Flawless Prize

There’s motion underneath me, and someone says, “Heart rate’s steady.” They spit out other orders, too, but they’re lost on me.

Ambulance. I’m in an ambulance, I realize, before I slip away again.

Another blink, and then I’m awake again, lights bright, images flashing at me.

I’m being wheeled down a hallway, through doors that say DO NOT ENTER—Authorized Personnel Only. More silhouettes, looking down on me in concern. Voices discussing things like SCI and contusions and lacerations and hemorrhaging, their voices foreign in my ears.

It hurts. Everywhere.

Please, I try to say, but no sound comes out. Please.

“Just relax, sweetheart,” a face looms closer, hidden behind a scrub mask. “Let the doctors work.”

But I can’t.

I don’t understand what happened. What was I doing, driving that late at night? How did I get here?

Caleb.

Where is he? After everything we’ve been through, I thought I mattered to him. I thought…

With that, it all comes back.

“I can’t trust you!” Caleb roars, his voice hot with fury. “You lied to me, you set me up, and I can’t see a way around it. I thought you were the one, that you were everything, that I had finally found someone to share my life with, but you tore all that apart. It doesn’t matter what you do, I won’t ever trust you again.”

Everything around me swirls to oblivion. My knees go weak. The only sound is that of my pulse, thudding hard in my ears. I’m vaguely aware that I’m standing in the home of someone who hates me. Who will always hate me.

“You don’t know what I do to my enemies. But I swear to you, you’re about to find out.”

And I have. He plays with his enemies, makes us desperate and insane, and then he cuts us so deep that we can’t possibly survive. Like I can’t possibly survive.

I step back, to the door, tears blurring my vision. “I love you,” I whisper. “Don’t you see that? But there’s no future for us if you can’t trust me.”

He stares at me, unblinking. “Then there’s no future for us left at all.”

It’s that cold, cruel image of him in my mind as I turn and race for the door. I pound on the elevator key, and the second the door opens, I throw myself inside. I let the elevator take me all the way down to the garage.

I can’t think of taking the subway now, of being with other people. I fist the key for his car in my hand, then click it and open the doors.

Jumping inside, I barrel out of the parking garage—

“Heart rate’s spiking, push another ten of EPI!”

The voices break through my tormented memories, but it’s too late. I remember. I remember everything.

Caleb.

I told him I loved him, and he told me, in no uncertain terms, that he can never trust me again.

It’s over. For good.

A fresh wave of pain rolls through me, but this one has nothing to do with the injuries I sustained in the crash—and everything to do with my heart breaking in my chest.

The doctors are still working over me, but I find myself sobbing, hysterical. One of the nurses says, “There, there, now. Don’t cry. You’re going to be all right.”

But I don’t think so.

I’m never going to be all right again. Not unless…