Chapter 43 Henry
Forty Three
Henry
Sunday morning, and the heavens had opened.
The forecast said there might be a chance of rain, but this was a downpour.
I left Matilda inside while I loaded up the car, ready for the drive back.
My apprehension was still there about heading back to reality, but it had dimmed slightly with the knowledge that Matilda felt the same as I did.
She had told me she loved me last night, and it was the greatest moment of my life.
“Henry!” Matilda called out into the rain. “Is that everything?” She was wrapped in my hoodie that swamped her, but she looked so bloody snug and cute. I ran over to her, my clothes sodden after only a few minutes in the rain.
“Yeah, all set. Are you ready?” I pulled her in close but not enough to get her soaked too. She beamed up at me, gripping the collar of my jacket.
“No, I want to stay here forever,” she whispered against my lips.
“I think my business might crumble without you,” I half-mocked, half-meant it. She laughed.
“Oh, don’t remind me about work. Did I ever tell you my boss is a right tyrant?” she teased, locking her playful eyes onto mine.
“Yeah, I heard he can be a real hard-arse. Might be softening with old age though.”
“Old age?! Be careful—you’re not that much older than me.” She whacked me playfully on the arm and I pulled her in closer, not caring about my wet clothes. Guess I’m still a bit of a selfish prick.
The bitterness of the cold air mixed with our breaths, steam billowing around our faces just inches apart.
“Let’s go home, Mr. Chase,” she smiled against me.
“Okay, sunshine.”
The rain splattered against the windshield, the wipers squeaking as they flicked back and forth. Our wet clothes and the air around us carried that unmistakable scent—the sharp, earthy freshness of wet pavement. It rushed through the car.
Matilda inhaled sharply. “God, I love that smell,” she murmured, almost to herself.
I glanced over, one hand steady on the wheel, the other drumming against my thigh. A slow smile curved her lips.
“Like electricity and rain,” she said softly, “like the whole world is about to change.”
I smiled at that. I knew what she meant.
I’ve always loved thunderstorms. They had a sense of tranquility that nothing else could compare to.
I never understood people who were scared of them.
A part of me saw storms as the earth’s way of letting out its emotions, and I could relate to that.
Like the world spent its time bottling everything up until it couldn’t take it anymore, and then released it all in a thunderous roar of lightning, rain, and earth-cracking sound.
For a while, the road, the storm, and the hum between us blurred together—charged, alive, impossibly close—and I drank it all in.
The rain hammered down, fat drops slanting across the windshield in a relentless blur. The wipers could hardly keep up, smearing water faster than they cleared it. I leaned forward, squinting through the mess while Matilda flipped through the radio channels, her brows furrowed in concentration.
“Here we go,” she declared, as Style by Taylor Swift filled the car.
I groaned. “You can’t be serious. This? This is what you call music?”
“Yes!” she shot back, laughing. “Don’t even start—Taylor is a queen.” Then she broke out singing something about James Dean.
Shit. Matilda could sing?
Her voice filled the car, strong and beautiful, and I was floored by this hidden side of her.
“Is there any other secret you’ve kept from me?” I asked, still staring at her in shock.
“What are you talking about?” She looked at me in surprise.
“You never mentioned you could sing like that!” I barked, chuckling, still reeling.
She just punched my arm and laughed shyly in response.
“I can’t praise your music choices though,” I teased, and she gave me a mock death stare. I shook my head in mock disappointment. “Unbelievable. Out of all the songs in the world, you pick the one that makes me want to drive us straight into a ditch.”
She slapped my arm, still laughing, that sound filling the car like the sunshine she was. I laughed too, stealing a sideways glance at her, and my chest ached with something far bigger than amusement.
And then—
Headlights. Blinding. Too close. A car flying wide around the corner, crossing straight into our lane.
“Shit!” I roared, wrenching the wheel.
The world lurched sideways. Tires screamed, rubber burning against slick asphalt. The rain gave the tires no grip—we skidded out of control. I thrashed at the steering wheel, desperately trying to get control of the car. A guardrail flashed past, a crushing sound—then nothing.
We were airborne.
Everything slowed.
The sound of metal tearing apart. Glass exploding into shards. My stomach lurched as gravity flipped us end over end. Matilda’s scream tore through me—then silence as the seatbelt caught, slamming me back down. Another impact, bone-jarring. The car crunched to a stop—upside down.
