She hugged me. WhisperedI like himin my ear. Then she was pulling on her coat and grabbing her keys and—
"My car's on the slope," she said. "The ice."
Sophie's car was street-parked on the hill outside my apartment. It was January. The slope that had been manageable two hours ago was now a glossy sheet of black ice that the evening temperature had polished into something closer to a luge track.
Ethan was already at the door. He didn't even stop for the jacket he'd left on the back of my chair.
"I'll get it," he said. "Which one's yours?"
This isthe part I've replayed four hundred times.
Sophie's car was a grey Corolla with a dent in the rear bumper from a parking incident she refuses to discuss. It was angled on the slope, the front tires turned toward the curb, the whole thing sitting on a thin membrane of ice.
Ethan walked down to it. Sure-footed — the walk of a man who'd trained to move on unstable surfaces, who'd been on icy rooftops and wet floors and collapse zones. He checked the angle. Checked the tires. Then braced himself behind the car, both hands flat against the trunk.
"Keep it in drive," he called up to Sophie, who was at the driver's side door, phone in one hand, keys in the other, trying to unlock it. "Foot on the brake until I say. Then ease off and steer clear of the curb. I'll push you past the ice."
Sophie got in. Started the engine.
"Ready?" he called.
She started to ease off the brake. But a buzz from her phone on the dash, the glare of its screen — her eyes flicked down for a second. Maybe less. She startled, her foot slipping sideways off the brake and slamming the gas.
The car lurched.
Not cleanly forward. The front tires spun, useless against the ice. The back end broke loose — a sudden, sideways slide, the rear swinging out fast. The bumper caught him at the hip.
Sound: short, thick, wet.
He went down.
He didn't scream. The sound he made was more like all the air leaving him at once — a single, compressed exhale, as if his lungs had been folded shut.
Sophie hit the brake. The car shuddered and stopped, three feet further down, kissing the curb with a tap so gentle it was obscene. The car was fine. The car didn't even notice.
Sophie screamed.
I wasdown the slope before I'd decided to move. The ice did the work — I half-ran, half-slid, and when I reached him I went down on my knees so hard I felt it in my teeth.
He was on his side. Face grey-white. Hands grabbing at his hip, his pelvis — the kind of grabbing that isn't reaching for something but trying to hold something together.
"Don't move," I said. "I'm calling 911."
My hands were steady on the phone. They'd been shaking all evening — from the wine, from Sophie's visit, from the low-grade anxiety of introducing your best friend to the person you might be falling for — but now they were steady.
911, quelle est votre urgence?
"I need an ambulance," I said, bypassing the French. I gave the address. The words came out faster than I wanted them to, stumbling over each other. "He got hit — a car slid on the ice — he's on the ground — it hit him here, the — I think it's his hip, or lower, the — his pelvis area, he can't—"
D'accord, madame. Est-ce qu'il est conscient?Is he conscious?
"Yes, he's conscious, he's — he can't move—"
On vous envoie une ambulance. Restez en ligne.We're sending an ambulance. Stay on the line.
Sophie was next to me. She'd gotten out of the car. Her face had come apart — every muscle that held her expressions together had simultaneously given up. She was crying silently, and that was worse than sobbing, because Sophie was never silent.
"I did this," she said. "Nora. I — the car — I didn't—"
