His eyes don't leave mine.
For a long second, neither of us breathes.
Then his fingers loosen slightly. They slide down to my throat, and for a moment I think he's going to close them there, and my heart does something I don't have a word for. Then his hand drops to the seat beside him and he lets out a slow, controlled breath.
"Sadie," he says. His voice is low. Rough. There's something in it, an accent maybe, a shadow of one. "Go ahead."
I do.
I cover the wound and tape the gauze in place. I try to ignore the way he is looking at me as I take his pulse and his blood pressure. I write the numbers on his wrist while he frowns at me: BP 130/85, P 96, conscious, laceration L upper arm, possible concussion, 2:54 PM. His skin is warm under my hand. He watches me do it. He watches me the entire time, and I keep my eyes on my work because I don't know what will happen if I look at him again.
When I'm done, I reach for the door.
"Sadie."
I stop and turn to face him over my shoulder.
"Yes?" My heart gallops when our eyes meet, and I ignore it.
"Thank you,” he says.
I don't know what to say to that, so I nod and say nothing. I climb out of the sedan and the first siren is cresting the overpass now. I walk toward the sound with my kit in my hand and my glucose tabs in my pocket and every hair on my body standing up.
The paramedics find me at the shoulder. I give them the brief, six vehicles, three critical, vitals written on the patients, child in the SUV is stable, and they look at me like they're trying to figure out what I am. A bystander? A first responder? I don't wait for them to ask. I point to each car in turn, tell them priority order, and then I step back and let them do their jobs.
I don't look at the black sedan or the man in it. But I can feel him looking at me.
A police officer eventually walks me to a cruiser and tells me I can sit. Someone brings me a foil blanket I don't need. My Corolla is totaled. The moving van is gone. My new apartment is still twenty miles away and I have no way to get there.
Panic is trying to claw its way into my mind. I watch as Emma is carried from the car, her mom awake now and strapped to a stretcher.
And I'm thinking about gray eyes and a hand on my throat that didn't squeeze. I'm thinking about the way he said my name, like he was committing it to memory.
A paramedic kneels in front of me and asks if I'm hurt. I tell her no, it's just a banged-up knee. She points to the glucose tabs I’d forgotten I was holding and asks if I'm diabetic. I nod and say yes, Type 1, and she nods and hands me a juice box from her kit with the matter-of-fact kindness of someone who does this every day.
I drink it.
Somewhere behind me, doors slam and voices rise, then the stretcher rolls past with the woman from the SUV on it. Emma sees me. She lifts her free hand and gives me a small, solemn wave, and the puppy band aid is still on her forehead.
I wave back.
The black sedan crunches as the firemen use machinery to cut the top off and unpin the man from the back seat, and I see the driver being loaded into a second ambulance. The passenger follows minutes later. His jacket is off. His shirt is ruined. His head turns, and his eyes find me across the wreckage as if he's known exactly where I am this whole time.
We're just strangers, I think to myself. I'll never see him again.
So why does my body feel like I'm lying?
