I should have seen this coming.
The thought came too late, after the silence, after the hollow click when the line goes dead, after the words that kept replaying in my head like a sentence being carried out.
"This isn't working."
"You're too much."
"I don't love you anymore."
Just like that. Five years reduced to a few calm, careful words, spoken in the same voice he used to say my name like it mattered.
I pulled over on the side of the road before I even realised I was doing it.
The car stopped crooked, one wheel dipping onto gravel. The engine calmed. Hazard lights blinked uselessly, orange against the dark. My hands were shaking so badly that I had to sit on them for a moment before I could reach into my bag.
I lit a cigarette.
I tried to quit a year ago. When my father died, actually. Lung cancer. The irony wasn't lost on either of us. I promised him I wouldn't end up like this, standing alone on the side of a road, inhaling poison because I don't know what else to do with the ache in my chest.
I inhaled anyway, deep, and smoke filled my lungs.
The smoke burned going down, scratching my throat raw. It didn't help. Nothing helped. My phone lay face-up on the passenger seat, dark and silent. No apology. No second call. No Are you okay?
I laughed softly. It came out broken.
First, my father. Then my mother, slowly, to grief she never crawled out of.
And now this.
I am so easy to leave.
I rested my forehead against the steering wheel and closed my eyes. The cigarette trembled between my fingers, ash falling onto my lap. I didn't bother brushing it away. The numbness is familiar now, heavy, suffocating, like sinking underwater without fighting it.
That's when I felt it.
A vibration.
I lifted my head and glanced at the rearview mirror.
Headlights. Blinding. Far too close.
For a second, my brain refused to accept what my eyes were seeing. I'm parked on the side. My hazards are on. This shouldn't be-
The headlights surged forward.
The engine's roar crashed into me a heartbeat later, deafening, furious. The truck swerved, not away from me, but toward me, massive and unstoppable.
My cigarette fell out of my fingers. My eyes went wide, "Oh my-". The impact completed the rest of the sentence. Metal screeched.
The driver's side caved in violently, folding inward like a crushed can. My body was thrown sideways as the door slammed into me with catastrophic force. Something in my skull cracked- loud, wet, final, and my vision exploded into white.
Pain flooded everything.
The seatbelt locked, jerking me back so hard my spine arched unnaturally. I felt my ribs give way one by one, snapping under the pressure, each break sharp and distinct. Air was ripped from my lungs in a strangled sound.
I can't breathe.
The car spun.
Glass burst inward, showering my face and arms. Shards embed themselves into my skin, hot and stinging. Sparks fly as metal scrapes against asphalt, the truck grinding my car along the road like it's nothing.
I looked down. I shouldn't have.
Something has pierced through my thigh. Bone jutted through torn flesh, white and slick with blood. The pain hit a second later, so intense, my vision fractured completely.
I screamed.
The sound barely registered over the noise of tearing metal.
The spinning stopped abruptly.
My head whipped forward, then back. Something in my neck gave with a sickening jolt. Blood flooded my mouth. I gagged, spitting red across the dashboard, choking on the metallic taste.
The smell reached me next.
Fuel. Smoke.
My car is folded in on itself, the steering wheel crushed into my stomach. My legs are pinned. My right foot is twisted at an impossible angle, skin split open. I can't feel my left one at all.
I fumbled at the seatbelt, fingers slick and useless with blood. It took too long. When it was finally released, I collapsed forward into the steering wheel, pain spreading through my chest so violently that I blacked out for a second. When I came back, I was sobbing, pathetic and helplessly.
My lungs wheezed uselessly. Every breath felt like inhaling glass pieces. Something gurgled wetly inside me when I inhaled, like air moving through liquid instead of lungs.
I coughed as the smoke thickened and the warm fluid flooded my mouth again. Tears and blood blurred my vision.
I saw a small spark, and fire flickered near the dashboard. "No," I rasped. My voice sounded distant to even myself.
The flames spread fast, crawling along torn wires, climbing upholstery. Heat kissed my legs first. Then it bit. Blisters broke almost instantly, splitting and peeling.
The smell-
The smell made my stomach heave. Burning hair. Burning flesh. Mine.
I clawed at the door desperately, nails scraping against twisted metal until they bent back, snapping. I barely feel it anymore. The fire climbed higher, devouring what's left of my lower body.
I thought about my father's hospital room. The way my ex didn't even sound sorry. The quiet certainty that no one is coming.
The flames reached my chest. Pain erupted, so vast it consumed the thought itself. The last thing I smelled was myself, burning. My consciousness disappeared as everything went black.
---
A hard slap landed on my cheek, snapping my face to the left before I even realised what was happening.
Pain exploded across my face. My vision blurred, and my hands loosened around whatever I had been holding. Something clattered to the floor at my feet.
What…?
This isn't a hospital.
I was standing. Not lying down. My knees trembled, barely holding me up. The ground beneath me was cold stone, rough against my bare feet. My arms ached, sore in a way that felt old, familiar, like they had been working for hours.
A woman stood in front of me.
Her hand was still raised, fingers tight, her expression twisted in pure disgust. She looked down at me like I was dirt under her shoe.
I didn't know who she was. But my body reacted before my mind could.
My shoulders hunched. My head lowered. My heart raced with a fear that didn't belong to me.
"I told you to be careful," she snapped.
"Do you know how much that cost?" Her eyes flicked to the floor. I followed her gaze.
A broken bowl. Water is spreading across the stone. Pieces scattered, useless.
My chest tightened. I didn't drop it.
"I- I…" My mouth moved on its own, voice small, shaky. "I'm sorry." The words came too easily.
The woman let out a sharp laugh. "Sorry?" She stepped closer. "You think sorry fixes everything?"
My cheek still burned. My fingers curled inward, nails biting into my palms. I could feel it now, the weight of this body. Too light. Too thin. Too used to being hit.
This doesn't feel like a dream. This is... real.
--
The woman kept yelling. Her voice was sharp, cutting into me as she went on about the broken bowl, about carelessness, about how useless I was. The words blurred together, but the anger didn't.
Then someone else came closer.
A little girl, no older than eight, stepped into my view. She hovered near the doorway, hands twisting together nervously. She looked scared. Not of me. Of the woman.
"Mother," the girl said softly. "Elise didn't do anything… Samuel spilt the water. Elise just cleaned after him."
She didn't lift her head. Her fingers fidgeted, tugging at the hem of her dress.
The woman turned sharply. "Bethany," she said. Her tone changed, still firm, but suddenly gentle. Controlled. "Go back to your room. Now."
The girl flinched. "Yes, Mother," she whispered, and hurried away without another word.
Elise.
Samuel.
Bethany.
The names echoed inside my head, strange and familiar at the same time.