College Ruled

thirty-six

36
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CHRIS WON'T STOP talking. That's the first thing I notice.

"We killed it," she says, again and again. "We killed it. We killed it. We definitely killed it."

The windshield is broken. I notice that next, raising my head from its place against the steering wheel. My head pounds. Something sticky runs down my chin.

Blood. Definitely blood—

"God, you hit it so hard, Remi. So hard. Did you see it?" asks Chris, staring at the broken windshield. "It couldn't have survived that could it?"

"I hit a deer," I say numbly. A deer. An animal. "Are you okay?" I look her over, for blood, for bruises, for something. She's clutching her wrist to her chest, but there's no cuts. No blood. Good. Good. "Your hand—"

"I broke it. I think. I—I put it against the dashboard before you hit it, to brace myself, a-and—"

"I hit a deer," I say again. I've never hit a deer before. I've never hit anything before. And I've definitely never hit anything hard enough to break the windshield and careen the car into a ditch.

        The truck.

"Theo's gonna kill me."

"For this piece of shit? I dou—" She cuts herself off with a gasp, finally turning to look at me. "Jesus fuck, Remi, you're bleeding."

"Yeah. Yeah, I feel it." I wipe a hand under my nose, the blood still coming. My cheek stings between words, and I'm pretty sure it's bleeding too. "I hit my head I think."

"You think?" she practically shrieks. "I think that's pretty obvious, for fuck's sake. Where's your phone? I gotta call someone."

"I—I don't know." I shake my head, squinting through the smashed windshield. It's still snowing, and whatever is left of the glass has fogged over. I can't see shit. "Did it run off? Did you see it?"

"What? No. I don't know." She twists around in her seat and rummages on the floor. "It probably died. I think we killed it. God, do you think we killed it? I need to call someone, I think, probably, or—where the fuck are the phones?!"

"I need to find it."

"Yes, thank you. Please help—What are you doing? Do not get out of the truck. Remi!"

I don't listen. My shoes drop with a crunch onto the snowy, glass-covered ditch. Blood is sprinkled onto the white earth, dripping off the chipped hood of the truck and over the weak headlights.

Nausea twists in my gut. It mixes with the pain pounding at my temples and the taste of blood between my teeth until it all feels a little bit like guilt.

Please don't be dead, please don't be dead, I repeat to myself as I round the front of the truck. The passenger door squeaks open, another set of feet dropping onto the ground. Chris rushes over to me, phone lit in her hand.

"Get back in the truck, Remedy. I'm gonna call someone and we just have to wait, okay? Right? I mean, who do I call? 911? Do they come for this kind of thing?" She shifts between her feet, words spilling fast into the frozen air. "Or do I just call a tow truck? Or Leyla—should I call Leyla? Remi?"