I give him a look.
“What?” He shrugs. “It’s an observation. She’s hot, and she’s also terrifying.”
“Careful, Hudson,” Tom says, his eyes fixed on the screen. “Women like that don’t just ruin your life. They rearrange it.” He looks back at me, a ghost of a smirk on his face. “She looks like a lot of work, Beck.”
“She yelled at me last night.”
Hudson laughs. “Even better.”
“Apparently, I thud.”
“So she’s fiery?”
Refusing to entertain where the hell this is going, I change the subject. “Did you hear back about funding for your study yet? The divorce thing?”
“The ‘Marital Deconstruction’ study,” he corrects me. “Funding came through this morning. We start the group therapy trials next year. I’m taking couples on the brink of collapse and putting them in a room together to see who survives the fallout. It’s going to be a bloodbath.”
I shove the last book onto the shelf. “You’re a masochist. I’ll stick to broken bones.”
He nods back toward the TV, where they’re replaying Madison’s statement. Her freckled nose crinkles as she navigates a reporter’s question. “Is she always that… intense?”
I think about her in her pink slippers, clutching her back, telling me the weather promised sun but gave her rain. I think about the way she read me like a cheap paperback in the hallway this morning, before I could even find the right name for her.
“From what I’ve seen, yes,” I mutter, cracking my own beer.
“Good luck.” Hudson laughs, clinking his bottleagainst mine. “Something tells me you’re going to need it.”
Twelve
We’re talking about nothing.
That’s what sticks with me later, when the rest of the memory starts to blur at the edges. The fact that it’s so ordinary. He’s driving with one hand on the wheel, the other tapping the door in time with the radio.
I’m half-listening while watching the blurred lights of the city and thinking about an exam I’ve been pretending doesn’t have my stomach in knots.
“You’ll be fine.” He glances at me with that unshakable confidence. “You’ve always had steady hands, just like your grandfather.”
I tell him that’s not a real medical metric, that he’s making it up because he’s my dad and it’s in the job description. He laughs.
The sound still hangs in the air when the bang hits.
It’s so violent and sudden that I don’t know what’s happening until I feel the metal folding in on itself. The car lurches sideways, hard enough to steal the air from my lungs. Glass shatters, spraying the dark with diamonds. The radio cuts out mid-chorus. Everythingjerks and stops in a way that makes my stomach drop.
I’m moving before I even register the seatbelt bruising my shoulder. I’m out of the car, feet slipping on loose gravel and palms scraping raw against the asphalt as I catch myself. I’m shouting his name over and over, but the sound feels trapped in my throat.
There’s blood. Too much of it.
The driver’s side is crushed inward. He’s still strapped inside. His head is tilted at an angle that makes my entire chest seize. The blood is on his shirt, soaking through the fabric in a dark, blooming heat. It’s on my hands when I grab him, and my fingers are shaking even as I force them into a steady grip.
“Dad,” I choke out. “Look at me!”
His eyes flutter, unfocused. His mouth opens as if he’s searching for a word, but only a shallow wheeze escapes.
I get him out as carefully as I can, lowering him onto the cold road. I don’t feel the grit on my knees when I kneel. I don’t feel the sting in my arm where I’ve sliced it on the door.
I put my hands where they’re supposed to go.
Airway.
