Page 142 of Sparks Fly

He didn’t say hello. “Addie,” he said, and the sound of his voice was wrong. Tight. Careful. Like he was bracing himself. “I need you to listen to me, okay?”

My chair scraped loudly against the floor as I stood.

“What happened?” I asked.

There was a pause. Not long. But long enough to feel deliberate. “There was an accident,” he said quietly. “Sawyer was on her bike. A car ran a red light.”

The room tilted. I grabbed the edge of my desk, my fingers digging into the wood as my balance faltered.

“What do you mean an accident?” I asked, my voice thin and unfamiliar.

“She got hit,” he said. “An ambulance took her. They—Addie, I don’t know a lot. They took her straight into surgery.”

My ears rang so loudly it drowned out the rest of the office.

“Surgery?” I repeated. “What kind of surgery?”

“I don’t know,” he said quickly. “I don’t know yet. They wouldn’t tell me much. She was conscious when they took her, but everything moved fast. I’m already on my way to the hospital.”

My lungs refused to work. “I’m coming,” I said automatically. I didn’t remember deciding it. My body was already moving, grabbing my bag, my coat, my keys. “I’m coming right now.”

“I know,” Benji said quietly. “I figured you would.”

My vision blurred. “Is she—Benji, is she—” My voice collapsed halfway through the sentence.

“I don’t know how bad it is yet, Addie,” his voice cracked just enough to destroy the thin thread holding me together. “I swear to you, if I knew more, I’d tell you.”

I pressed my hand flat against the office wall, trying to steady my shaking knees.

“She’s in surgery,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“I’m coming,” I said again, because it was the only sentence my brain could still form.

“Addie,” he said softly. “Before you come… if there’s anything you need to do first, do it. Don’t walk into that hospital carrying something unfinished.”

I closed my eyes. Because I knew exactly what he meant.

“I know,” I whispered.

The call ended. For half a second, I stood there with the phone still pressed to my ear, my whole body trembling like I had been dropped into freezing water.

Then I moved. I got into my car. And instead of driving toward the hospital, I turned the wheel the other way.

* * *

My mother was in the kitchen when I walked in. She wore an apron and stood over the stove, stirring something that smelled like heaven, the house wrapped in the same polished comfort I had spent my entire life performing inside.

“Addison?” she asked as she turned toward me. “What are you doing here?”

I didn’t take off my coat. I didn’t even close the door all the way behind me.

My father appeared in the doorway a second later, concern already forming across his face. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he stepped forward.

I dropped my bag by the door. It hit the floor with a loud thud that made both of them jump.

“You don’t have to find me a date anymore.”