Damn his soft heart. He shouldn’t have called Jenna back.

Charlie steered his truck up the switchbacks to his cabin, his passenger seat crammed with bags of groceries from town. The late afternoon sun flashed sideways through the trees, hitting his eyes like a strobe light. Guitars screeched out of his speakers from a radio station fading out of range. He checked his rear view mirror and took a swig from a can of beer.

Fuck her. Why can’t she leave me alone?

He should have ignored her. Eddie had told him she was trying to get hold of him. The whole point of being out here was to be away from phones, away from her. But Jenna was trying to reach him, and he missed her sometimes, and Eddie had a phone, and who knew when he’d be near one again.

The sun blinded him as he curved to the west. He adjusted the sunshade and took another swig from his can.

She was crying by the end of the call. Said it wasn’t his fault, none of it. It was the booze, if they could just get off it—but he could tell she’d been drinking. He wouldn’t go back to that life; and why would she want him anyway? No, he couldn’t go back. Didn’t matter whether the poison was Seattle, the alcohol, or her. Wasn’t any separating the three, she’d pretty much proven that over the phone just now.

Charlie swerved back into his lane. He had to slow down anyway; the switchbacks got tighter from here on in. He’d driven the road dozens of times by now, but you can’t get too cocky driving next to a sheer drop of a couple hundred feet.

She was probably still crying, for all he knew. He was a drunk bastard when they were together and a heartless bastard for leaving. Trapped at bastard. He tipped the can up to his lips and drained it before tossing it into a grocery bag and easing a fresh beer out of its plastic harness.

Charlie looked up and edged back into his lane again. He checked his rear view mirror and tucked the can between his legs to pop it open. No matter how far away he got from her, it wasn’t enough. Fucking crazy bitch, why did she even want him back, after what he did that night, the night they fought and he pushed her too hard. The night she fell and, days later, lost their unborn daughter.

She never told anyone the whole story. And no one ever asked. He hadn't touched a drop since then. Until now.

Charlie’s truck wasn’t holding the curve. Panic cut through the fog in his head. He jerked the wheel to the left but it was too late. His pickup skidded over the shoulder and he was airborne.

An instant later, he was engulfed in his airbag. He couldn’t say he’d felt the first impact—it was too fast—but he felt another one, then a third and a fourth, each one smaller than the last. As his airbag deflated, his head flopped back and forth with the truck’s movement and his groceries danced around the cab. The truck rocked to a halt.

Dazed, he tested his arms and legs to make sure he was in one piece. His pants were wet, from beer or piss or both. The radio had gone quiet. Everything was still. For the first time since his tires had left the road, he focused on the mass of green outside.

Through the cracks in his front windshield, to the back, to the sides, nothing but pine needles. Where the hell was he? He unlatched the door, but it only opened a sliver. He stuck a foot out. If he could get one leg out, he could squeeze—his foot dipped up and down, finding nothing solid. He pulled it back in and looked down through the slice of open door. There were another hundred feet of branches between him and the ground below.

The crinkle of grocery bags broke the silence; the truck began to tip again. Charlie grabbed at the steering wheel, the ceiling, the dash, fumbling for something steady. As he looked out the windshield, he realized the truck wasn’t falling out of the tree—it was falling with the tree. The pine was tipping over, leaning in to the one next to it. He braced himself against the wheel, but just before what would have been impact, the tree he was tangled up in slowed down. It leaned against its neighbor, lowering his truck into the second pine’s branches. Then, slowly, creaking and popping, the second tree arced over and leaned into a third. His truck jostled from one tree to another, each time a little closer to the earth.

Charlie’s head began to tingle. He was hyperventilating, he had to slow down his breathing or he would pass out. He must be hallucinating right now.

The vehicle came to a halt ten feet from the ground in a mass of tree limbs and needles. Charlie’s whole body was tensed, waiting. This might be his best chance to get out. He tested the door gingerly, freezing as the branch bobbed with the shift in weight. As soon as everything stabilized, he rolled down the window and climbed out onto the limb. There was another branch below him, within reach. Carefully, he followed a tenuous path of limbs, letting go of the last one five feet from the bottom. He stumbled backward as his feet hit the ground, landing painfully onto his back.

Charlie lay still, wincing and sucking in air while waiting for the pain to subside. He was alive. He shouldn’t be, but he was. A needle fell on his forehead, then another. He opened his eyes and looked up into the undercarriage of his truck. A small shower of needles pelted him. With a start, he scrambled to his feet. A loud pop grew into a series of snaps and creaks, and he ran. He turned around just in time to see his truck slip from the pine’s hold and crash to the ground.

Charlie began to tremble. The last rays of sunlight shimmered gold between the trees, surrounding him, illuminating the cloud of dust his truck had stirred up. He walked stiffly to the vehicle and freed his backpack from the scramble of glass and food in the cab. His hands were shaking so hard he could barely unzip the bag. He grabbed his emergency radio and flicked the switch. The familiar red light and warbling bleep made him weak with relief.

“Eddie?” he called. “Eddie?

He felt dizzy. He sat down with the radio in the darkening forest.

“Come in, Eddie. I need some help.”

Charlie eased himself onto his back. He looked up into the dark grey branches crisscrossing against the twilight sky. He could just close his eyes and wake up from this crazy dream where drunk people drove off cliffs and got saved by trees.

“Charlie!” barked the radio.

He jerked and sat up, sending his head whirling.

“What’s going on?” asked Eddie.

This was real, the crash and the trees.

“Charlie, come in. Where the hell are you?”

Charlie described his location, and Eddie told him to sit up and stay awake until help arrived. Charlie sat and waited, trying to piece together how he’d survived the fall. He looked up into the sky. The first stars of evening peeked out from between the black lace of canopy. Charlie closed his eyes. He was spinning in blackness.