97The Accident
Summary: I hadn't thought about Jessica Blake in six years, not until the day she stepped into the street right in front of my car. Please, God, let her live. And please, please don't let her remember who I used to be.
Jessica
I'm nineteen, I'm an English major, it's spring, and I'm feeling happy. Why? Because I just aced a final that was eighty percent Hemingway (who I can't stand) and twenty percent Austen (who I love.) An essay test from the toughest professor in the whole department, and I killed it. So maybe I'm not paying the greatest attention as I walk from campus toward my little garage apartment six blocks from campus. I'm wishing I wasn't too old to skip, because I feel that good, and I almost do it anyway. Instead I content myself with a springy little hop off the curb and start across the street, singing happily to myself.
And as I do, this strange feeling comes over me because something is right there in my peripheral vision and I know instantly that I should've looked for traffic and now I've blown it. I turn just in time to see the sun glare blindingly off the windshield and the car is already upon me, so close that I feel the heat from the engine. My heart beats once and my life goes into slow motion. The shriek of the brakes slamming shut assault my ears and the car starts to skid sideways but I don't even flinch because there's no time. Before I can even feel any pain, I'm moving through the air and I know I'm in big trouble. The world is a blur and there's only this strange slow flight and then all at once it speeds up impossibly fast and my head smashes into the windshield and then there's nothing.
Cory
I can't move. I'm sitting there with my hands clenched on the steering wheel and I'm shaking like a leaf. I just hit a girl and I can't breathe.
I only looked away for a second, maybe even less. I never saw her until she was right there in front of me. And the sun was so bright, right in my eyes, I tell myself, but it doesn't matter now. I hit her and she might be dead.
I make myself look in the side mirror and I see something lying in the street and I know it's her. A man approaches her and bends down, then I see his head turn toward where I sit crooked in the road. I know I've got to get out of the car but it takes me a minute before I can let go of the wheel, and then I open the door without realizing I'd reached for it. I'm somehow on my feet outside the car and I don't understand how my legs are supporting me but I take that first impossible step. People on the side of the road are looking at me and whispering, and I feel them all watching me as I walk up to her but I can't look anywhere but at the girl in the road. She's not moving and I think I'm going to have a heart attack. Then we'll both be dead, and it'll still be better than what I deserve. My legs quit on me when I reach my destination and I sink to my knees beside her. I try not to see her leg that's pointing all wrong or the trickle of blood beginning to wind its way across the pavement from underneath her head. She's curled up and her hair is covering her face. My hand reaches out and pushes the hair back and there's a sick, sharp pain in my stomach.
This has to be a nightmare. It has to, because I can't deal with the fact that I may have just killed Jessica Blake.
A/N: Okay, new story. Short chapters, alternating POVs. Different than my usual. Please let me know if you like it and want more. Thanks!