It was night. Dark. Lara rested her head on the window and looked up at the motorway lights, flashing past in a regular rhythm. It was comforting, added to the content, fulfilled feeling she had after a week’s half-term holiday. They’d been to Cornwall and even though it was October, it had been unseasonably warm; the sun had shone every day.
It was quiet because it was so late. Only a few other cars passed them. And lorries, there were quite a few lorries, getting their goods to their final destination. Lara liked to look at the number plate country codes. Think of holidays in European lands: Holland, Spain, France. She remembered a trip to Brittany on the ferry a couple of years ago. They had eaten lots of crepes. Played as a family on the beach.
When she saw the lorry move across the lane, she thought it was overtaking at first. But it kept on coming. Closer and closer. Getting bigger and bigger. And then its huge thundering bulk was towering over their small car and it was impossible to get away. They were between the lorry and the crash barrier, and the lorry struck the passenger side of their car.
She’d never heard a sound like it. It was deafening, ripping at her ears. Buckling metal, crushed so that it filled the seat that was there, squeezing her dad with it as it concertinaed inwards.
Then screaming.
Lara’s body was shaking from the impact. She was winded, confused. There was a pain in her neck from where it had whipped forward. Now everything had stopped. The lorry seemed to have become a part of their car. Fused itself to the front passenger section. Then she saw something in the footwell. A dark liquid pooling. With a shock she realized it was blood. She could smell it now. She reeled and felt herself gag. She was going to be sick.
Then she heard the sirens.
Later, Lara always asked herself the same questions. What had gone through his mind when the lorry hit them? Was he scared? Did he feel the impact? What was it like for him when he died?
When Rosie had teased her about drowned straw bears on the water, that day of her birthday party when they were all paddleboarding, Lara tried to ignore her at first. Paddled away so she didn’t have to hear Rosie’s words stinging her ears, but Rosie followed, taunting her again and again.
In Rosie’s attempt to catch up with Lara, she threw her oar across, lost her balance and fell in. Lara watched her plummet beneath the surface in fascination. Such a violent sinking. When Rosie tried to come up, Lara lay across her board, reached out a hand and held it on the top of Rosie’s head. She watched the bubbles escape frantically, bursting on the surface, watched Rosie’s arms flail in panic. What was going through her mind? What was it like to die?
She stared, wondering.
Then Rosie’s struggle seemed to weaken. She wasn’t thrashing her arms about so much.
Lara was suddenly frightened. Jolted by a memory: the shock of loss. The awful reality of it.
She removed her hand. Raised it upwards and shouted for help.