Tires crunch on asphalt. Headlights appear ahead, coming around the turn. The lights blind me as I fumble for my seat belt and my keys.
The other car stops in the middle of the turn, near the memorial. The driver’s door opens and a bulky, dark figure flies out so fast he trips and has to catch himself before he hits the pavement. He sprints through my headlights—Wallace, moving faster than I’ve ever seen him move before—and he skids to a stop and almost rips off my sideview mirror.
He scans the interior. Our eyes meet. He pounds on the window.
“GET OUT OF THE CAR!”
He doesn’t wait for me. He tears the door open, pushes my half-on seat belt aside, and lifts me out like I’m as heavy as a bag of leaves. He sets me on my feet right outside and immediately lets go.
“You should have been home by now. You didn’t answer your phone.” His voice rasps with every harsh breath. Eyes wide, face flushed. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“I turned it off. I’m going home now.” I don’t need to tell him the whole truth. He already knows it. I see it in his eyes as they fill with tears.
Then I’m crushed in his arms. He has forgotten how big he is; I bend backward to fit the curve of his torso, the breath squeezed out of me, tingles flushing from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet at how nice it is to be held.
I don’t move. I can’t, not yet.
“You were angry.” My voice doesn’t come out much louder than a whisper.
“Jesus, Eliza, no.” He doesn’t pull back to say it, but his arms tighten. His voice breaks over and over, rapid-fire. His whole body trembles. “No, I don’t care about any of that. Did you come here because of me? I was such an asshole. I should’ve seen—Ididsee what was going on, but I didn’t ... I didn’t even try to help, I wasso stupid and focused on what I wanted—” He sniffs, hard, his voice broken and high. “Please don’t. Please. I can’t lose anyone else to this stupid turn.”
Then I understand what I was going to do, and what it would have done to Wallace, and I start to cry too.
How terrible it would have been if I’d actually done what I thought about. How terrible it is that he found me here, thinking about it.
“I’m sorry.” The words hiccup out of me. “I didn’t ... I didn’t mean to ... I didn’t think. I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have—not here.”
“No, no.” He grips the back of my neck. His fingers are hard and reassuring, keeping me from putting distance between us. “I’m just glad you’re alive. That’s all. You’re not a bad person. Please don’t think that.”
“But I lied to you. And the transcription is important.” My hands creep up his sides, around his back, to his shoulders. “Writing and college and doing what you love. That’s important.”
He squeezes me, hard. We fall against my car and sink to the ground.
“Not as important as your life.” He sniffs again, loud, then sits back and lets me go. I rock toward him, then force myself to sit back too. Wallace uses his shirt collar to wipe his face. “Dammit, I’m going to poke my eyes out, I’m shaking so hard.”
I laugh, just a little, because even though I still feel like ashitty person and an even shittier friend, I’m shaking too. It’s a constant tremor from nerves held taut for so long, and it radiates from the base of my skull out through the rest of my body.
“Were you really going home?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Please don’t come back here.”
I nod. I don’t want to. I won’t.
Wallace grabs my hand and holds it with both of his against his stomach. Closes his eyes. His palms are rough where he fell on the pavement. “I was so scared.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.” Wallace hulks when he sits with his head bowed like this, and his hands dwarf mine. Thick hands, thick wrists, thick arms. Every part of him shivers with guilt, and so does every part of me. There are no rights and wrongs between us anymore. At least, I hope there aren’t.
“Wallace.”
He looks up.
“I want to be happy,” I say.
“Me too,” he says.
