“No!” I spin around, my hair whipping myself on the face. But I welcome the pain. Anything to distract from the ache I’m feeling inside. I shake my head, staring at him. I can’t believe he would do this to me. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry I hit you with a car! I’d say it a thousand times to you, Jez, if I thought it would give either of us any peace. I’m sorry! I am! I’m never going to forgive myself for what happened! But it was an accident. I would never have done anything to hurt you on purpose. Never! But I guess you can’t say the same. So, fuck. You. I don’t deserve your sick and fucked up punishment.”
The tears are hot and heavy as they stream, never-ending, down my face.
They drip over my lips as I speak, salt in the wounds, as they say.
When I’m done, I pivot back to the house, but his hand is in mine again. Pulling me back to him, and into his arms.
Why won’t he just let me go?
“Shhhh, baby. Shhh.” He rasps against my hair as I let him hold me. Because I can’t walk away. “Noemie. I know. I know you would never hurt me on purpose. And I can’t believe you would think I would hurt you.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I’m here, to show you… that you didn’t hurt me. Ever.”
I pull back, looking into his face, looking for clues as to what he’s saying.
“You didn’t hurt me,” he repeats, his fingertips are cool as they run down my cheek, brushing my tears away. Then he turns and faces the house.
“Did she, Paige?”
Paige just stands there, looking back at him, before she shrugs. “I’m sure she didn’t mean to. Like she said, it was an accident.”
“Oh, I do believe it was an accident. But it wasn’t Noemie’s, was it?”
What is he talking about? My mind is so foggy, I can’t understand what he’s saying.
He turns back to me, and his eyes are soft, warm, genuine. Like they always were. And they’re trying to tell me something. But I just don’t understand.
“What are you trying to say, Jez? I… I don’t understand.”
He gives me a gentle smile and cups my cheek in his hand. The touch, so intimate, makes the tears well up in my eyes again. And I bite back a sob.
“You tell her, or I will,” he says, his eyes on me.
“Tell her what?” I ask, even more confused now.
“Not you, sweetheart. Paige. Paige has something to tell you.”
I look past him, to my best friend on the stairs. She’s backing up, shaking her head.
“No.” Her voice is shaking.
“Last chance, Paige,” Jez says, his voice firm, steady.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then I’m sorry. Your chance is over.”
I see Sebastian in the corner of my eye step behind Paige, in front of the door as if blocking her.
The other guys move to join in.
What in hell is going on?
“Will someone fucking tell me what is going on!”
Jez takes my hands in his and I let him. I can’t even focus on that part yet, I just need to know what’s going on.
“Do you recognize that car?” he gestures with his head to the side of the road.
“No, not really.” I shake my head. “I mean, it’s a Dodge Viper, that’s all I know. Should I recognize it?”
“It’s the car that hit me.”
“What?” I pull away, recoiling from the side of the road. Trying to get away from the vehicle.
“Whoa, whoa. It’s okay, honey. It’s okay. It’s not the exact car, just a similar one.”
“The car I was driving…”
“No. That’s just it, Noemie, you never drove that car.”
“Well, yeah, not that one…”
“Nope, not even one remotely like it. That… is a Dodge Viper 2017. That car only ever came in a manual model. Ever.”
He looks at me, like that should mean something. Like he just gave me the winning numbers to a billion-dollar lottery.
I frown.
It obviously means something.
I turn over his words in my head.
Wait.
That’s why I couldn’t drive it before. Not because I’ve forgotten how to drive but because… oh my god.
“I… I don’t know how to drive a stick,” I say. Each word of my revelation takes its time to process.
He nods, a smile spreading wide across his face.
“Wait. So… I couldn’t have been driving that night.”
“No, baby. You couldn’t have.”
“And if I wasn’t driving… then I didn’t…”
“You didn’t hit me. You didn’t get in the car drunk. And you didn’t cause my injuries and even more importantly, you didn’t cause yours.”
All I can do is blink.
It’s starting to make sense but not make any sense at the same time.
I understand his words, but not how they could be accurate.
“I… I couldn’t have been driving,” I say it again, trying to believe it. “I can’t drive a stick.” I look at him, he’s nodding, giving me time, space to process. “But… how do you know that?”
“You told me. That night.”
“That night?”
“Yes, the night of your birthday. You told me you couldn’t drive a stick. Actually, you said you couldn’t ride a stick.” He chuckles, and there’s something misty in his eyes, like he’s reliving the moment. A moment, I have no recollection of.
“I told you that?”
“Yeah.”
“And you remember?”
“I told you, I remember everything. Every word. Every touch.”
For a moment, I let my heart indulge in the need to be close to him. And then my mind pulls us back to reality.
“So, if I wasn’t driving… then what happened? Who did?”
His smile fades, and his eyes turn sad.
“I’m so sorry, but…”
“No.” Paige speaks up and she takes the steps down to us. “Let me tell her.”
Her eyes are red and wet as she reaches out to touch my shoulder. Her lower lip quivers and she bites down on it.
“Paige…”
She just looks at me, blinking, releasing the tears to fall down her cheeks.
And it dawns on me.
“No…”
Her lips clamp down on each other, like she’s holding back the words, but her eyes tell me everything.
“I’m so sorry,” she sobs, her hands coming up to cover her face.
I pull her hands away. “What did you do, Paige? What did you do?”
“I’m so sorry!”
I grab her by the shoulders and shake her, the blood thumping in my ears. “Stop saying that and tell me what you did!”
“That night… that night, you didn’t realize until we were in the car that I’d… I’d had a few drinks. And you were trying to get me to stop. But I wouldn’t let you. You kept yelling at me to stop. I didn’t… I didn’t see him. I swear, I didn’t see him!”
“Oh my god.”
“It just all happened so fast. After… after he… got hit by the car, I lost control of it and hit the pole. When I came to, I checked and you were out. And there was nothing I could do, I promise, I checked! I couldn’t do anything to help you at that point. And I knew, I knew I’d be in so much trouble with the police, I had had too many drinks. But I didn’t think you had!” She looks past me, her eyes wild, not focusing, like she’s reliving it in her head. Reliving the horror. “So… so I swapped places with you. And when the paramedics came, I… I pretended I was just coming to.”