“I’m already sick of her being an issue. It’s just starting, Ethan. Can you imagine how she’ll be when she has the baby and with your mother on her side?”
“You have nothing to worry about.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who is being disrespected at every turn. You don’t have to worry if I’m the one out there tempted to cheat again or creep with my ex, Ethan.”
“I didn’t cheat, okay? We were broken up, Sevyn.”
“We were not broken up, Ethan. We were separated and supposed to be working on our marriage.”
“No, Sevyn. Your memory has become convenient. You had served me with divorce papers that day.”
“I may have served you, but I don’t think that she conveniently popped up in your life that day. I doubt that she would have just been that easy to reach. I’m not stupid, Ethan. You were already in contact with that girl before then. Run that game on someone else.”
“I’m not doing this with you tonight. You just lost your grandmother, and it’s an emotional time for you. Although the circumstance does warrant you being upset, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have this argument now.”
I swiped tears from my face while steering with one hand. Just as I pulled my hand away, I hit a puddle of water, and the car instantly hydroplaned.
“Oh shit!” I cried out as I attempted to steer in the direction of the skid.
“Baby, just calm down. You’ve got this. All you?—”
Ethan’s speech was cut off as someone stepped out into the road in my path.
The figure was walking fast, and his head was lowered as if he were lost in thought. He didn’t see me coming. I wanted to blow the horn, but I doubted that would be enough to save his life. The rain poured down, but I would have a better chance steering into the opposite lane than I would if I stayed where I was. I was going to hit the man. He looked up at the last minute, and I saw his eyes. Those chocolate eyes so dark that they almost looked black. There was no fear in them, almost like he welcomed the impact of my car on his body.
His body. Time froze, and I saw every detail. Muscular arms bulging underneath a navy-blue hoodie with CSPD and their logo emblazoned on the front. Black Nikaj joggers matched the shoes on his feet.
A diamond earring twinkled in his left ear, and his bow-shaped lips were painted in a grim line. He jumped back at the last minute, but it was too late for me.
“Ethan!” I cried out as the car spun repeatedly.
Ethan’s head flopped forward and back as the impact slammed into his side of the car, crushing it inward. My head snapped forward and banged against the steering wheel just before I lost consciousness.
My husband reached over to grab the steering wheel, but I had already turned the steering wheel in the opposite direction. I lost control of the car, and the moment that I looked up, it was too late. A bright light blinded us as a loud noise reverberated through the night, and something hard and forceful hit us on his side.
“Deuce!”
“What?”
“It was Deuce,” I whispered with a gasp as I looked into Amani’s face that looked so much like his. Could it have beena trick of my mind because I was staring into his sister’s face? No. I had seen Deuce the night of the accident. He was the man who stepped into the street. He hadn’t been called to the scene. Deuce was already there because he was the reason the accident occurred.
My mind turned over several facts as Amani stared at me and asked if I was okay. I wasn’t. I rushed out of the kitchen with my heart in my throat. I pulled out a large manila envelope that I hadn’t bothered with since leaving the hospital.
I sat on my bed and emptied the contents. I maniacally pawed through the contents as I searched for the one thing that I needed to see.
“Sevyn, you’re scaring me, honey. What’s going on?” Amani asked, walking into the room.
She held her phone tightly in one hand while she looked at me with a guarded expression.
“I have to find it. I have to find it.” My words were on repeat, and while I knew I looked crazy to her, I also knew that I made perfect sense in my mind. I would not slow down until I found what I was searching for. As if that thought conjured the paper, my fingertips touched exactly what I was looking for.
I pulled the yellow carbon paper from the stack of papers I had poured from the envelope. I used my thumbnail to search the paper. When I finally found what I was looking for, my heart exploded.
M. Brown was the responding officer along with E. Miller. I scanned the details of the accident report that Waverleigh had ordered for me, but neither of us had read it. Her, because she hadn’t had time, me, because I wasn’t ready to relive that night again.
I had been worried that the moment I read the report, I would relive every painful detail of losing my memory, my husband, and my life as I knew it. Therefore, I hadn’t read it.I had ordered it because I wanted it available whenever I was ready to read it. Now was that time.
“He wasn’t the responding officer,” I stated sadly.
