9:12 a.m. I’m not going to make it. Fuck. FUCK! Professor Hardwin doesn’t allow retakes unless you have a good excuse. I already have a C in that class—a culmination of bullshitting assignments and skipping critical sessions. An incomplete on an exam is sure to bring me down to a D.
Coach keeps blabbering my ear off. Everything he says is warbled, staticky, refusing to root into my brain and curate some sense. His cautionary tales are drowned out beneath the knocking of my heart against my ribs. There’s a feverish fire rolling through my body—slicking my palms in sweat and loosening my grip on the steering wheel—and an impending senseof doom circles me like a flock of crows scared from a grove of evergreens.
When the light finally flashes green, I’m hightailing it through the intersection and swerving into the lip of the parking lot by Reber Hall, glancing down at my phone that now broadcasts a stomach-dropping 9:14 a.m. on the home screen.
“Hello? Kid? Are you even listening to me?”
With my focus split and hope letting from my body like blood, I don’t see the bicyclist that crosses in front of me until I glance up.
A sickening thud reverberates in my eardrums, and the force of the collision jars the entire carapace of my car. I catch the tail end of a blurry form flying over my hood as I slam on the brakes, screaming in blind terror.
Oh my God. I THINK I JUST HIT SOMEONE.
Why wasn’t I looking where I was going? What happened to all those PSAs you watched in high school about texting and driving, Knox? Forget spending your future behind a desk—you’re going to be behind bars.
A swarming sea of pedestrians stops to assess the damage, and a buildup of cars all halt in their tracks.
Hanging up the phone and jumping out of my vehicle, I race over to the poor casualty of my reckless driving, shoving through a throng of spectators who all murmur in collective concern. It feels like steel wool is scratching at the tissue of my guilt-ridden heart.
Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.
When I breach the inner ring, I’m met by the sight of a (thankfully) conscious girl on the cold asphalt, a bleeding contusion nestled underneath her raven-black hair, and a mosaic of scratches marring her limbs.
My first thought is that she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.
Her bike has been capsized and tossed to the wayside—wheels still spinning from the momentum—and her backpack is in an equally destroyed state, spilling out papers and books from polyester innards. Despite there being a decent-sized crowd, nobody moves to help her.
I frantically crouch down to her level. She groans, her eyes half-lidded, her lashes brushing the hills of her cheekbones, and her splayed body reminiscent of a chalk outline. The image churns my empty belly and calls nausea to the crime scene.
“Fuck,” she mutters.
I press two fingers to her wrist, assessing the sluggishness of her pulse. Each beat is slower than normal, but it seems steady. She’s probably in shock.
Exhaling in relief, some of the tension boiling in the pit of my gut flatlines into a fizzle. “Someone fucking call 911!” I shout at the bystanders.
Even the ebony sky weeps for what’s happened here today—a nimbostratus rolling out over Maple Grove like a funeral procession, low-sitting clouds sagging with rain. Fibrils of darkness feather into the atmosphere, hailing droplets to fall to the tainted earth and cleanse my blunder from between sandblasted cracks. The neighboring trees bow in the unrelenting wind, and a few wide-eyed stragglers race to the nearest building to absolve themselves. A sillage of petrichor dances in the air.
This is all my fault. I didn’t see her. Ishould’veseen her.
Her hand flies to the gash on her head as she uses all her strength to try and sit up. “What just happened?”
With my heart performing a sixty-yard dash in my chest, I restrict her from elevating any further in case it exacerbates an invisible injury.
“You—I—um, I hit you…with my car,” I explain, the last part practically a whisper, paralytic guilt stunning my nerve endings.
I hear the wail of an ambulance in the distance, and instinctively, I grab her hand, crushing it against the warmth of my palm.
I’ve fucked up a lot in my past—from cheating on tests in high school to giving my current hockey captain shit for rightfully earning his title—but this takes the cake. I’m not a bad person, right? It was an accident.
Do you think that’s how this girl’s parents will feel? It might’ve been an accident, but you carelessly put yourself and others in danger.
An unhelpful susurrus creeps through the remaining students. They’re talking about me. They’re taking pictures.
Anger flips the kill switch, welling behind my ribs until a budding pressure descends on my chest like an anvil. “Show’s over. Every single one of you—leave!” I snarl, practically vibrating with rage, my inhibitions reduced to something so viscerally primal that I barely recognize myself.
A few people flinch at my outburst, doing the wise thing and speed-walking away to evade the fallout. This is going to make headlines within an hour. Coach is going to hear about it. Myparentsare going to hear about it.
Rain begins to plink against the ground, puddling into craters that reflect the dreary ether above. The mystery girl finally wrenches her eyes all the way open, her chest rising and falling at a more quickened pace.
