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More than anything, Zoey wanted to wake up.
She wanted this to be a dream—a nightmare, really. One where a white pickup truck appeared out of nowhere and slammed into the driver’s side of her car at 50 miles per hour. One where the entire world lurched sideways, where her body snapped with the force of it, where everything became noise and motion and terror.
But dreams didn’t feel like this.
Dreams didn’t recreate the brutal, stomach-dropping instant before impact. They didn’t capture the shriek of metal folding in on itself, glass rattling in its frame, or the violent pop of an airbag exploding from the side of the door.
It had taken less than a second.
A fraction of a second for an ordinary drive to become a wrecked car, a ringing head, and a heart beating so hard it hurt.
Zoey stood outside her car because she had forced herself out of it—though she barely remembered doing that. The driver’s-side door had been mangled inward, the metal warped and scraped white against the paint. She’d shoved, pulled, and squeezed through the opening with shaking hands, fueled by nothing but the instinct to get away.
Now she stared at the damage and felt reality settle over her.
Hard.
She had been hit.
People started gathering around her almost immediately. A woman in a cardigan kept asking whether Zoey was okay. Someone else had called 911. A man stood nearby, speaking too loudly, telling her to sit down, to breathe, to not move too much.
Zoey heard them, but their words reached her through a strange, muffled distance.
All she could think about were the things waiting for her after this: insurance calls, police reports, towing fees, repairs—or worse, the possibility that her car was totaled. Doctor visits. Bills. The awful possibility that she would wake up tomorrow unable to turn her neck without pain.
Her thoughts kept racing ahead while her body stood frozen in the present.
“Two police cars were already chasing him,” someone told her.
Then another person repeated it, as if saying it enough times would make it comforting.
“They were right behind that truck. They got him.”
Zoey nodded because she thought she was supposed to, but it didn’t make her feel better. Not really. It gave her a thin, distant sense that there would be consequences—that the person who had done this would not simply disappear down the road—but justice did nothing to stop her hands from trembling.
Zoey looked down at herself again.
No blood. No deep cuts. No obvious broken bones.
That should have been reassuring.
Instead, it made her feel worse.
Her left arm tingled from shoulder to fingertips, and one side of her ribs ached whenever she took a full breath. The side airbag had exploded beside her with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs, leaving a tender, burning ache along her shoulder and hip.
“I think I’m okay,” Zoey said, though her voice came out thin and unconvincing.
The woman beside her gave her a careful look. “You should still get checked out, honey.”
“I know.” Zoey swallowed. Her mouth was dry. “I just—I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
It was blisteringly hot outside. The kind of heat that pressed down on her shoulders and left sweat gathering at the back of her neck. Her wrecked car sat crooked near the intersection, the driver’s-side door crushed in, hazard lights clicking uselessly against the bright afternoon sun.
A few strangers hovered nearby. Some kept a respectful distance. Others looked like they wanted to help but didn’t know how.
Neither did Zoey.
Someone had offered her a bottle of water. She held it without drinking from it, her fingers wrapped too tightly around the plastic. Every sound felt sharper than it should have—the rush of cars being diverted around the accident, voices overlapping, an engine idling somewhere too close.
A car slowed near the curb. The driver rolled down her window, looked at the wreck, then held out a tiny Jesus figurine.
“Here, sweetheart,” she said. “He’ll keep you safe.”
Zoey blinked at the figurine.
“Oh,” she said. “Okay.”
She took it because apparently that was what you did when someone handed you Jesus after a car accident.
“Thank you.”
The driver nodded, satisfied, and pulled back into traffic.
Zoey stared down at the tiny painted face in her palm. Her car was crushed. Her arm tingled. She was sweating through her shirt. And now she had Jesus.
She tucked him carefully into her pocket because she did not know what else to do.
Her phone buzzed in her hand.
Zoey looked down at the screen, blinking at it as though the words took effort to understand.
Her phone started ringing before she had time to lock the screen.
Rumi’s name filled it.
Zoey answered, but all she managed was, “Hi.”
“Zoey?” Rumi’s voice was tight, breathless around the edges. Not panicked exactly. Trying very hard not to be. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. My arm feels weird.”
“Okay. Try not to move around too much, okay? Just stay with someone until I get there. Are there people with you?”
“Yeah. A bunch of people. Somebody called 911 for me.”
“Good,” Rumi said, quickly, like she needed Zoey to hear it. “Good. I’m coming to you. I’m leaving now.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t,” Rumi cut in, not harshly. Her voice softened almost immediately. “But I’m coming anyway. Stay where you are, okay? Text me if anything changes.”
The call ended, and Zoey kept the phone pressed to her ear for a moment after the line went quiet.
Then she stood there and waited.
It felt like forever.
