The Guardian
My hands shook as I gripped the steering wheel. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed to turn the other way. The other way! I wanted him hurt, not dead.
Maybe he wasn’t dead. I hoped he wasn’t.
I didn’t mean for it to happen like this.
I got out of my car on unsteady legs, looked both ways, then crossed the road.
It was still dark out, and the rain was coming down something fierce.
I shined my flashlight. He didn’t go too far—not all the way to the bottom.
A tree stopped his descent. I breathed a sigh of relief and then dashed back to my warm, dry car.
He was going to be fine. The universe was looking out for me. Maybe he’ll have, like, a broken arm or something. That should keep him away for a few weeks.
Soaked to the bone, my teeth chattering, I cranked the heat. Three miles down the road, I pulled over and reached for my phone. Hesitated. Can they trace the call back to me? I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth. Better not risk it.
I pulled back on the road, following the twisty Mercy River, but half a mile later I pulled over again. Fuck. I had to. I couldn’t just leave him there.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” a woman’s voice answered.
“I just saw someone drive over the cliff!” I made my voice high and panicked. “Hideaway Road.”
I hung up before she could respond. Cell phone reception here sucked, so maybe she would think we had been disconnected.
It was fine. Everyone knew the bend in Hideaway Road was dangerous.
That would be the first place they would check.
They’d find him and get him to a hospital. He was going to be fine.
Altruistic. That’s what I was. Because honestly. Why would he do that? I mean, seriously. There’s no road there, dipshit! If he had turned toward the fields like he was supposed to, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Shaking my head, I pulled back onto the road. Hopefully a patrol car or an ambulance would be cruising along here soon, and I needed to be far away when that happened. They wouldn’t understand.
But Lennon would. She would totally get why I had to do it, but I couldn’t tell her yet.
It might scare her. She didn’t know me like I knew her.
That was the whole point, why I’d had to do it.
She needed time to get to know me. And she’d need a job if she was going to make her move to Mercy River permanent.
I’d figured she’d want a job with animals—she’d always lamented that her landlord wouldn’t let her have a pet—but I’d overheard her telling Mateo that she really liked working in the kitchen. So of course I made that happen for her. That’s what guardian angels do.
And now that he was out of the way, she could stay at Mercy River as long as she wanted to.
One day, we would laugh about this.
My favorite song came on—another sign that I was on the right path. I turned it up over the roar of the rain and sang along.