The End for Now

Now It Is So Clear

"Who's Trevor?" the cop asked.

He said something else, but Cassie was lost in the fog again, that in-between space of Now and Then, and the moments right after Then, when the world had exploded into glass and metal. Around her she could hear the beeping of hospital equipment, mixing with the cop's voice, both of them acting like tethers yanking her back to the Now.

"Ma'am."

She looked at him and tried to focus. It was hard. She was in shock. The nurse must have said that twenty freaking times. C. Samuels read the cop's name tag, and Cassie thought he looked a little like the guy from Family Matters. Carl Winslow, yes, that had been his name. She would call this guy Carl, even if the C was for Chad or Charles. He was just as round as Carl Winslow, and had the same big mustache. Just as kind too.

"What?" she asked.

Carl looked at his notepad. "You told the paramedics to tell Trevor."

"Oh."

"Is he your boyfriend?"

Cassie laughed at that, but it was one of those tragic ironic laughs, the kind where you're laughing because the dagger is being twisted and it hurts so freaking bad. "No. No. He's not my boyfriend."

"He's listed as your emergency contact."

"Oh. Right," she said. They'd done that in high school, back when things were different. Had it been...six years? No. It had been eight. Almost a decade. "That's from a long time ago. Don't call him."

"We already did."

The shock was wearing off, or maybe it was just the pain meds. Cassie tried to touch the bandage on her head, and realized she couldn't move her left arm. Somebody had put it in a cast, and then wrapped that cast in a giant sling against her body. God, had she been awake for that? There wasn't a memory of it, that was for sure. And not one of her getting changed into this paper-thin gown that fulfilled all hospital stereotypes. 

"You called him," she said.

"Yes ma'am."

"Oh."

"He's on his way."

Cassie shook her head, which ended up being a terrible idea. She waited for the throbbing to stop, and stared at the Styrofoam cup of water sitting on one of those movable tray tables. She looked down at her right arm, which was in perfect working order, and reached for the water. Everything hurt. "He doesn't live here anymore. He works in Boston."

"I talked to him an hour ago," Carl said. "He told me that he was getting on a plane."

Ah. That knife again. That twisting of irony.

Cassie sucked water through the straw, slow at first, and then like an animal. She wondered if any water ever had tasted so incredible to any person. She slurped down to the ice and did that really annoying thing where you kept slurping—yes, she had become that person who made that suction sound because they just had to get every last ounce hiding along the bottom rim. Trevor had done that, and she'd hated it. Told him so every time he did it, forgetting that he was probably doing it to piss her off, because to him, making her mad had been his way of saying it.

"Um." Cassie scratched at the bandage on her head. "What happened to the other person?"

"Her face is a little swollen from the air bag going off, but nothing serious. Her kids are fine too."

Kids. Jeez. Cassie took in a lungful of air and let it out real slow, like she was on a tightrope and a sudden change in pressure might put her off balance. Send her tumbling down. "Was it my fault?"