The police still hadn’t arrived, and if an ambulance had been dispatched, it wasn’t there yet. The heat climbed higher, turning the pavement into something that seemed to radiate through the soles of Zoey’s shoes. Her shirt stuck to her back. Her arm still tingled. Her side hurt. Every few minutes, someone asked if she wanted to sit down, and every time Zoey said no.
Sitting down felt too much like admitting something was wrong.
A man who had witnessed the crash stood a few feet away, talking to someone on his phone. Another woman kept glancing between Zoey and the damaged car, her expression pinched with sympathy.
“They were chasing that truck,” the woman said again. “Two cop cars. They were already after him. I don’t know why he came through here like that.”
Zoey nodded, even though the explanation didn’t make anything easier.
The truck had still hit her.
Eventually, a familiar car pulled up farther down the street, guided into an open spot by the blocked traffic and people standing near the curb. Rumi got out quickly—not running into traffic or making a scene, just moving with the single-minded urgency of someone who had spent the entire drive imagining the worst.
She looked at the crushed driver’s side first.
Then she looked at Zoey.
For one second, Rumi stopped.
Her face changed in a way Zoey couldn’t quite name. Fear, relief, anger, all tangled together. Her eyes looked glassy, but she blinked hard, pulled herself together, and crossed the remaining distance.
“Hey,” Rumi said.
That was all at first.
Zoey’s throat tightened. “Hey.”
Rumi reached for her, hesitated for half a second, and then pulled Zoey into her arms when Zoey’s face crumpled. Not hard enough to hurt her—just close, both arms around her shoulders and back, her grip tightening for a second like she needed proof Zoey was actually standing there.
Zoey folded into her before she could stop herself.
The water bottle slipped from her hand and hit the pavement with a soft plastic crack. Rumi didn’t seem to notice. Her cheek pressed against Zoey’s hair, and Zoey could feel how fast her heart was beating.
“I’m sorry,” Zoey said, though she didn’t know what she was apologizing for.
“No.” Rumi’s voice shook once. She cleared her throat. “No, don’t. Don’t do that.”
She pulled back just enough to look at her.
Rumi’s eyes were wet. Not crying exactly, but close. Her gaze moved over Zoey’s face, then down to her arms, her shoulders, the side of her body. Like she was checking for blood without wanting Zoey to notice she was checking.
“You scared me,” Rumi said quietly.
“I know.”
“I got your text and it was just—” Rumi stopped, swallowing. “I didn’t know what I was going to see when I got here.”
Zoey looked down.
Rumi gently caught her chin between her fingers, not forcing her to look up, just keeping her close. “Hey. You’re here.”
Then she kissed her.
It wasn’t a sweeping, movie kind of kiss. It was brief and a little uneven, Rumi’s lips pressing to hers like a question, like relief had gotten there before either of them knew what to say. When she pulled away, her forehead rested against Zoey’s for a second.
“You’re here,” Rumi repeated, quieter this time.
Zoey let out a shaky laugh that turned into something dangerously close to a sob. “Yeah. I’m here.”
Rumi nodded, but her expression tightened when Zoey shifted her weight.
“What hurts?” she asked.
“My arm feels weird,” Zoey said. “It’s tingly. And my side hurts.”
Rumi’s hand hovered near Zoey’s ribs, then dropped again. “Did you hit your head? Did you—sorry. Did you black out at all? Are you dizzy?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay.” Rumi took a breath through her nose, visibly trying to slow herself down. “Okay. We don’t have to figure everything out right now.”
“The cops aren’t here,” Zoey blurted. “They said they were chasing him, but they’re not here, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to call insurance yet or move my car or—”
“Hey.” Rumi took her hand. Her palm was warm, a little sweaty. “One thing at a time.”
Zoey looked at her.
“I don’t know all the rules either,” Rumi admitted. “But someone called 911, right?”
Zoey nodded.
“Then we wait for them. We can ask them what happens next.” Rumi glanced over at the wrecked car, her face going pale again at the sight of the crushed door. “And then we’ll call whoever we need to call. Insurance. A tow truck. Your mom, if you want. We’ll deal with it.”
Rumi said it like she was trying to believe it, too.
Zoey squeezed her hand. “I don’t want to look at it.”
“Then don’t.” Rumi moved slightly, positioning herself so Zoey’s view of the car was mostly blocked. “Look at me instead.”
For a moment, Zoey did.
The heat was still awful. Cars still crept around the blocked intersection. Strangers still stood nearby, waiting for police officers who should have been there already.
Nothing was fixed.
Zoey’s side still hurt. Her arm still tingled. Her car was still wrecked.
But Rumi was there, holding her hand, close enough that Zoey could lean into her whenever her knees started to feel unsteady.
It didn’t make the wreck disappear, or her arm stop tingling, or the heat any less suffocating. But with Rumi’s hand in hers, Zoey could manage the next few minutes.