Where Two Collide

Chapter Two - Alice

Chapter Two

Alice

Owen leaned in through the window and kissed me, drawing me outside with him before I had the chance to turn him down. "Let's go." He grinned and shrugged off his jacket, throwing it over my shoulders, covering my pyjamas and flipping up the hood as it began to rain. I had barely enough time to grab a pair of shoes before he whisked me away to his mum's car.

It was kind of cramped inside. I'd never been in the car before and struggled with the seatbelt as Owen started the engine. I'd seen it before when he'd been picked up from school, but I hadn't met anyone in his family or spent much time around their house or anything. I finally got myself plugged in as he started the windscreen wipers. It was really throwing it down now. It was freezing too; I was at least glad I had his coat.

"Hey Alice," he said as he pulled the car out of our street. "We're ok, right? You didn't really mean what you said about breaking up did you?"

I smiled. "We're fine."

"Good, because I don't think I could live without you, you know?" he said seriously. "You and me, that's it. I won't let anybody stop us."

"What about my plans to study abroad?" I asked, recalling our fight earlier that day.

"I mean, I am so proud of how you want to travel and shit." He looked over at me, his eyes pleading. "But I don't understand why you would want to leave. We've got so much going on you and me, and if you go, how's that going to work? Because you'd be there, and I'd be lonely."

I watched the rain fall hard on the windscreen as we headed out onto the main road. I'd been given this crazy opportunity to take some time to study abroad, and I had a whole list of countries I could choose from. This was something I had been excited about. Owen, however, was less than excited for me. If I left, it wouldn't be long before the girls at our school would be snooping around too. They wanted him and they hated that he wanted me. It wasn't that I didn't trust him, but I had heard various rumours about him before I agreed to date him, all of which he had explanations for and reasonings as to why they were lies. Cat was right, after we began dating, we became the couple at school, our entire social life revolved around each other. It was like when we started dating a year ago, we stopped being two separate individuals and instead became one person. If I left, who would I be without him, and what would I be leaving behind.

His gaze turned from the road, his eyes on me with a softness to his expression. "You're my everything," he whispered. He reached his hand over to mine, and as he did the wheel jerked in his other hand, the car aquaplaning across the wet road. His hand returned to the wheel sharply, but he'd already lost control of the car, his inexperience taking over.

All I could do was scream, "Oh my god!" as the car reeled into the opposite lane. Bright car lights flashed through the window and for a second, I thought the car was going to hit us. Kill us. Instead, it swerved just barely missing us.

Owen was still not in control, and as he stamped the brakes to the floor our car lurched into the curb. The car took flight. The first roll, my lungs breathed water, my body entirely submerged. Only for a second. Then I surfaced, gasping for air, before the second roll dropped me into the water again.

No more rolling.

I was still underwater.

I gasped for air that didn't come.

I desperately clawed for my seatbelt. I couldn't find it, and I couldn't breathe. My fingers continued to scramble until I found what I was looking for and released myself. Once free, I reached upwards, my body naturally moving toward the surface. Then. Air. And for a long moment, that's all I focused on. That one thing I hadn't realised until then how precious it was, and I was so grateful to have had it returned to me.

Once I regained myself, my breath, my life, I was really able to let the panic set in. The car was on its side, half flooded with dirty muddy water. It was my half of the car which had been submerged, and it had been that stupid seatbelt that had almost drowned me. To my confusion, I found Owen was not in his seat.

"Jesus Christ," he cried, his voice coming from behind me. He had ended up in the boot of the car somehow during the crash. Had he taken off his seatbelt whilst we were rolling? "Jesus Christ, are you okay?"

Was I okay? "I think so," I mumbled, shaken.

He waded through the water to the front of the car, analysing his surroundings. "I think we're in a ditch, not a river or anything. I can't believe that just happened."

"We need to get out." My head was spinning and with him now in the front of the car with me, it felt very small, even smaller than before. "How do we get out?"

"Maybe if I just-" he tested his weight with his foot against the car wheel, now at my shoulder height, and then climbed up to the car door directly above us. "-I can get this door open." Reaching for the handle, he pushed hard, and the door flipped upwards. He pulled himself out the rest of the way and held the door open, gesturing for me to follow.

"Oh my god," I whispered to myself as I scrambled up through the car. He was right, we were in a ditch not too far away from home. "I need to go home," I said vaguely wondering if this was a dream, or maybe a nightmare. "I don't have my phone, should we walk?"

It was still raining, but I was barely aware of it, being already completely soaked with ditch water. It was dark, and it was late. And what suddenly became the worst thing in that moment was that the other car I'd seen just before we crashed, must have seen what had happened yet didn't stop. It was just us here, and we could have died.

"We shouldn't walk," he replied sternly. "We should get you to the hospital, and I..." he faltered, and I could see his panic. "I should run away. They're going to kill me."

"What?" I said, following as he walked across the grass verge away from the wrecked car. My toes squelched on the grass and I vaguely became aware that my feet were bare, having appeared to have lost my shoes at some point. "You can't do that."

"I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do. You can't go home though, not yet," he said, stepping out into the road and waving his arms wildly at a passing car. "We'll get a ride to the hospital. Yeah that's what we should do, we'll go to the hospital."

I was soaked and I was afraid, and I wanted to go home to my parents. But as the car slowed down on the side of the road, I hesitantly slid into the back seat with him.

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