“Crash,” I whispered.
Her tear-filled eyes locked with mine.
It took every bit of strength I had to mutter the words, “I love you.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t want to hear that right now.” She used the back of her arm to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “Tell me later. Once all of this is over.”
“I don’t know.” I took a shallow breath, and my eyelids grew heavy. “If I can.” My vision was starting to turn black around the edges, like smoke filling a room.
“Yes, you can. Hang on, Ollie. Please,” she cried.
The blackness filled my vision completely, and I felt jostled as I fell unconscious.
I was lost in the darkness, but I could still hear some of the things going on around me. It was like listening through a tunnel. I could hear people talking around me. I could hear Crash crying and doors slamming. I felt pressure on my chest and heard the sound of sirens. I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew I was in an ambulance, going to the hospital. I just prayed that I’d get there in time.
It seemed like my life changed in the blink of an eye. One day, I was alone, living a shitty life, and willing to die in order to get out. The next, I wasn’t. I wasn’t alone. I had her. She crashed into my life, and everything changed.
I no longer wanted to die. I wanted to start fresh. I wanted to be the kind of man that deserved her. I wanted to be better than I ever had been. And even though I didn’t know where life would take us, I had already been envisioning a future together. A life played out before me, and before I could stop it, I was sucked into the dream that felt like reality.
“Did you hear me?”
I was lost in my own thoughts, but his voice made me shake my head to clear it.
“What?” I looked at the teenage boy who was sitting at the kitchen table across from me.
“I said, what do you consider to be a major turning point in your life?”
“What kind of question is that?” I asked, looking around the kitchen. There was a plate of bacon and eggs in front of me, but I couldn’t remember how I got there. It was like I woke up inthe middle of a life that wasn’t mine. Yet somehow, I had all the memories of this life I’d lived.
That’s how I knew the boy across from me was my son. It’s also how I knew that my wife would be joining us in just a few minutes.
“It’s for my essay, which I have to write for my advanced literature class.”
Sure enough, Crash walked into the kitchen, stealing the air from my lungs. She smiled at me as she walked past, allowing her hand to run across my upper back until it fell back to her side once she was out of arm’s length. She stopped at the kitchen cabinet and poured some coffee into her mug.
“Dad?”
I tore my eyes away from my wife and looked at my son. “What?”
His brows lifted, and his eyes doubled in size. It was a look of annoyance. I knew I’d seen it multiple times over the years, and yet it was all too familiar because I’d seen his mother look at me the exact same way since the day she crashed into my life.
“Oh, right. Turning point,” I muttered, rubbing my jaw as I thought it over. I looked back at Amelia, and the answer came to me. “The day I met your mom. That was a turning point in my life.”
He rolled his eyes but wrote it down. “And how do you think your life would be different if you hadn’t met Mom?”
“Easy. I’d be dead.” I shrugged.
He frowned at me.
“Let’s just say that I was not heading down a good path before I met your mom. The day she came into my life, she changed it all. I fell in love with her, and that was enough to make me give up the life I’d been living to start fresh with her by my side.”
I stood and picked up my plate, wanting to be closer to her. I set the plate in the sink and stepped in front of her, trapping her between me and the counter. “And I thank my lucky stars every day I wake up to find you beside me,” I said softly as I lifted my hand to cup her jaw.
Her warm blue eyes met mine, and she smiled sweetly as she lifted herself up on her tiptoes.
“I’m thankful you came into my life, too,” she said, pressing a kiss to my mouth.
Our son gagged. “Gross. I’m going to school before you two start working on giving me a sibling.”