Silence. Stunned. I could hear my heartbeat and my ragged breaths but nothing else. A haze fogged my mind, confusion clouding everything. Where the fuck am I? Everything hurt. Something wet dripped down my face.
Rain drummed against twisted steel. My lungs seized, desperate for air.
Blood coated my tongue, metallic and sharp.
My head throbbed. I forced my eyes open—twisted metal, cracks everywhere, smoke and rain mixing in the air.
My heart shot into overdrive as memory slammed back in. The car. The rain. We skidded, we—
I turned.
Matilda hung beside me, limp, her hair falling like a curtain, her body suspended by the belt digging into her shoulder.
“No. No, no, no…” My fingers shook as I clawed at my own buckle. It released with a snap, dropping me hard onto the roof-turned-floor. I crawled across shattered glass, ignoring the sting slicing into my arms and legs.
“Matilda—sunshine—wake up. Please.” Bile rose in my throat at the sight of her lifeless body hanging from the belt.
Her chest rose—shallow, but there. Relief nearly broke me. I fumbled with her buckle, finally clicking it free and catching her before she could fall.
“I got you, baby. I got you.”
I dragged her out through the shattered window, the rain slamming into us, cold and merciless.
“Hey!” A voice shouted from the road above. “Hey, don’t move! I’ve called an ambulance!”
“Help!” My voice cracked, raw. “Help, please!”
A man stumbled into view, pale, phone pressed to his ear.
“I’m on the phone to the ambulance—hang on!
Yeah, she’s not moving,” I heard him say down the line.
“I’m so sorry man, there was a deer in the road and I— Jesus I’m so sorry.
” He rattled on in his panicked state but I couldn’t register the words. They were just noises in the wind.
A ragged sob ripped out of me, hot tears stinging my face, mixing with the freezing rain.
I cradled Matilda against me, blood streaking my hands. A deep cut ran just above her eyebrow, the skin already bruising. The rain fell harder, washing the blood down her face in thin streams. I rocked her back and forth, lost, helpless.
“Help!” I screamed again, my voice shattering like glass.
“Don’t leave me, sunshine, please,” I whispered again and again, more pleading each time, like prayers to a god I didn’t believe in.
Then—sirens. Blue and red flooded the road above. The rain dulled the sounds, shouts echoed around me, blurred and distant.
Then I heard a knocking sound—like knuckles on a door. My chest squeezed. My lungs constricted. Darkness closed in on my vision—I couldn’t breathe. Voices rushed around me, but I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear.
And suddenly—I wasn’t here.
I was ten. Rain against the window in my childhood bedroom.
A knock at the door. Muffled voices as I made my way to the stairs and appeared down.
Police uniforms lit by flashing lights. Red and blue’s filled the hallway.
My father’s crumpling body as a police officer held him in a comforting way.
The words that ripped my world apart: drink driver.
Killed instantly. We’re sorry for your loss. My mother gone.
The memory punched through me. My chest locked. My throat closed. The two scenes bled together—the rain, the sirens, the helplessness.
“Sir, are you coming in the ambulance with your girlfriend?” a paramedic asked. My vision cleared. Matilda was strapped to a stretcher, already being loaded into the ambulance. I had no memory of them taking her from my arms.
“Do you need help, sir?” another paramedic asked, gesturing to the gash on my head. Only then did I notice my fingers covered in blood when I touched it.
I shook my head slightly, shock still coursing through me, freezing me in place.
Girlfriend. The word should have lit me up. It should have been my anchor. I wanted to shout yes—God, yes. I wanted to climb in beside her, hold her hand, never let her go.
But my legs wouldn’t move. They just wouldn’t fucking move. My body betrayed me. I stood rooted to the road, frozen. If I got in that ambulance, if I watched her fade under those same lights—I didn’t think I’d survive it.
The doors slammed shut. The siren wailed. Time passed by me, like I was a ghost watching the world move on without me.
And just like that, she was gone.
I stood there in the rain, blood running from the cuts on my face, washing from my hands onto the road beneath me. The storm swallowed me whole.
The love I’d just found was slipping away, and I’d let her go.
I just let her go—and I will never forgive myself.