From a distance, I watched as she blew through the stoplight that paused college traffic before it let out on the main drag. There was no one coming, thank God. I had to wait for the same light and punched the steering wheel once, twice, eliciting a startled look from the driver to my right.
I watched as the counter-light turned yellow and counted down the seconds before mine turned green, peeling out with a squeal of my tires against the pavement. Although the speed limit on this road was forty-five, I pushed it to just past sixty as I drove past the series of fast food places, the Kroger, and the Wal-Mart, eyes flicking everywhere as I searched for her car.
I finally caught up with her a couple of miles down the road. We were nearing the exit for the route that would take us to the farm and I started to slow. At least she was headed home. We could talk this out there.
Only she didn’t turn, instead driving steadily past the exit. I followed, wondering where the hell she was going. The business end of the highway was in the opposite direction and this section of road led nowhere but the next town over.
Her speed and lane position grew erratic, the speed fluctuating a good ten miles per hour and ranging into the seventies. Her old Ford Mustang drifted back and forth, into the center turning lane and then sharply back to the right shoulder. Thankfully, this section of road had little traffic to contend with. Still, she was making me damn nervous. She was probably crying and couldn’t half see. Birdie was a crier, especially when she was angry.
Picking up my cell phone from the cup holder, I hit speaker and called. “Of course, you don’t answer. Damnit, Birdie.” I called again, and she ignored the call again. On my third attempt she answered.
“Fuck off,” she hissed, and disconnected.
My patience wearing thin, I dialed one last time. She answered and I started to speak, but fear closed my throat almost immediately as her car fishtailed wildly in front of me, tires catching on standing water and hydroplaning. It couldn’t have been more than a matter of seconds, and yet it was like a slow motion movie sequence. Frame one: taillights flash, accompanied by the sound of her scream as it shreds her angry greeting. Frame two: car jerks to the right, over-corrects to the left, and right again. The sound of her scream still echoes through the phone. Frame three: front right tire catches on shoulder, back tires skew wildly. Frame four: car bounces once and is airborne, then disappears over the roadside embankment.
Revert to regular speed.
Heart in throat, I wrestled my own vehicle to a stop on the side of the road and threw open the door. I was running before my feet hit the pavement, stumbling and falling in the mud that lined the highway, chanting a prayer that she was okay. “Ohgodpleasegoddeargod —”
My words sputtered to a stop as I took in the Mustang, its front end wrapped around a tree at the base of the embankment, the engine still and sizzling in the cold. I took a step forward and the strength zeroed out in my legs, leaving them numb and useless. I dropped to my knees in the mud, my legs refusing to take me any further. That — no one could survive that —
“Hey. Hey, man. Are you hurt?”
A man squatted down beside me as I knelt at the top of the hill, huge and hulking in some kind of slick black suit I’d seen bikers wear in the rain. He had a leather vest over it, confirming my theory when he turned and I saw it clearly: Archangel’s Warriors MC, Dublin Falls, TN. His appearance galvanized me, and I scrambled up, the man rising with me. I was tall, just over six feet, but I still had to look up at him. “I’m fine. We have to help my girlfriend. She —” I paused, swallowed hard, and gave up on words, instead sliding down the decline to the car.
The guy slid down with me, a hand on my shoulder, forestalling me from continuing. “I’ve already called for EMS. Why don’t you let me check on your girlfriend? I’m a paramedic. Used to be a Navy corpsman. What’s her name?” He was already moving forward, not waiting for an answer. My throat closed as I comprehended his actions. If Birdie was hurt…really, really hurt…he didn’t want me to see that.
He had a long black braid that snaked out from the rain gear he was wearing. I fixated on it, thinking idly that my little sister would be jealous. She was always complaining about her hair. “Who are you?” I asked him, pushing the question past the knot in my throat. I clutched as his arm as he started toward the car.
“I’m Ghost. I’m going to help you.”
“Ghost,” I repeated, consigning it to memory. “Her name is Birdie. Help her?”
He gave me a clipped nod and hurried to the driver’s side door, giving it a sharp tug after peering inside. I couldn’t see past his bulk as he bent forward into the car, but I could imagine him pressing his fingers against the pulse in Birdie’s neck, that pulse I loved to find with my mouth when we made love.
God, it’s my fault.
The thought nearly dropped me to my knees again. If I hadn’t been calling her over and over, dividing her attention…if I hadn’t been behind her…maybe she would have slowed down. Been calmer.
In the distance I heard sirens. Ghost turned and looked at me and through the rain sluicing down my face I made out the words on his lips. “She’s alive.”
This time I did fall, dropping forward until my hands gripped handfuls of mud and gravel and the tears on my face mingled with the rain.
She was alive.
“Do you think it possible that some people are born to give more love than they will ever get back in return?”
Tyler Knott Gregson
November 12│Birdie
WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER, I GOT CAUGHT IN A RIPTIDE OFF TOPSAIL ISLAND. I had waded out to waist depth, and there I attempted to body surf like the group of cute guys several yards distant. The waves were mild and if they could do it, I could, too.
I dove under a wave as it rolled toward me, expecting to rise to the surface on its back side, when a current curled around my ankles and jerked me down.
Hard.
It dragged me, twisted me, flung me around and down against the gritty ocean bed. Once. Twice. Repeatedly. I held my breath until I found the sunlight shining through the surface and managed to fight my way loose from the current’s hold to emerge, shaken and gasping.
I looked around for witnesses to my near demise, but no one was watching. I remember the sense of disbelief that assailed me. I had almost died, and no one had even noticed. I would have been like that kid you always hear about, the one on the bottom of the crowded community pool.
Invisible.
My ears, deafened by briny water, cleared and popped as I made my way back to the beach, exhaustion weighing every limb as though I’d fought a three-day battle. Noise filtered in as they did, until I could hear the beach again: the shrills of little kids, the plaintive cries of gulls, the rush of waves upon the shore.
That’s what waking felt like — finding the light and fighting my way toward it. Clawing my way through a weight so cloying, I wasn’t certain I’d emerge before I suffocated.
But eventually, I opened my eyes to a fluorescent track light overhead, partially obscured by an unfamiliar face hovering over me. My vision was blurry, but I had an impression of short, curling gray hair and round cheeks.
“She’s waking,” the face spoke. “Bernadette? Welcome back.”