The Crash

Chapter 8

8

I’m driving out to see Dennis today, and it doesn’t take me long to pack. After all, my maternity clothes fit in one small duffel bag. I had been hoping to buy more, as well as clothes for Tuna, but I’ll never be able to afford it now.

I run into Mrs. Walden as I am carrying the duffel bag out of my apartment. She gives me her usual critical look. “I heard shouting coming from your apartment yesterday,” she tells me.

Oh great. She overheard my argument with Simon and Jackson. Hopefully, she couldn’t make out what we were saying.

“You know,” she says, “if you entertain a gentleman caller, the polite thing to do is to keep the volume of your voice down.”

“Sorry,” I mutter.

I thought I wasn’t going to have to live next door to this horrible woman anymore. Now all that has changed. Actually, I’ll be lucky if I get to keep living next door to her. She might get me kicked out for having a baby.

I wish I could have gotten on the road in the morning, but I couldn’t afford not to pick up one last shift at the grocery store—after all, it will be my last until after I’m recovered enough from the birth to go back to work. Now the sun has dropped in the sky, and my phone says it will officially set in less than an hour. A few snowflakes have started falling, and there is a storm on the horizon, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to beat it.

My gray Ford Fusion has two hundred thousand miles on it and was owned by at least half a dozen people before I bought it at the used car lot. It has front-wheel drive only, but I’m used to driving in snow, so even if the storm picks up, it will be fine. Either way, I’ve got to get away this weekend. Maybe I will decide to stay with Dennis until the baby comes.

I climb into the driver’s seat of the car, throwing my purse and the duffel bag into the passenger’s seat. Every time I use the car, I need to adjust the seat and the steering wheel to compensate for my belly, like I’m expanding by the minute. I’m scared that in the next month and a half, I won’t be able to fit at all anymore.

I punch Dennis’s address into my maps app and get on the road. It’s still just flurries, but it’s beginning to edge in the direction of legit snow. But there’s nothing I can do about it at this point.

Just as I merge onto the highway, my phone starts to ring. I glance down at the name on the display—it’s Dennis.

“Hey, Tegan,” he says. “Any ETA?”

“I’m just getting on the road now. I…I picked up an extra shift today.”

“Just getting on the road now?” He doesn’t sound thrilled. “Okay, well, don’t make any stops. It’s already started snowing, and you need to beat the storm.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be there soon.”

“You got everything? Did you pack my flask?” he asks me.

“Got it in my purse.”

When he turned twenty-one, his buddies bought him a titanium flask, which he managed to leave here last time he visited. When I shook it, the contents swished around inside, but the smell of anything alcoholic now makes me so ill, I couldn’t bring myself to empty it out. Hopefully, it won’t spill in my purse.

“Now, Tegan,” he jokes, “you better not drink it all.”

I manage a tiny smile, which he can’t see because we’re on the phone. The silence hangs between us.

“Teggie, you’ve got to tell me what happened yesterday,” he finally says, breaking the silence.

“It’s…it’s a long story. I’ll tell you when I get there.”

“Whatever it is, I bet you can fix it. I bet it’s not too late to sign that contract.”

“No,” I say firmly. “There’s no chance.”

“But—”

“ There’s no chance .”

I can almost hear him frowning on the other line. “Seriously…what happened?”

I blow out a breath. “We’ll talk when I get there, okay? I promise.”

“You’re scaring me, Teggie.”

“Don’t be scared. I love you, and I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

Dennis doesn’t push me harder. I’m glad, because it’s hard enough to drive a car when you are thirty-five weeks pregnant, and it’s even harder to do it while confessing that your pregnancy was the result of a rape. This will not be an easy conversation.

But I refuse to keep it to myself. I need to tell Dennis what happened to me. Because I’ll need his support when I go to the police.

I tune the radio to a pop station, and with every mile I put behind me, I feel better about the trip. The snow is coming down faster, but it still doesn’t seem to be sticking to the ground. And because of the storm, the traffic is much lighter than it would ordinarily be at this hour. At this rate, I might make the two-hour trip in only ninety minutes.

I glance down at the clock display and realize I’ve been on the road for nearly an hour. The GPS is directing me off the expressway to a smaller road that looks like a shortcut to a second highway. My stomach rumbles slightly, and I wonder if I should stop for food. Thanks to the pressure from my uterus, my stomach is about the size of a pea, so I’m forced to eat about a dozen small meals every day. Why didn’t I grab some power bars from the grocery store for this trip? I’m starving.

But no. I can’t afford to get off the road now. If I do, I have no chance of making it to my brother’s apartment before the storm descends on us. I’m almost there.

When I get off the highway, I realize that I have officially lost my opportunity to beat the storm. The snow is now coming down hard, and my wipers are working hard to keep my windshield clear. I am starting to wish I hadn’t taken that extra shift and instead gotten on the road this morning, like I’d planned to. It was one thing risking my safety when it was just me, but it was reckless of me to risk my daughter’s safety. I have to start thinking about things differently now that I’m about to be a mother.

The road is thick with snow and ice, and I have to turn my wipers up to the fastest speed to keep my windshield clean. I’ve got to get back on the highway. I look up at my phone GPS mounted on my dashboard, but it seems to have stalled out. There’s a message in the corner of the screen that says “connection lost.”

Damn it.

Okay, I have a basic idea of how to get back to the highway. And after I get back on, I’m going to find the nearest rest stop to camp out. I squint through the windshield, and instead of seeing signs for the highway, all I can see are trees. Have I veered off the main road into a wooded area? As I’m navigating the best I can, the sound of my ringtone fills the car. My internet is out, but the phone still seems to be working at least. I glance down at the screen and see an unexpected name flashing:

Jackson Bruckner.