Ficlets

Crossroads

I keep going back to that moment, trying every time to work out exactly what happened. We were driving home, Sara was in the passenger seat next to me, her hand nestling in the back of my neck idly stroking the hair at my nape. We were talking about the wedding; who we would invite, what the food should be. We even had a silly argument about who should DJ the party and then we were laughing about how we would need ten hours to get all of our friends a decent set.

I have driven that road so many times. I have driven it since; there should have been no surprises. We were happy, and then the car was sliding. I still don’t know what happened, but I must have lost the back wheels on some oil or perhaps some black ice – it was a cold night. Time slowed to a crawl. As I threw all of the right-hand lock on to try and get the tail back I saw the fear in her eyes. I locked her eyes with mine and tried to tell her that it would be okay. I couldn’t recover the slide, and in the moment that I knew it we hit the wall.

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