Bonus Chapter 2
The night of the accident
My eyes remained locked on the receding taillights of Alessia’s car.
She was already far down the road, but I could still see her—a streak of red cutting through the darkness, growing smaller with every second.
When she’d asked me that question, my entire body had seized.
I’d stood there staring at her, unable to force a single word past my throat, unable to make my feet move while the seconds I needed most slipped through my fingers.
By the time my body finally obeyed me, her car door had slammed shut, and her engine was roaring to life.
“Alessia!”
Her name ripped out of me, cracked with panic.
She didn’t stop.
I ran after her.
I didn’t think. I didn’t care how desperate I looked or how hopeless it was. There was no way my legs could outrun a car, no way my voice could reach her through the closed windows, yet I ran anyway.
My chest heaved with every breath, my lungs burning as I pushed myself harder, chasing a car that was pulling farther away with every passing second.
She was leaving.
She was actually leaving me.
“Alessia!” I screamed again, my voice breaking beneath the desperation lodged in my throat. “Please!”
She didn’t slow down.
Her taillights grew smaller and smaller until they were nothing more than two red points disappearing into the darkness.
I kept running long after there was any hope of catching her, driven by nothing but panic, until my body finally gave out and I stumbled to a stop.
I bent forward, bracing my hands against my knees as I fought to drag air into my burning lungs.
My heart hammered violently against my ribs.
For several seconds, I could only stare at the empty road ahead, watching the darkness swallow the last trace of her.
Then the sheer stupidity of what I was doing finally broke through the panic.
I needed my keys.
I needed a car.
I needed to get to her.
I straightened and spun toward the house.
Every second I wasted was another second carrying her farther away from me, and the thought was unbearable. I couldn’t stand there and watch her vanish into the darkness. I couldn’t let fear pin me to the ground while she was out there, leaving me behind.
Seconds later, I was behind the wheel, slamming the car into gear and tearing down the road after her.
My hands locked around the steering wheel, fingers trembling so violently I could barely keep my grip. My eyes searched frantically through the darkness for the faint red glow of her taillights.
My heart pounded with the same desperate command.
Find her.
Catch her.
Stop her.
I couldn’t let those taillights become the last thing I ever saw of her.
I couldn’t let the final image burned into my mind be Alessia driving away from me while I stood there and watched her go.
I couldn’t live with that.
Couldn’t live knowing she had looked at me, given me one last chance to reach for her, and I had been too afraid to move.
Then I saw her.
Her taillights jerked violently across the road before the car lurched back into its lane.
My stomach dropped.
She was taking the corners far too fast, the car veering toward the edge before she wrenched it back beneath her control.
Each turn looked one mistake away from disaster.
One fraction of a second away from everything going horribly wrong.
“Fuck, Alessia,” I breathed, my fingers tightening around the steering wheel. “Slow down. Please. Just slow the fuck down.”
She couldn’t see properly.
She’d been crying when she left. I watched her climb into that car, her face still twisted with hurt. I’d watched her hands tremble around the steering wheel, and I’d still let her drive away.
I had stood there while the woman I loved pulled onto the road with her heart breaking because of me.
And now she was speeding through the darkness with her vision blurred, her breathing ragged, and nothing between her and catastrophe except those shaking hands.
Another corner came. Her car swung wide. My heart stopped.
“Alessia!” I screamed, slamming my palm against the steering wheel. “Jesus Christ, slow the fuck down!”
At the last second, she wrenched the car back into its lane. Her tires scraped the edge of the road before she shot forward again.
She could crash.
The thought tore through me with such force that I couldn’t breathe.
She could fucking die.
And I was the reason she was out there, terrified and hurting, her foot pressed against the accelerator. This was my fault. Every reckless turn and every tear streaking down her face was a consequence of what I’d done.
I’d pushed her into that car. Driven her to the point where getting away from me had felt easier than facing me.
I’d made her feel unloved in a hundred quiet ways. I’d chosen silence when she needed reassurance, dismissed her pain because I was so consumed by my own fucking head that I failed to see how badly she was hurting.
I’d let too many wounds go untreated, too many doubts fester between us, until all the hurt I’d left unspoken had finally become too heavy for her to carry.
My chest clenched until every breath scraped on the way in.
