With a scream, I leap for the doorway. Branches claw scratches into my skin while I crawl to safety. With the house torn open, the howl of the storm is deafening. Lying on my belly in the hallway, I try to catch my breath. The pounding in my chest makes it impossible.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I’m going to die here, aren’t I? Rain showers my bedroom, and I spy my phone screen glowing on the floor between the leaves of the tree.
“Shit!”
That phone is my only source of communication. I army crawl through the destruction, pushing aside branches until Ireach the main trunk. The phone lies barely out of my grasp. The useless foliage does zero to protect me from the storm above. Stinging rain pelts my body as I stretch my arm beneath the wood. My fingertips grazing the plastic case.
Bark digs deep into my shoulder, and something pinches in the joint, but my hand closes over the wet device. I slide it toward me and clamber out of the bedroom. In the hallway, I lurch to my feet, wiping at the water on my scraped skin. My shoes skid over wood floors, and I trip in my haste to reach the front entryway, where I keep my car keys. As my hand clenches around the keychain, the street outside the front window grabs my attention.
The life-sustaining organ in my chest abruptly slows, skipping too many beats at once. My vision goes fuzzy. Black closes about the edges. Weak gray daylight illuminates a horror scene. The street is flooded. My front yard is flooded.
I can’t drive in this. I’m trapped.
With a clang, the keys fall to the floor. My knees give out and I sink to the wood beneath me. At the bite of pain in my joints, I come to and lift my phone. My fingers find Asher’s name and hit the call button. At my ear, no rings come through, so I pull away to look at the screen. When did I lose signal?
The call fails.
I open our message stream. The last text he sent glares at me. Judging.
Promise me you’ll call if you need anything.
I waited too long. I let fear cloud my judgment, and now terror has me frozen, reverting back into that frightened fifteen-year-old who didn’t know what to do. Who dove into rising floodwaters to save a mother she’d never see again.
Asher I need you
The bubble is green instead of blue, and I stare at the bar at the top for two full minutes while it tries to send. A little red exclamation point pops up beside it.
Not delivered.
A sob catches in my throat. My gaze strays again to the gray, eddying water outside, now lapping at the cement stairs of my front porch.
I’m going to drown. I’m going to die today. Alone. I could have been alive. With him.
My brain struggles to organize itself. Survival mode switches on and I stare around me. The highest point in my house is the bar in my kitchen. It can be my last resort.
I hop to my feet and run toward the attached garage. It sits a foot lower than the rest of my house. An inch of water already covers the floor. I pause for only a moment to stare at the proof of danger, then snatch a push broom from its spot against the wall.
I try to shoot out another text.
Asher please I need help
Not delivered.
In a quarter hour, the surge has reached my porch. Skin slicked in sweat, I stand far back from the window, letting my heart pound out its last beats.
The water rises.
Memories flash through my mind.
... my parents dancing in our kitchen...
. . . Leo pulling me from the storm surge...
... Grandma helping with my history homework...
... Aiden telling me he loves me...
