One Crossroads Later

Prologue

Even dying couldn't rid him of the memory.

The sun had long since set, and the wind blowing through the windows of the Chevy Trailblazer held a mild chill, marking the waning days of winter. His father sat behind the wheel with his mother in the passenger seat, smiling and humming a tune as NPR droned on in background. He always saw the moment in the third person. As if seeing it firsthand would be too difficult.

"Peter, darling," his mother said, her German accent breaking away from song only for a moment. "I want you to take a bath before bed. You have school in the morning."

Peter. That used to be his name. The son of John and Marjorie Dawes. Born in Lancaster, PA in 1985. Died in Philadelphia at twenty-nine. That part was important, too, but for now his mind stayed fixed on the car and the thirteen-year-old boy seated in the back. Nobody wore seatbelts, though nothing about the night suggested it would be different from any other night.

The radio droned on, talking about President Clinton.

There's something important here. Pay attention.

He nodded in his normal, agreeable manner. Already tall for his age, with brown hair and bright, blue eyes, he still wore his Sunday clothes and mused on the fact that he'd started wearing men's sizes this year. As if the world already knew something, and had tried to whisper it in his ear, but life was too charmed for him to see it. As Marjorie glanced back at him, he nodded and gave her a thumbs up.

"Bath, got it, Mom," he said.

"You finished your homework, right?" John asked.

"All but the algebra, but I'll have a chance to do that in homeroom."

John nodded, not needing any further reassurance from his son. For all intents, Peter had been a Good Boy. Grades above average; conduct always shared with beaming praise. Peter had been manufactured as an example for anyone struggling to be a Good Boy, often pointed out that way even if it made him self-conscious. His parents were older, a professor and a piano tutor, and as they'd had him late in life, they showered him with affection. He'd been their sole triumph through years of patience and heartbreak.

If Peter had to be honest, though, it left him feeling alone.

He remembered his attention straying to the passing scenery, seeing the outskirts of the small town they lived in. From the strange vantage point of looking over his own shoulder, he could see flat plots of land with rolling hills in the distance, only shadows against a palate of black and dark blue. Clouds covered most of the moonlight, but he swore that he remembered the Chevy's headlights shining on the road in front of them.

"Do you ever think it's too quiet out here?" he asked, not bothering to segue from talk of homework to the thought cycling around in his brain.

John didn't respond. Marjorie tensed and turned her head, exchanging a quick look with John, and speaking an unspoken language Peter wouldn't understand until around the time he died. John shifted in his seat, his question taking a moment to manufacture. "Is there something bothering you?"

Peter paused, considering how to frame his response.

I don't understand how anything about this is relevant, yet you keep telling me there's something important here.

Because you're not paying attention. You'd see it if you were. It's obvious.

Whoever you are and whatever you want, you're starting to irritate me.

At the same time, it worked. Being outside of himself – away from the thirteen-year-old boy with the weight of something on his shoulders – gave him the chance to admire the car interior and let his younger self drone in the background. While the adolescent him talked about feeling lonely, his older self scanned the seats first, then the footwells and the unused seatbelts. That alone made him sigh.

Not that. Focus.

I'm trying. As he glanced at Marjorie, he watched her keep her attention focused on the young man in the backseat as much as she could. He'd gotten his eyes from her. One could almost see their blue color despite the darkness and the haze of fatigue that settled over them. Sundays were long days, spent at church and then, sharing meals with other members of the congregation. He knew they were exhausting without needing to remember the feeling.

Marjorie stared at Peter. Her attention flicked away from the young man for a moment, though, and when her gaze settled on him, he felt a lump form in his throat. He wasn't even there. Only an observer, and yet, Marjorie looked like she could see him, holding a steady gaze with him long enough to mouth two words. 'Help him.' He wanted to question what had happened, and what she meant, but Marjorie looked away again, giving his younger self her undivided attention.

Help him.

What the fuck does that even mean? He opened his mouth to speak, as if he could get her attention again, but the interior flooded with light before he could get a single word out. Even though he'd relived the moment many times it still filled his chest with fear, the events slowing down so he could experience them all over again.

It had already been too late once he made out the headlights coming from the other car. John saw them at the same moment and turned his wheel to avoid the collision. Instead of saving them, though, he pointed the car so that the driver's side took the impact first. Marjorie braced herself and Peter didn't move, which made the older him – the one simply watching – spring into action. 'Help him,' Marjorie had said, and, in that moment, he could only brace Peter and prevent him from impacting his father's seat.

The collision pinned Peter into place, though. For the next fifteen years, he would feel it every time it rained, and despite being trim and in good health, he'd experience the occasional ache from how many pins the doctors would place in his shattered leg. While the adolescent cried out in pain, the older him looked toward John and Marjorie, remembering the horror of watching them die. John's head hit the steering wheel. Marjorie slammed against the back of her seat and bounced, her head hitting the side of the window.

Though he swore he'd long since stopped feeling things, his heart still ached when her broken body stopped moving.

It felt like he'd spent an eternity trapped in the calamity of a car spinning out of control, hearing glass shatter, watching inertia tear them apart, and waiting until the chaos stopped, replaced with deafening silence. The other car barely visible in the distance, as busted and still as their Trailblazer, they both shone light from their headlights on the empty road. It would be the only way anyone would find the sole survivor.

He looked at his younger self, feeling a pang of pity run through him. Blood-stained Peter's pant leg, with tears streaming down his cheeks born from both pain and anguish. He repeated the words 'mom' and 'dad' over and over until flashing police lights pulled off to the side of the road.

'Help him.'

Did you see it this time?

I don't know. Is that what you wanted me to notice? That she saw me.

The disembodied voice refused to respond. It remained as maddening then as it did each time it paid a visit, leaving him to wonder why it wouldn't leave him alone. As pivotal as the moment had been, it hadn't even been the day he'd died, though he'd wonder he left a part of his psyche behind in the twisted metal and broken glass. Not merely a leg that wouldn't ever work again the same way.

Everything faded around him.

Had he seen it this time, he asked himself again, before he allowed it to pull him under once more.

But the silence left him only with questions. As usual.

***

Author's Note: These characters and this story are an old friend getting a lot of love and updating in this series. 

If you want to read ahead, you can on my Patreon page.