“I’ll give you anything.”
My voice broke, the promise dragged out between ragged breaths.
“Anything you want. Just stop the fucking car.”
She couldn’t hear me.
I knew that.
But I kept saying it anyway, gripping the wheel harder and pushing the car faster.
“Please.”
She could scream at me until her voice gave out. She could tell me she hated me. She could blame me for every hurt I’d ever caused her and refuse to forgive a single one.
She could walk away from me the moment I knew she was safe, and I would have no right to stop her.
I’d take it.
Her anger.
Her resentment.
Her hatred.
I’d stand there and let her tear me apart if that was what she needed.
I just needed her to stop.
I just needed her to be alive.
The accelerator went down hard.
The distance between us finally began to shrink, her taillights growing larger and brighter until the shape of her car emerged from the darkness instead of two distant red lights vanishing into the night.
My palm slammed against the horn.
The sound ripped through the darkness.
Her car kept moving.
Panic tightened around my chest.
I pressed the horn again, keeping it blaring until my chest ached with desperation, begging her to glance into the rearview mirror. I needed her to see the car behind her. Needed her to recognize me.
“Please, Alessia,” I whispered, my eyes locked on the back of her car. “Just look at me.”
Then headlights appeared ahead.
Two glaring beams cut through the darkness in the opposite lane.
For one second, they seemed far away. Then the vehicle swerved. It crossed the center of the road.
Straight toward her.
“Fuck!”
Her tires shrieked against the asphalt, the sound slicing straight through me as the car swerved toward the roadside.
I slammed my foot against the brake, my whole body lunging forward against the seat belt. Her car veered off the road. And before I could even process what I was seeing, it crashed into the pole.
I couldn’t make sense of it.
I stared through the windshield, my hands still locked around the steering wheel, waiting for her car to move again.
Waiting for those red taillights to jerk back into motion.
Waiting for her to pull away.
Waiting for the brake lights to flare.
Waiting for anything—anything at all—that could tell me my eyes had betrayed me.
But the car remained where it had crashed.
Twisted around the pole.
Crushed beyond recognition.
My mind refused to accept it. This couldn’t be her car. It couldn’t be the same car I’d been chasing only seconds ago. She couldn’t have gone from driving away from me to lying inside that wreckage in the space of a heartbeat.
My heart stopped before exploding against my ribs. I dragged in a breath, but it caught halfway down my throat, choking me from the inside. My fingers began trembling against the steering wheel, the shaking spreading through my hands and up my arms until I could barely keep hold of it.
For one horrible second, my entire body refused to move.
I could only stare at the wreckage ahead of me, my mind screaming her name while the rest of me remained trapped behind the wheel.
Then I shoved the door open and stumbled out, my legs buckling beneath me before I’d taken more than a step. I caught myself against the side of the car, dragging in a ragged breath that did nothing to fill the crushing emptiness in my chest.
Then I forced my trembling legs forward and ran.
“Alessia!”
I screamed her name, my voice tearing apart with panic.
“Alessia!”
I reached her door and wrenched it open so hard the hinges groaned.
She was slumped over the steering wheel, completely unconscious.
Her head was tilted at a sickening angle, her eyes closed, her body terrifyingly limp. A dark trail of blood had gathered at her hairline, matting strands of her hair before spilling down her temple and cheek.
She wasn’t moving.
“No.” I reached for her, panic tearing through me. “No, no, no.”
My hands shook so violently that I could barely work the seatbelt. My fingers slipped off the buckle again and again, clumsy with panic, until I finally managed to release it.
I caught her before she could slump forward and pulled her into my arms, gathering her against my chest with trembling hands. Her body went limp against me, offering no resistance, no irritated push, no sharp remark.
“Alessia, wake up.” I cradled her face between my hands, my thumbs brushing helplessly over her blood-streaked cheeks as I searched her closed eyes for the smallest sign of life.
“Come on, sweetheart. Please.” My voice cracked, desperation swallowing the words.
“Just for a second. Open your eyes. Look at me.” I swallowed hard, my breath catching in my throat. “Please, Alessia. Just look at me.”
There was blood everywhere.
On my hands.
On my shirt.
In her hair.
My stomach turned violently.
This couldn’t be happening.
Alessia wasn’t blood.