SAVE ME FROM YESTERDAY

RASTRO 11

💙🌻

Glaiza reeled as Rhian words registered. Of all the things she might say, Glaiza had never imagined anything as horrible, as painful, or as personal. She stepped forward, pulling Rhian into her arms.

"Rhian...I am so sorry."

Rhian was stiff against her, as cold as she'd been hot moments before.

"The driver was on his way home from a bar where he'd been overserved. He never should have been behind the wheel."

"No, he shouldn't." Glaiza agreed.

"That's...it's awful."

"I don't talk about it," Rhian said, pulling free to walk to the railing.

"It happened a very long time ago."

"Can't have been that long." Glaiza said gently.

A widow.

Jesus Christ.

That was tragic.

And unexpected.

She tried to imagine a young, happily married Rhian. What had her life been like then? Had her wife's death caused her to turn into the icy workaholic that Glaiza had first met last week, or had she always been this way?

"Long enough," Rhian responded, but her voice cracked just slightly, and it was all Glaiza could do not to hug her again, to pull her close and never let her go.

"I had no idea."

"Of course you didn't," Rhian said, sounding more like herself now.

"No one does. And I'd appreciate it if you'd keep it to yourself."

"Yeah, of course."

Rhian pressed a hand against the small of her back, turning away. An old injury, she'd told Glaiza.

"You were in the car with her," she whispered.

"I was." She glanced at Glaiza and sighed, as if resigning herself to tell the rest of the story.

"I fractured my back, and they had to fuse two of my vertebrae together to stabilize it."

"Jesus," Glaiza whispered.

"It's fine," Rhian said with a slight shake of her head.

"No, it's not."

Rhian looked down at her hands.

"Sam was a teacher, but she tended bar part-time too. If you want the truth, that's the reason I avoid bars now. They stir up a lot of memories for me, nights when I hung out with Sam while she worked."

Rhian wife was a bartender.

"That makes a lot of sense," Glaiza said.

"We were young, and we needed the extra cash. I had insisted she quit, because..." She drew in a deep, shaky breath, turning her face away from Glaiza.

Glaiza walked up behind her, leaning into her, offering silent support.

"That night, I had a few beers while Sam worked, so she drove us home. We were T-boned on the driver's side. She died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital." Rhian spoke in a monotone, her voice gone hoarse.

"I'm so sorry. I really thought, well, I don't know what I thought you were going to tell me, but it wasn't this. But I really appreciate you trusting me with it, and I'm so sorry for everything you've been through."