Brennan focused on the stoplight again. Still red. She left the summary behind in favor of thinking about the scene she was currently working on—in which Ing, newly-chosen contestant in the Santos Game, attends the Celebration of Beginnings, which was basically the send-off for the entire Game Season in the story. In the scene, which was a masquerade ball complete with lots of gilded and ornate masks and dresses, Ing meets a mysterious stranger. She is unsure if he is an investor in the game or a contestant, but something about his eyes—somehow nothing and everything, brown, hazel, green—captivates her. “Trust no one,” he said, leaning ever so slightly closer to Ing. “The Game isn’t a game after all …”
The car jolted forward, and Brennan’s hands, which had started to relax, immediately clenched around the steering wheel once more. Had her foot come off the brake? What had happened? It took her a moment to make sense of things.
The light was still red but she knew it would be green soon. She glanced in the rearview mirror at the minivan behind her. It was close; abnormally close. Then she got it.
She’d been in a car accident. She, Brennan Davis, was part of a fender bender. A bad one? No, probably not, she guessed. No airbag—she’d only jolted forward a bit.
Brennan figured she could do one of the following things:
Drive off. Better to do that than to face the embarrassment of talking to another driver.
Get out and yell at the other driver. It was their fault after all, and the tension inside of her was just begging to be let out, unleashed.
Sit. Wait. Let the other driver lead.
She tried to remember what they’d said in driver’s ed about what to do in a car accident.
She vaguely recalled something about not moving, in case of neck or spinal injury. Brennan glanced down at herself. It wasn’t that kind of accident. She was all right. No injuries. No intrusions into the driver’s compartment. She undid her seat belt. At worst, a slight case of whiplash that would leave her sore tomorrow morning.
But then the anxiety demon clenched her stomach. What if it’s internal? What if your liver is lacerated and you’re bleeding out into your abdomen? You should CALL AN AMBULANCE. Just in case. Better safe than sorry.
Brennan shook her head. Be logical, she told her demon. Next. What next?
Probably she’d have to talk to the other driver. Inspect the damage. Get his name and insurance information. She glanced in her rearview. The other driver seemed to be staring forward in shock, making no move to get out.
Okay, okay, she thought. She remembered being told not to admit fault in an accident. Leave it to the cops, the insurance company, the lawyers—anyone else. But in this case, she didn’t think that mattered. It wasn’t her fault. He—she?—the other driver, whoever it was, had rear-ended her.
She wondered if they’d been texting. Sleeping. Looking out the window?
She saw the light turn green and people started moving forward without Brennan. In her peripheral vision she could see passersby glancing sideways, watching her with curiosity and concern. Oh, an accident? Interesting. That’s not something you see every day. Her chest tightened. They’re STARING at YOU, her brain yelled. MAYDAY MAYDAY.
Please shut up, Brennan begged her mind. She glanced at the dash clock. It seemed like hours had passed, like everything was happening in slow motion. In reality, it had been mere minutes. Hours or minutes, she was going to be late to work.
So she took out her phone and, people outside forgotten in the wake of a million other things to worry about (like the fact that she could currently be, at this moment, bleeding out), she called her boss.
The phone rang in her ear a few times before her boss picked up.
“Hi,” Brennan said. “I’m going to—I’m going to be a little late.”
3
JONAS
Jonas put the car in park as soon as it had stopped, bumper to bumper with the car in front of him. He didn’t try to back up from the car; the thought didn’t even cross his mind (or maybe it did but got lost in the rapid fire of his brain’s synapses).
With the car stopped, it was easier to extricate his foot. He glared at it in disgust. He imagined shoving it back into the corner of the closet. Or better yet, under his bed, where it could gather dust, completely out of sight. Prosthetic piece of crap, he thought, his hand massaging the point where the remaining part of his left leg met plastic. Jonas ignored the pins and needles sensation in his leg and turned his gaze back to the car in front of him.
Whoever he’d hit wasn’t getting out. Jonas could tell it was a she, but nothing else about her. Would she be angry? Most likely. I’d be angry if someone hit me, he thought. Well, I was angry when someone hit me.
Jonas wondered whether or not he should tell the truth about what caused the accident. He decided he would just say he hadn’t been paying attention. What was he supposed to say? Um, sorry, I have a fake foot and mental issues with semitrucks, and I rear-ended you because I was trying to decide if I was having a panic attack or dying. Better Jonas look like an incompetent driver than tell her the truth and watch her expression morph into that look of pity that people inevitably got whenever they learned that he was an eighteen-year-old with only half a left leg.
He saw the other driver turn her hazards on and decided that he should probably do the same.
After doing this, he steeled himself to the inevitable conversation that would have to occur between him and the girl. So he slid over to the passenger side (having enough sense left to know that it would be inconceivably stupid to open a door into oncoming traffic, no matter how slow it was going) and opened the door. Jonas felt like every other driver on the road was watching him. He tried not to think about it. Who cares? he told himself. Not me. If anything, I’m used to being stared at by now. He almost laughed at the ridiculousness of the lie. Carefully placing both feet on the ground, he got out. With his pants covering his prosthetic leg, the view looking down was almost normal; there was no way to tell that one of his feet was plastic, except for the way it felt. Like it’s dead. He wished that he was wearing almost anything other than plaid pajama pants and a too-big sweatshirt.
Jonas stepped forward. He stumbled when his left foot hit the ground. Instinctively, his arms went up, to catch himself if he fell. (Parachute reflex. He remembered reading about it when he still wanted to be a doctor. It developed sometime during infancy—you fall, the arms go out.) He regained his balance and limped onward, hand pressed against the Bus for balance. He tried to match his walking as close to normal as possible, ignoring the discomfort and pain that shot through the missing part of his leg with each step. A majority of amputees have phantom pain following limb loss, Dr. Andy, his counselor, had said, back when he first went to see her. She’d brought out a mirror. He’d obliged her, sitting on a couch in the office and holding the mirror in front of his left leg so that it reflected the right. He’d pretended he had two whole legs—normal. Be normal, be normal, he told himself as he made his way along the side of the Bus. Jonas told himself to watch where he was putting his feet, due to lack of sensation in his prosthesis, so that he didn’t step too hard or trip forward. Still, he tripped a few more times, fighting his parachute reflex in order to avoid flailing his arms any more. It was like he was stumbling around with impaired depth perception or something. He couldn’t help but feel like the leg might buckle; might not hold him up.