The last thing I remembered was metal screaming.
My car spinning.
A stranger outside the broken window shouting, “Stay with me. Help is coming.”
Then nothing.
Now my mother sat near the window with her phone in her lap, looking at me the way she used to look at long checkout lines at the grocery store — annoyed, inconvenienced, already sure someone else had made her day harder on purpose.
Tessa stood at the foot of my bed, studying the bruises on my face like they were bad makeup.
“So dramatic,” she said. “You totaled your car for cracked ribs and a sprain?”
My mother laughed under her breath without even looking up.
That laugh hurt worse than my ribs.
I wanted to ask if either of them had been scared. I wanted to ask whether they had called anyone, whether they had waited in the ER staring at the double doors, whether my mother had prayed the way she always claimed mothers did when their daughters were in danger.
