Page 80 of The Fire Walker
Dee
I’d walked furtherthan I thought. When I got back to the cafe, it was right on four. Standing across the street, I let out a sharp whistle as Jessie stepped out of the front door. Her eyes meet mine, and her answering smile was electric. Everything we’d been through, the entire screwed-up mess, maybe we had to do it to find each other like some kind of test. Like the universe was fucking with us for a reason. It would take a while, but we finally had time. I would stay as long as my visa and band schedule would let me, and then we would work out therest.
She stepped off the footpath, her hair blowing in the breeze, beautiful and glowing. I’d never laid eyes on anyone like her before, and she was mine, and she wanted me. The deadbeat busker turned rock star. It hardly seemedreal.
The rest kind of happened in slowmotion.
The sound of tires squealing split the air, and we both looked toward the sound at the same time. A dark-colored car had pulled out of a space further down the street and was racing toward her. Like it was deliberate. Like they wantedto...
Her eyes met mine, and they were filled with horror. I went to run forward, but it was already toolate.
The car clipped her as she tried to scramble backward, legs crumbling. Horrified screams erupted around me from the people on the footpath, but she was silent. She didn’t scream as her head cracked against the windshield. She didn’t scream as she fell back onto the road.She didn’tanything.
The car kept going, and people scrambled, but mostly, they were frozen to the spot. Not me. Running across the street, I could only see Jessie lying on the asphalt, not moving.She wasn’tmoving.
Tires screeched again, and I stopped, thumping the hood of a car that had almost collected me and kept going. Falling to my knees beside her all I could see was blood. I was too terrified to move her in case her spine was broken, but I cupped her face, looking into hereyes.
“Jessie,” I said, trying to hold back tears, the reality of what had just happened starting to sink in. “Jessie, can you hear me? Stay with me,okay?”
For a moment, she seemed to look at me, then her eyes unfocused, and her head fell limply to the side. My heart almost stopped as I trailed trembling fingers across hercheek.
“Someone call a fucking ambulance,” I roared at the throng of people who’d stopped to gawk. Why were they just standing there? Why wasn’t anyone doinganything?
“On its way, Dee.” I hardly recognized Ed as he knelt beside me, a phone in his hands. “They’ll be here anyminute.”
“She didn’t… There was no time for her to get outta theway.”
He knelt beside me, a hand on my shoulder. “It was an accident.” He pressed his index and middle finger against her neck, looking for a pulse. Looking at me, he nodded. “Faint butthere.”
I didn’t know how a few minutes could last a lifetime, but when sirens sounded in the distance, it had felt like eons had passed. Every second that went by as Jessie lay on the road, the further she slipped away from me. It couldn’t end like this. It couldn’t. I loved her. She had to comeback.
“Sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to step backnow.”
Looking up, I realized a paramedic stood over me, a bag in his hand. Ed helped me up and pulled me away as my eyes fell back ontoJessie.
“Please…”
“We’re gonna do everything wecan.”
I was numb as I watched the paramedics work on her, the flashing lights bathing the afternoon light with a strange glow. When Zoe had been in the hospital, I didn’t see this part. I didn’t understand how horrible it was. There was so much blood. Shock. This was what it was like, wasn’t it? My blood felt icy cold as it ran through my veins, and everything was so far away, it was like anotherreality.
Please be a fucking dream. Wakeup.
“Dee?”
Shaking my head, I reluctantly tore my eyes away from Jessie and found myself looking at acop.
“Sir?” he asked. “Are youokay?”
“No.”
“Do you need the EMTs to look atyou?”
“No.” I scowled at him. I just wantedher.
“Maybe you should give him a minute,” I heard Ed say as he led the cop off and started giving him hisstatement.
The paramedics had lifted Jessie onto a gurney, her back and head braced to protect her spine. She was still unconscious, and I didn’t think that was a goodthing.
