“River, no…”
I yanked at the handle, but the metal was warped, the sidemirror gone. Sagging against the door, I reached inside the broken window and took River’s hand in mine. He was limp, unmoving.
“Please…wake up. River, wake up…”
Tears blurred my vision as I fumbled my other hand in my coat pocket for my phone. The screen was cracked but it still worked. With a trembling thumb, I dialed 9-1-1 and put it to my ear. Taking off my coat with my phone in it before I walked into the fucking ocean was the only thing I’d done right the whole night.
“9-1-1, what is your emergency?”
“There’s been an accident. It’s bad. Hurry, please.”
“Where are you?”
I fell back against the door, staring around the darkened forest and the ocean beyond, hopeless panic rising as I struggled to remember a road sign…anything.
This is my fault. And he’s going to die…
“I don’t know… On the 1, eastbound.” Then a flash of memory cut across the dark night. “We passed a sign… Wilder Ranch.”
“Okay, stay on the line with me. I’m sending emergency response to your location. Is anyone injured?”
I gripped River’s hand tighter. “Yes. He won’t wake up. Please, hurry… Please.”
“Is he breathing?”
“Barely. I can’t open the door.”
“He’s trapped in the vehicle?”
“Yes…” Tears slipped down my cheeks in burning tracks of heat, and I watched River’s chest rise and fall. I let go of his hand long enough to feel for his pulse. Faint and erratic, but it was there. But the blood coming from his ear…
“Please, fucking hurry…”
“Okay, help is on the way, sir. Stay on the line with me.”
The phone dropped back into my pocket from nerveless fingers. There was nothing she could tell me. River was trapped inside, and I was locked outside and all I could do was hold his hand and beg him not to leave me.
After what felt like hours, sirens broke through the quiet. Firetrucks, police, and an ambulance arrived. The night sky was painted in syrupy blues and reds. White light flooded the cab of the truck, making the trickle of blood coming out of River’s ear look black against his pale skin.
Officers and EMTs surrounded me, and I was forced to let go of his hand. A police officer led me away, shining a flashlight in my face.
“Have you been drinking, son?”
“Me, but not him. There was a deer…”
“Uh huh. Come over here with me.”
He took hold of my upper arm and gently guided me to the side of the road where I sat down hard, hands dangling from my knees. My eyes drifted again and again to the team working to pry the door open and get to River. The cold was surging back in, making me numb.
If he dies…
A small pained sound escaped me, my body wracked with shivers.
“What happened tonight?” the officer asked. He had a kind but serious face. His nametag said Tran.
Another officer with a nametag reading Dowd, loomed over me, a sneer curling his lips. “Why are your clothes wet?”
“I took a swim,” I said, my teeth chattering.
“A swim?” Dowd asked. He snorted. “You trying to kill yourself?”
Officer Tran shot him a look. “Easy.”
I shook my head. “I did what they taught me to do.”
My gaze drifted back to the mangled wreck of the truck and the EMTs who were putting River’s motionless body on a stretcher. His neck was in a brace, an oxygen mask covering his mouth.
“My fault,” I whispered. “It’s all my fault.”
“You hurt anywhere?” Officer Tran asked gently.
“No,” I muttered with a harsh, rasping laugh. “What a joke. A sick fucking joke.”
Aside from minor burns on my cheek from the airbag, there wasn’t a scratch on me. But River was being loaded into an ambulance. Unconscious. Maybe brain damaged. Or paralyzed. He might be dead already while I was breathing and walking and alive.
This is wrong. All wrong. It should be me…
The cops asked me more questions, my name and age, and then the ambulance was pulling away…
“Wait.” I scrambled to my feet. “Wait, I have to go with him. Please…”
Dowd held out an arm and shoved me back down. “You’re not going anywhere.” He grimaced. “You look mighty broken up. That your boyfriend, son?”
I peered up at him. Dowd. “Frankie Dowd.”
“That’s my boy, yeah. You got something you want to say about him?”
Officer Tran joined us with an EMT. He knelt in front of me. “We’re going to take you to the hospital too, okay? But first let’s get you checked out. Then you can be with your friend.”
An EMT sat with me and gave me what I presumed was a concussion test. I passed with flying colors and they shuffled me into the front seat of Tran’s squad car. We tore down the road, the ambulance ahead of us, sirens screaming and red lights flashing.
When we arrived at UCSC Medical Center, River had already been wheeled inside and whisked away to God-knew where. Officer Tran took my arm and led me into a waiting area. He and a few other cops conferred, trying to figure out what to do with me.
“Is there someone we can call for you?” he asked.
“No. But River… We have to tell his dad. Oh, Christ…” I bent over, my head between my knees as dizziness assaulted me.
“We have his ID,” Officer Tran said gently. “His parents have been notified.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “What about you, son? How about getting you some warm clothes—?”
I shook out of his touch and stood up. “I need to use the restroom.”
He nodded at the hallway in the bustling hospital.
