Page 100 of Villainous Summer

Cory grasped at my ankle, trying to snag it again, but I kicked at him, not caring what I hit.

Finally on my feet, I ran down the path.

A big truck turned onto the street, and I waved to get it to stop.

To my right, Cory stumbled to his car. He reversed onto the road and knocked me to my knees.

I wondered if he was going to run me over, but he sped away.

The truck parked in the middle of the road, and Van climbed down.

My body collapsed, the concrete digging into my flesh.

I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive, and no pain has ever felt so good.

Van

When I was fifteen, young and foolhardy, I drove off a cliff on a four-wheeler. My friend Kenneth invited me up to his family’s vacation home in the Cascades for a mid-winter trip. After all the adults went to bed, Kenneth and I snuck out the back door under hanging icicles and pushed the four-wheelers down the powdered road until we were out of earshot of the cabin.

Fueled with little more than pilfered beer and teenage recklessness, we headed up into the snowy logging roads.

The turn I took was too sharp, and while Kenneth was able to stop in time, I flew forward, the four-wheeler catching air, and there was nothing beneath me. For a moment, only the crisp night sky and adrenaline coursed through me.

Then the panic set in.

I couldn’t see how far I would fall before I hit the cliff’s snow-covered rocks. The four-wheeler landed first, heavier than me, the crunch of metal and gears cutting through the hushed night.

Landing only a second later, with a dull crack, my body cut through the month’s worth of snow and a crack against a rock. The fresh blood cooled instantly on my head as I lay there on the cliffside, broken.

Seconds ticked by with nothing but the breaking branches under the four-wheeler and my rasping breaths, and I wondered if this was the end of me.

A bone-chilling fear invaded every pore, and I knew I would never be as afraid as that moment.

I was wrong.

The fear of falling off that cliff, of the accident that gave me seven stitches and a permanent scar on my head, of the cold snow, and of the heat of my bruising would never compare to the moment I turned onto my road to see a battered Summer. To see the blue sedan reverse out of my driveway, to see the bumper strike her, and to see the only woman I could ever love fall; bloody and broken onto the road.

My engine still running, I kneeled at her side, the hard concrete cutting through my work pants and digging into my knees.

Her face was so bloody I couldn’t tell where she was injured. As she wheezed between the rivulets of blood, distinct purple marks on her throat snagged my attention.

“Can you move? Can I move you?”

Nodding, she opened her mouth, but only a rasp of air came out.

One arm around her back and the other under her legs, I carried her to the small grassy section of my lawn.

Safely out of the road, I inspected her body. The blood was shiny on her face, and bruises were forming over her skin. Her nails were broken, full of blood and dirt. A gash on her neck poured over her shirt.

I put pressure on her wound with my hand. “Who?”

There was only one man who would do this to her.

My jaw tense, I pulled my phone out with my free hand and called 911.

Summer grabbed my hand, squeezing it as I gave the instructions for the police and the EMT to arrive as soon as possible.

With the operator in my ear, I held tight to Summer and watched as she passed out, her blood soaking into the grass.

---