Smashed by Lisa Luedeke Page A

felt thick in my mouth. Suddenly I was so tired. Alec looked pissed off. And for the first time, it hit me that we were all alone at Haley Pond. Everyone had gone.
    His arms were around me before I could stop him, his tongue pressing into my mouth. I pushed my arms against him and tried to twist my face away from his, but he followed my moves with his own. When he finally pulled his mouth off of mine, it was when he was ready. I had to get myself together and get out of there.
    “Let’s get in the car,” he said, reaching for the back door handle.
    “Let’s go back to my house, dry off, hang out where it’s comfortable.” My words tripped together in a hurry to get out. Alec eyed me with suspicion. Staying calm was the only thing that would get me out of this. I fixed my eyes on his. “What do you say? You know how my mom is. She won’t care—she won’t be there. She’s working tonight.” I tried to smile.
    Alec stared down at me for a moment without blinking. “Getting comfortable sounds good.”
    “Great,” I said. “It’s a mud pit here. Mind if I drive?” I got in the driver’s side again without waiting for his reply. I was starting to feel better just knowing in fifteen minutes I’d be home and in my own bed, with Alec and this night far behind me. I’d figure out a way to get rid of him once we got to my house.
    Another wave of nausea hit me as I wiped my hand across the foggy windshield. “Any beers left back there?”
    Alec reached behind the seat, pulled out a brown bottle, and handed it to me. I twisted off the top and took a sip, just enough to get the lingering taste of bile out of my mouth. I took a few gulps and handed it back to Alec. “You can finish it.”
    He killed it and tossed the bottle out the window as our wheels spun on the dirt and we took off into the night.

11
    It is a dream with no end—a deep, painful sleep.
    There is nothing outside it, nothing beyond it. It is all there is in the world: darkness.
    Struggling to get out of the black, I will my eyelids to open. All they do is flutter and snap shut. It hurts too hard to try.
    A quick vision—a dream beyond the darkness: my body on pavement, at the base of a brick wall. There I am now, lying flat—so still, so far away. How can I be here and there? And where is here? My memory is in pieces: a jigsaw puzzle broken and scattered across the floor. There is no gathering up the pieces or fitting them together.
    For an instant, my eyes open. A thin ridge of pink light spreads across a night sky. Morning.
    Then everything is gone.
    *     *     *
    A pale morning sun lights the scene. In front of me, a dashboard, a steering wheel. A large pine tree fixed against a car’s hood.The tree trunk has jammed in the metal and folded it up like an accordion. Part of the windshield is broken; shattered crystal spreads outward like a spider’s web.
    My shirt is bloody, my shoulder wet. Fresh red liquid oozes out from under layers of dark blood that have already dried. I don’t connect it to me. It is like a picture on television when you first click it on and you don’t know what the program is or what’s going on.
    Nothing is real. I can’t touch it, can’t feel it.
    I sleep.
    *     *     *
    A jolt of fear wakes me.
    The car is sunk deep in the trees. Alec’s car. And I am in it.
    An image of Haley Pond flashes by. Then more images—but they are quick snapshots, not a story: Alec kissing me. Puking on my knees in the woods. Rain.
    The memories explode then; the fragments burst into place. The party, the tequila, driving away from the pond. My pulse begins to race. My head pounds. I am seeing it—really seeing it—for the first time. We are in the woods, the car rammed into a tree trunk—totaled, wrecked, destroyed. Branches, leaves, twigs, and bushes are shoved up against the side windows. My shoulder is badly cut, and a sharp pain in my breast jabs with every breath. Carefully, I move my hand to touch it.