m staring at—she’s not real.
Daphne Merriweather-Brown, socialite of chaos, boundary-pusher, and my former fiancée’s little sister, is not here.
Not in her tight black cocktail dress that’s somehow managing to shimmer in the ambient light off the streetlamps lining the exit. Not with her blond updo half-smushed and…crooked?…and sliding off?
I shake my head.
Why is her hair sliding off?
“First donut?” she says. “Nice one, big guy. High-five. Thought we were gonna tip for a minute there, but you pulled it off. Didn’t think you had it in you. But for real, how about you ease Betsy here over to the side of the road before we get murdered by a semi coming off the interstate and up this exit ramp?”
Oh my god.
I’m dead.
The car tipped and smashed my head, and now I’m dead.
And in hell.
Hell feels a lot like a cool Pennsylvania night, and it sounds a lot like symphonic flutes shifting into a Waverly Sweet pop tune.
Smells a bit like burnt rubber too.
I slap myself.
It hurts.
So either hell is very realistic, or I’m not dead.
But I’m definitely in a very realistic nightmare.
Daphne heaves the agitated, impatient sigh of every woman I’ve ever known. It’s not cold enough for me to see her breath hanging between us—of course it’s not, it’s August—but I see a glittery, sparkly sigh float through the car’s interior anyway.
Or possibly it’s late and I’m tired and those are dots dancing in my vision.
Am I dead?
Am I nightmaring?
And—“Betsy? Who the hell isBetsy?”
“I named your car. She felt like a Betsy. It’s veryMercedes G-Class, don’t you think? But if you don’t like it, or if she has another name, I’m happy to call her that. Or is the car a he? Or a they? I’m cool with whatever if I’m wrong about Betsy and they need a new name. So. The shoulder? Scootchy-scootchy to the sidey-sidey?”
I survived.
I had to have survived.
Even hell couldn’t be this annoying.
“Please,” she adds. “Dude, I’m all for fun, but I’m also in favor of living. Got a stuffed lobster waiting for me at home who’d be very upset if I didn’t make it, you know? Plus the whole Margot thing. She’d miss me. I think.”
Mention of her sister—my former fiancée from a lifetime ago—has me whipping my head back around to face forward, where headlights from another car are racing the wrong way, which is actually the right way, and is also exactly toward us.
