Everything Has Changed: Book Four

Chapter Nine: Towing

Chapter Nine: Towing

The closer we get to the accident, the more traffic we hit until I'm sitting on Oleander Drive not moving at all.

I was going to take the truck but Danny has Ethan's car seat. I was about to beg Marie to stay home with Ethan when she told me she has her granddaughters car seat in her car.

She offered to come with me and I accepted, but now we're not moving and I can see an ambulance driving down the median trying to get to the scene.

I rake my fingers through my hair and unbutton my seatbelt.

"Grace, I don't think-" Marie starts.

"If all three lanes are backed up and there's no cars coming from the other side of the road, it means the entire intersection is blocked off." I say shakily.

"Do whatever you have to do. I'll stay with Ethan." She says.

I sprinted upstairs before I left to throw on jeans, a bra, and a grey t-shirt after Marie told me I shouldn't show up in my pajamas with no bra on.

She was right, so now I'm dressed and I look like a crazy woman as I open the car door in the far left lane and run across three lanes of stopped traffic to the bike lane, sprinting forward.

People in their cars give me confused looks as I run past.

When I reach the intersection, my heart drops.

My perfect black Jeep is seriously messed up. Liquid is on the pavement and the entire front right of the car is smashed in. Part of the windshield is cracked, and the back of the car is dented in, too.

The other car is an old Jeep, older than Ocean was as a 2005. This car has barely any damage, but that's because the older Jeeps from the nineties are pure metal. Aside from a little black paint on their front left side, there's nothing wrong. There's another little Toyota that's smashed in the front, probably because they rear ended Danny.

Danny told me it wasn't a bad accident!

I feel like my heart is about to explode.

There are police cars blocking off the road, but I walk around them.

"Miss, you can't be here." An officer says to me.

"My husband and my daughter were in that car." I point to my Jeep.

"Oh, okay. They're over there somewhere." He points to the left. "I think they're behind that ambulance."

"Thank you." I say breathlessly, rushing past him.

An officer moves to stop me.

"She's fine, she's the mother of the little girl." The officer I just spoke to says.

I scurry around the ambulance and there they are. Danny is standing talking to the police and he looks shaken up, and Emily is sitting on the curb crying clutching Danny's hand.

"Momma!" Emily sobs. She gets to her feet and runs to me. I catch her easily and she locks her legs around my waist, crying.

"It's okay Emmy, it's okay." I murmur, rushing over to Danny to kiss him. "Are you okay?" I ask with my hand on his cheek. "Are you hurt? What happened?"

"I'm fine and so is Emily. The paramedics checked us out. They said if we hurt tomorrow, go to the hospital."

"Okay, but what happened?" I ask.

He runs his fingers through his hair.

"I was driving straight," he points down Oleander. "I had the green light, and that Jeep pulled out in front of me to turn right...then that Toyota was following closely, as he had been the entire time I was driving, so he slammed into the back of me."