Instead, I am alone is a car that is not meant for this, going about twenty-five miles per hour and hoping, praying, that I don’t miss the exit for i-89 that will lead me up toward Burlington and my parents’ house on Lake Champlain, hovering a solid ten miles from the Canadian border.
This wouldn’t have been so bad if I could have snaked my way up through New York and then over into Vermont, but no, the highway north of the city showed a massive accident this morning and my GPS rerouted me. My stomach growls loudly, choosing this moment to remind me that I haven’t had anything to eat all day since I woke up late and had to run out the door, slurping down a to-go coffee from the deli on the corner by my apartment.
“Shut up,” I snap at my empty belly. “I can’t feed you. We have to make it through this shit first.”
Turning up the music humming through my speakers, I lean forward, singing aloud to a song I know by heart. It helps to settle my slightly frazzled nerves and I push forward, scanning every snow-covered sign for the one I need. But as the miles stretch and the road grows more and more empty, my heart rate begins to spike with panic.
Did I miss it? Did I miss the exit?
Just as those thoughts hit me hard, my GPS starts in with ‘re-calculating route’ in that annoying, nasal voice it has. I glance over to the map, but it’s like my car is driving out into the middle of nowhere and not on a highway. The gray circle in the center of it just keeps spinning and spinning and this is the moment that I go from a seven on the panic scale to twenty-eight.
“Balls,” I curse. “You’re supposed to run on a freaking satellite,” I yell at the screen.
I slow down further, glancing out my window first and then the passenger one. But it’s all the same and I have no idea where I am. In a moment of desperation, I hit the button on my steering wheel to bring up my phone so I can call my father back, but now that’s not even working. All the names and numbers are gray.
What the hell is going on?!
Picking up my phone from my center console, I unlock it with my face only to find that I have no service. As in none. Zero. Not even 3G.
“Dammit!” I scream at the top of my lungs, slamming my fist into the button to shut off the music that is happily chirping from my speakers. “Shut up!” I yell at it, running a frazzled hand through my hair and trying to rein myself in. Panicking like this will get me nowhere. I need to think. I need to calm the hell down.
Sucking in a deep, meant to be fortifying, breath I straighten my spine and steel my nerves and resolve.
I catch a sign that says something about a glass warehouse, a motel, a gas station, and yes. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
But in my stupid enthusiasm, I press a little too hard on the gas pedal, and as if my car is chastising me the way my father would, the front tires start to slip and sway, skidding on the packed snow and ice that coats the road.
“No,” I bellow, my voice skipping up a notch to a startled screech as the back tires start to get in on the action, overcompensating for the front. “Stop that. Don’t do this. Please, I swear, I’ll ease into whatever motel I find if you just stop doing that.” My hands grip the steering wheel tighter, twisting it to the right and then the left frantically, trying to realign the suddenly out of control vehicle.
Oh my god, this cannot be happening.
My foot hits the break and the wheel shimmies, the tires making a horrific grating noise. I press on the gas once more, but instead of correcting the problem as I anticipated, the car starts to spin, doing a full 360. I slam back on the breaks, but to no avail.
We’re not stopping.
We’re not even slowing down.
If anything, the car is moving faster. Terrifyingly so. My heart is racing out of my chest, blood thrumming through my ears at a deafening decibel.
My hands are flying this way and that, but now the car is gaining speeding, heading straight for… “Ahhhh!” I scream, my eyes wide and unblinking, my hands white-knuckling the wheel as I barrel toward a row of trees on the side of the highway without any way to stop.
My eyes close just at the moment of impact, my body tense and coiled as the front driver’s side hits the tree with a sickening crunch.
The impact throws me, my head smashing into the window and then my body lurches, slamming against the steering wheel. No airbags. I have no idea why they didn’t deploy in a seventy-thousand-dollar car, but that’s a serious problem as my head explodes with blinding pain.
Warm stickiness dribbles down my face as the car shifts and moves a little more before stopping completely, wedged against and under the tree.
I fall back into my seat, panting for my life and searching around the car. I sit here for a stunned, silent moment, mentally assessing everything. I have no idea if anything else is injured other than my forehead. I move my toes in my Uggs then my fingers.
Jesus Christ. I can’t believe I just crashed.
Outside I see nothing but white. Trees and freaking white.
I glance down at my lap and then over to the console, but I can’t find my phone. A splatter of blood drips from my face onto my jeans.
Blood.
Oh my god. My stomach immediately rolls as my vision sways. I take a few deep breaths, forcing myself not to think about that. About the red, wet, sticky stuff that’s everywhere. I touch it with my fingers and that’s just the wrong thing to do. But holy bejesus, it really is everywhere and I scramble for my purse that fell into the well on the passenger side, searching for something, anything that will help wipe the blood off my face and body.
Dizziness consumes me as I move. A fresh wave of nausea hits me hard, cold sweat coating my skin like bad makeup. I close my eyes, fighting the black prickly dots around the edges of my vision before I reopen, find my purse, and pull out my pack of tissues.
I wad up a ball in my hand and press the paper into the cut on my forehead. A whimper passes my lips at the sharp, shooting pain that accompanies that, but I soldier on, determined to find my phone and get the hell out of here.
My cell is on the other side of the passenger seat, but the second I pick it up, I know it’s useless. I had no service before the crash and looking at the screen now, I see it’s no different.
Fucking hell. What am I going to do now?
* * *
Want to know what happens next to London? Get your copy of Just One Kiss and meet the sexy AF artist who rescues her! Coming November 12, 2020
End of Book Note
Hey! If you’ve read me before, then you know this is the part of the book where I sort of lay it all out for you. If you haven’t and Gus and Naomi were your first, I hope you enjoyed them and stick around for more from me.
First, to my readers. You are everything to me and why I put all my blood, sweat, and tears into each and every story I write. To my awesome beta readers who helped encourage me and support me, even when I was ready to tear my hair out. To my amazing PA Danielle who dealt with my endless messages about extra scenes and the million other things I added to this book. To my family for making every day better than the one before it and for supporting me endlessly.
Okay, now onto the story. Gus. What can I say. I fell SO hard for him in this story. After the way things went down in Jasper and Viola’s story with him, I needed to tell his story. I needed him to redeem himself because let’s be honest, a lot of people cannot forgive a cheater.