When We Collide Read Online Free PDF Page B

reaction, the small dose of joy mixed
with what I now recognized as suffocating grief. I’d felt it
myself, the helplessness, the impending loss. I could only imagine
how much greater it was for my mother.
    “I’m going to sit with her for a while…make sure
she’s comfortable for the night. Can you get yourself settled?” She
drew her brows tight, almost as if she were bracing herself for my
answer. “You are…staying?”
    I knew what she was asking. Not whether I was
staying the night. She was well aware my things were in my
room.
    She was asking for a commitment, for a promise that
I wouldn’t suddenly disappear from her life, the way I had done six
years before.
    My head was tilted down and my hands were stuffed in
my pockets while I looked at my mother beneath the hedge of hair
hanging over my eyes. It was the best I could do to expose myself
and hide all at the same time. “Yeah. I’m staying.”
     
    ~
     
    I collapsed facedown onto my old bed in a heap of
exhaustion, my body weary from the long hours of travel, my mind
and soul broken and filled with loss.
    I’d wasted so much time.
    The sheets were cool against my skin. I pressed my
palm flat on the mattress where she had lain the first time
I made love to her. I could almost remember how soft her hair had
been as I wound it between my fingers. Could feel the sting of her
fingertips digging into my back. Could see the love and trust
overflowing in her eyes as she stared back up at me.
    Suffocated by her lingering presence, I pulled the
covers tight over my body, buried myself in the pile of sheets and
blankets to protect myself from the cold seeping in through the
cracks of the old, drafty house. Gusts of wind knocked at the
windows and clattered the panes. Forcing my eyes closed, I
struggled to shut off my head full of memories. Just for one night,
I needed to rest. I’d face everything else tomorrow.
    The fatigue that had chased me for months hit me in
waves, and I sank deeper, fell further.
    Drifted.
     
    Desperation pushed William forward.
    Howling wind cut through the trees, beat against his
chest as he plodded through the deserted playground. Squalls swept
low as they rushed over his body, opposing every arduous step.
Swings flapped and rocked, metal scraping metal, shrill and
high.
    Laughter came from what sounded like every
direction. Confusion ignited his fear.
    In the middle of the grounds, William fell to a
standstill. Ramming his hands against his ears, he squeezed his
eyes closed and screamed for it to stop. The sound was devoured by
the driving wind. With his hands urgent against his ears, William
spun in a circle while his world spun faster. The child’s laughter
coiled in ribbons around his body. Wept against his skin.
    The boy screamed, begged, and cried into the
night.
    William dropped to his knees.
     
    I flailed in the small bed, my legs twisted in the
blankets. The room spun as I lurched to sitting in my fight for
consciousness.
    No . This was supposed to stop when I got back
home. It had to stop.
    I wheezed as I sucked desperately for any air I
could find. The wailing was still just as clear. The sound slipped
through the thin walls, ripped and agonized.
    Not the child.
    I shoved my panic aside and stilled to listen to the
torment coming from the next room.
    “Shit,” I whispered as I untangled myself from the
blankets and climbed from bed, quiet as I crept out the door.
    A lamp shone bright from Blake’s old room, slicing
into the darkness of the hall.
    From the doorway, I watched my mother falling apart
over my aunt’s lifeless body. My father held her from behind,
promising against her ear it would be all right, that Lara was at
peace, while my mother clutched her sister’s hand and begged her
not to leave.
    I turned away and pressed my back against the wall.
I slid down onto the cold hardwood floor and buried my face in my
hands. Wetness seeped from my eyes.
    Fifty-seven years old.
    Life was hardly fair.

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