Rae of Sunshine (Light in the Dark 1)

“I…I don’t know if I can.” I squished my eyes closed from the onslaught of memories. The squeal of tires. The blood. It was all so horrible.

“Please, Rae.” He reached up, cupping my neck in one hand. My breath faltered at his touch. It shouldn’t have felt so good to have him touching me. It should’ve been wrong, but it was so undeniably right. “Tell me.” His lips grazed my chin. “Let me in. You can trust me.”

I pulled away from his touch like it had burned me. I paced his room restlessly, my hands wringing together. Could I do this? Could I really tell him the truth? My stomach rolled at the thought. I was terrified of what the truth might do to us—as if there was actually an us.

He sat quietly, waiting for me to sort out my racing thoughts.

My hands fisted at my sides. “I don’t know if I can.” I wiped a hand over my forehead.

Cade didn’t reply. He just sat watching me. Waiting.

Finally, I sat down once more in the chair I had previously occupied.

If Cade could tell me about his brother—and I’d witnessed how painful that was for him—then I could do this. I wasn’t going to tell him because I felt like I owed him. No, I was telling him because he deserved to know the truth. I couldn’t keep dragging out this strange, twisted relationship between us if he didn’t know the truth about me.

I took a deep breath and braced myself. “It happened last summer, a few days before my senior year of high school started…” I tapped my fingers against my jean-clad knees. The words were hard to push out of my throat. I knew Cade wouldn’t want anything to do with me after I told him. Hell, I didn’t want anything to do with me. But it’s kind of hard to abandon yourself.

“The top was down on my car and the breeze tickled my face.” I closed my eyes and it was like I was back there in that car with Brett, Hannah, and Sarah. “The sun was warm and we were laughing. We were on our way home from the mall. Brett was grumbling about all the time us girls had wasted at the mall when we could’ve been at the lake. But I knew he was only joking. Brett loved me and he was more than happy to tagalong.” I wrung my hands together. “I remember hearing Sarah say she loved the song playing on the radio, so I turned it up and we all started singing along. We were just…having fun.”

Tears coursed down my cheeks now as I got to the bad part. The part where I made one decision that forever changed my life and took the lives of three others.

“I got a text message and like a fucking idiot I picked up my phone to read it. You know what it said?” I didn’t bother to wait for his response. “It said, ‘Hey, is this Bill?’” I laughed humorlessly. “They had the wrong fucking number. It was nothing important. Although, no text is important enough to take your eyes off the road, because a second…that’s all it took for me to lose control of the car. I was going around a turn and the car flipped twice before hitting a tree.”

I shuddered at my re-telling. I’d never told anyone everything. I didn’t want to talk about it. But I wanted Cade to know. He deserved to know the truth. That I was a monster.

I squeezed my eyes shut as I was transported back to that day in the car.

I looked down at the text message on my phone. It was clearly a wrong number and not worth my time.

I went to put it back in the cup holder where it had been sitting before, when I heard Sarah scream, “Rachael! Look out!”

I looked up to see that I’d drifted off the road. I jerked the wheel, trying to get back in my lane. But I turned the wheel too hard and lost control.

Everything happened so fast.

Screaming.

The tearing of metal.

The burnt oily smell of tires.

My body jolted roughly and something slammed into my abdomen. I tasted blood on my tongue like old pennies.

I tried to move, but everything hurt.

“B-Brett?” I choked on the blood coating my mouth.

Nothing.

I closed my eyes, wiggling my fingers and toes just to see if I could. When they moved I breathed a sigh of relief.

Despite the pain I forced myself to turn and look.

“Brett?” My voice caught on a scream. “Oh my God!” Blood coated his face and his body was dotted with shards of glass from the windshield. His eyes stared blankly at me.

I was going to be sick.

“Brett,” I sobbed, praying that he’d blink or move his fingers. Something. But there was nothing. He was gone.