Page 103 of Light in the Dark
I don't.
I don't know where we are in our relationship. I don’t know what she wants. I don't know how she'll feel after she finds out why she wrecked. That it's my fault.
I set her on her feet, hand her the crutches, and step back. I wish the disappointment on her face when I don't kiss her was less obvious.
She searches me for a moment and then closes her eyes, letting out a breath before turning to her bus.
She crutches along the left side, touching a sticker here and there before stopping at the driver's door. She braces against the van's body and holds both crutches in one hand while opening the door, hops forward a few steps, and then climbs up to sit behind the wheel, her cast-encumbered left leg hanging out.
I dig her keys out of my pocket and hand them to her. "Here. Start her up."
She bites her lower lip in anticipation, and then inserts the key and turns over the engine; it catches immediately, settling into a healthy, humming idle. "God, she sounds amazing!"
"Nyx is a miracle worker," I answer. "He and his guys totally rebuilt your original engine and transmission from the top down and the inside out, plus he overhauled your suspension, did the brakes, some underbody rust mitigation, and put in a new radio faceplate."
She covers her mouth, eyes shimmering. "Fee…what? Are youserious? That's—fuck me, Felix. That's tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of work." She touches the radio faceplate. "That original radio looked cool but it didn't work for shit."
"That's Nyxie for you," I say. "Doesn't do anything by halves."
"How much do I owe him? Even just parts is—"
I laugh. "Good luck with that. If you even so much as bring up paying him, he'll get pissy. It's a gift, Ember."
She shakes her head. “No. No. It's too much. And—why? What did I do to deserve…any of this?"
"Deservedoesn't have shit to do with it, babe," I answer. "They're just good people. They care. And they've decided to adopt you into the gang, it would seem. And no matter what Nyx said about me, in reality it's got nothing to do with me. They just like you."
She holds the steering wheel, not bothering to hide her tears. "I remember Cole's face. After the accident. I was…" She closes her eyes, rests her forehead between her hands on the wheel. "I was suspended sideways—the car was on its passenger side. I—I couldn't breathe—I remember that. I was bleeding. Everything hurt. I was—I was so scared." I can barely hear her. "I knew I was going to die, and I didn't want to. I didn't want to."
"Em," I whisper.
She doesn't hear me. "I felt myself fading." She rolls her head side to side, groaning. "I told everyone I don't remember this part, but I do. I just…I wish I didn't. Knowing you're dying…it's the scariest thing you can ever imagine. And then I heard a siren. Tires. Feet. And then Cole was there. He laid down on the ground in the broken glass and my blood and held my hand and talked to me until the firefighters got there. He kept me awake. Kept me talking." She's speaking through tears; she sits up, tips her head back, and talks with closed eyes, dripping tears from her chin. "I don't remember what he said, what I said—I just remember him laying there beneath me, holding my hands and…staying with me while they cut me out."
"That's Cole for you," I murmur.
She looks at me finally. "Fee, please. Just fucking tell me what happened."
"Fuck. Now?"
She nods, wiping at her face. "Please, Felix. I've compartmentalized and repressed and avoided thinking about it for two weeks. I can't do it anymore. Ihaveto know, and no matter how fucking hard I wrack my brain, I can't remember." A pause. "All I've got is that it's got something to do with—shit. I knew her name. Your ex. A-something. I remember feeling angry. Just…not why."
"Amy," I mutter. "Her name is Amy."
"Amy, right."
I go around to the passenger side and climb in beside Ember. Leave the door open. Trace the outlines of the plethora of stickers covering the dashboard in front of the passenger seat—breweries, distilleries, dispensaries, farmer's markets, sustainable clothing brands, eco-friendly co-op grocery stores, band logos…
I let out a long sigh. "The short version is that you came back from LA in the middle of the night—or, actually, it was early morning. Like four, I think. You walked in like you had something to say to me. But Amy was there. And it—you assumed, based on what you saw, that something either had happened, was happening, or was about to happen between us."
She's silent for a long time—almost a minute. "The way you're phrasing that suggests nothingdidhappen."
“No, Ember, I swear—nothing happened."
"But it looked like it did."
“Yeah, I…yeah. It definitely would’ve looked like I..”
She nods, looking at me. "I'm gonna need the long version, Fee."
