Bad Intentions

2. JOSIE

JOSIE

I pull up at Grandma’s house, kill the engine, and sit in silence, listening to the rain hammering against the windshield. I’m not sure which is louder, the rain or my heartbeat.

It’s dark, the streetlights barely visible in the downpour.

The man got hit. It was an accident. It was dark. The car didn’t have its headlights on… Wait, why?

I’m trying to convince myself that I didn’t just flee a crime scene, but I did. I left the man there. What if he’s dying? What if he needs help?

The scene flashes in front of my eyes again, the car connecting with his body, sending it flying, the thump of it landing on the road.

My heart starts hammering in my chest.

I can’t just do nothing, no matter the consequences or having to deal with the police. This isn’t right. This isn’t about not upsetting my grandma, who shouldn’t be stressed out in her condition. This is about what’s right and wrong.

I turn on the car and drive back to the fairgrounds.

I will drive Fair Road again and check the man. If the police are there and ask me what I’m doing, I can say I went for a late-night drive. I didn’t hit the man. There’s absolutely nothing to connect me to that guy.

My thoughts dissipate as I turn onto Fair Road and slow down. The windshield wipers maniacally wipe the rain away. I turn the high beams on to see better, but when I approach the spot where the body was, it’s not there.

I keep driving. Did I miss it?

Oh god, is it possible that he came to and crawled away? How long has it been since the accident? Twenty minutes? Half an hour? Forty minutes?

I glance at the car clock—yes, forty minutes. If the person was badly injured, he couldn’t have gotten too far. Unless he managed to drive off.

I drive back to the same spot.

Nothing. There’s no one around.

That’s when terror starts creeping up my spine. What if he’s watching me?

I turn off the high beams and struggle not to gun the engine. I don’t want any more accidents tonight.

I drive away slowly, my mind reeling.

When I get back to Grandma’s, I light my way with my cell phone as I come in through the side door into the enclosed patio, then into the kitchen. I don’t turn the lights on. I sit down in the chair at the kitchen table and stay still for some time.

Water drips off my hair and parka and onto the floor. It’s warm inside the house. Grandma needs warmth. She’s old and fragile, considering her condition and all. But I’m shivering as I sit for the longest time, zoned out.

I need to process what happened.

My mind replays the accident for the dozenth time. The recollection flashes in front of me like an unsolicited horror slide. The approaching shadow of the man. The car coming out of nowhere. The evil roar of the engine as someone gunned it.

That’s what the sound was. That’s why it startled me—it wasn’t the sudden sound of the car approaching, but someone actually gunning the engine right before—

BAM!

The visual is gone, but the sound remains. It replays in my head, making a wave of nausea clog my throat. It’s a dull sound. Hitting a deer and a human sounds the same, though it’s an atrocious comparison. I hit a deer once.

But this sound replaying in my brain is much worse.

Because I wasn’t the one in the car. I watched it happen.

That sound had texture. The slurping of the rain.

The dull blow of the impact. And something else, like bones breaking, a person’s flesh being smashed, the insides being mangled.

The skull cracking against the pavement…

I feel another bout of nausea coming. I dart into the tiny patio bathroom and retch.

Pull yourself together, I command myself, flush the toilet, walk out, strip off my wet coat and boots, then clean up the wet floor in the kitchen, all of it on autopilot.

I tiptoe through the dark house to my bedroom, not wanting to wake up Grandma.

My bedroom is next to hers. I don’t turn on the light even after I shut my door behind me.

I strip in the darkness, peeling the rain-soaked clothes off my body, then crawl in bed, under the blanket, and try to forget what happened.

I can’t. The accident replays in my head like a snuff show.

I haven’t been to the fairgrounds in years, but I’m pretty sure there are no cameras around there.

Not in this town. Nor are there any traffic cameras along that road, or at any intersection I crossed on the way home.

After all, I didn’t hit the man. My car doesn’t have any suspicious scratches.

It wasn’t my fault. He was on the phone when—

BAM!

The sound explodes in my mind again.

I shut my eyes tightly, but the vision comes back—the black shadow of the car sweeping in, like a beast, slamming into a figure and disappearing into the night.

The man was on the phone, wasn’t he? My number was in his phone. He texted me about the meeting. Texted the exact location, which is where he got hit—

Panic whirls inside me like a tornado, ripping me from the inside. If they find the body, they will find his phone. When they investigate his phone records, they will see my number, track it back to me, find out that we were supposed to meet tonight. So…

Think, think, think.

I will lie low. If the cops come knocking, and they will, I will tell them I never went to the meeting. That’s it. I’m a bad liar. But there’s nothing I can do. Too late. I will play it by ear. My story is that I was never there.

I was never there.

I was never there.

I repeat it a hundred times, hoping for it to lull me to sleep, like counting to a thousand.

When the sky breaks with the dawn light outside my window, I’m still awake, repeating, “I was never there,” hoping that the new day doesn’t become hell. I’ve had enough bad things happen to me for a lifetime. Although I feel like this one might turn out to be the worst.