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Bricks landed on me, the impact stealing my breath.
Momentum carried me, the seatbelt catching and branding my chest with a line of fire. I whipped forward, my neck snapping down before being thrown back.
The car stopped.
My head connected with the rest behind me, my neck screaming in protest as I saw stars.
Then stillness.
Everything went quiet, the only noise a hiss coming from the engine.
A soft groan from the front of the car. A whimper from next to me.
I lowered my arms. Turned my head slowly, agony radiating down my spine.
There was a shadow on the bonnet. A dark lump. But the two feet were unmistakeable. One with just a sock on, the other a beaten-up sneaker. Muz.
I blinked. Was I hallucinating? He’d been in the back seat. But he was right there, lying too still.
Another whimper from next to me. I could see Andy from the corner of my eye, crumpled against the steering wheel. His eyes were closed, and blood streamed from his nose. I reached out, grasping his hand.
A bubble formed with his exhale.
His airbag was still partly filled, cocooning him against his busted-up seat back.
Voices in the background slowly filtered in. It was as if I were coming up from underwater.
I needed to move, to get their attention. I needed to help Muz and Andy.
There was a face.
A familiar one.
I hadn’t wanted to say goodbye to him, but he’d walked me out. He’d smiled and shaken his head when I’d asked for his number. He’d told me not to swing by his apartment again.
He was fussing over Murray, shifting bricks and touching his head. He was on the phone too, his voice calm. In charge. He was so different to the man who’d pleaded with me to take him deeper and harder when I’d been buried inside him.
“Don’t move him,” he barked.
I blinked slowly, trying to turn my head more. There was a woman opening Andy’s door.
She paused, looking like she was about to argue, but when he added, “Check his pulse and breathing,” she nodded.
“He’s breathing,” I croaked, still woozy from the impact. Or the joint I’d been smoking.
“Tristan? Oh my god!”
I was taken to hospital and checked out. Once I had the all-clear, I’d been bundled in the back of a cop car and driven straight to the station for questioning. I was arrested and charged.
Sitting in the holding cell until my court appearance the next day had been a wake-up call. The disappointment Dad was quick to communicate with me played on repeat in my head. But it wasn’t his voice I heard. It was Ezra’s. Between rounds, we’d thrown together sandwiches and talked. He was so put together. So grown-up even though he was younger than me. He had a real career, and he was making a difference. I’d joked, telling him I wanted to be like him when I grew up.
He told me to do it. That it was as simple as making a decision. I had to stop making excuses for myself and become who I wanted to be.
He didn’t accept my explanation for acting the way I did. They were just excuses, he said, not real reasons.
It had taken an accident, the very real possibility that any of us could have died, or killed someone else, to make me believe him.
Sitting there in that cell was like a come-to-Jesus moment. I’d asked the officer on guard duty for a solicitor. The Legal Aid lawyer had done the rounds early the next morning, and he’d sent her my way. I asked for representation. At my arraignment, I’d pleaded guilty and been remanded for sentencing.
