I SLAMMED ON THE BRAKES. The tires skidded and spun and screeched. My body lurched forward against the seat belt before it slammed me back again. My heart was skipping beats, my hands sweating as they gripped the rubbery steering wheel.
No impact, no crash, no screams. Those were the important things.
But there, in the center of the road, inches from my front bumper, was a girl. She had one foot planted on either side of a bicycle that looked to be just about as old as this car, with a canvas bag strapped across her body and a big fancy-looking camera hanging from a strap around her neck.
Perfectly still, she stared at me through the dirty windshield. I held my breath, waiting for her to freak out or go off on me. But she didn’t. There was something in her eyes I couldn’t read, an emotion on her face I didn’t know. Not surprise, and not fear. She was calm. I was the one who was scared—frozen scared.
She removed her hands from the handlebars and lifted the camera in front of her face—took a picture. Then she lowered the camera again, and when she looked at me, for just a second, I thought I saw the beginning of a smile get caught in the corner of her mouth. She kicked her foot against the ground and took off without so much as a word.
Shaking, I managed to turn the cumbersome vehicle around with something akin to a ten-point turn. Heading back the way I’d come, I left a wide margin of space between us as I approached her. I drifted alongside, watching her closely. She was sockless in a pair of grass-stained Converse, and I realized her pants were pajama bottoms. Underneath a faded hoodie that had “CHS” stamped across the back, her plain white tee was threadbare, like it had been washed a thousand times.
She had thick, dark hair, pulled back in a loose braid that was coming apart. Either she hadn’t planned on being seen or she just simply didn’t care. I always admired people like that; I wished I could get away with not worrying so much about what I looked like. Long dark strands of hair kept getting caught in the wind, whipping around her face and shoulders like ribbon, forcing me to notice the curve of her neck—it was long and slender. It made her look elegant, even in pajama pants.
I stuck my head out the window and opened my mouth. I was about to say sorry, to ask if she was okay, but she looked straight ahead as if I wasn’t there. In profile, her jaw was set, determined in a way that made me not want to interrupt, even to apologize. It suddenly seemed like anything I could say wouldn’t be enough anyway.
“Hey, I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine!” she yelled, without even glancing over at me.
“You’re okay?” I called out the window.
But she didn’t answer. Instead, she stood up on the pedals and pressed forward even faster.
I slowed to a stop and pulled off into the dirt by the side of the road. She looked back once as I watched her speed away. Just as she disappeared from sight, a raindrop hit the windshield.
Part of me wanted to know where she was coming from, where she was going. But I turned the car off and took a deep breath. My neck ached, and it felt like the seat belt had cut right across my shoulder and torso. I pressed my hand against my chest; my heart was still racing and I could already feel the bruises blooming up under my skin, tender and sore. They weren’t bad, not the kind that settle in your bones. The memory of those kinds of bruises stole my breath for a second, icing my skin and raising the fine hairs on my arms. With a shiver, I shoved that old thought right back where it had come from.
By the time I got back to Isobel’s, it was pouring. The three of them were still waiting on the porch when I pulled up the driveway. When they asked how the drive went, I left out the part where I almost killed someone.