It was supposed to be a normal Friday evening. The kind where you roll down the windows, let the wind tangle your hair, and chase the horizon with your favorite song blaring. Emma was only fifteen minutes from home, her coffee still warm in the cup holder, headlights of cars flickering past like lazy fireflies.
The rain had started as a drizzle. She hadn’t even bothered with the wipers at first. But then the sky cracked open like glass, and the road transformed into a mirror—slick, unpredictable, and unforgiving.
That’s when it happened.
A flash of red brake lights. A swerve. Tires screamed against wet asphalt. Emma jerked the wheel hard—too hard. The world spun. Her coffee flew. Her heart punched her ribs. The car slid sideways across the median, metal shrieking, and then—impact.
Silence.
Just the hiss of the engine and the slow, rhythmic slap of the wipers still moving, oblivious.
She blinked, breath caught in her throat. A truck had stopped just in time—barely a dent, but her own car’s side was caved in. Her hands trembled on the steering wheel, knuckles white. Someone knocked on her window, their voice muffled and frantic. A stranger, but kind. She nodded, opened the door, and stepped out on unsteady legs.
No blood. No pain yet. Just the dizzying realization that it could’ve been worse. So much worse.
By the time the ambulance lights painted the highway red and blue, she was sitting on the guardrail, staring at the sky—no longer raining, just quietly crying, like her.
