I was doing push-ups when she called. It was about eleven fifteen. She had been planning to drop by, after her work was over, around ten thirty. Turned out not to be the case.

I answered the phone. We exchanged greetings. She was about to say something in a tone of voice that I figured meant she wasn’t coming. She was about two words into the sentence when she gasped, and then it happened. I had never heard a car crash over the phone before. In many ways I would have rather been involved in it.

The phone cut off.

I called her three times. No result. I was biting my finger. Had I heard wrong? Had I heard right? Was this really happening to me? Did it really happen to her? Was it really? Was it?

Crazy ideas flew through my head. I grabbed one of them from out of the air. It told me I should run up my driveway. My road parallels a highway, separated by only a thin hilly median covered in tall grasses and a rusty old barb wire fence. If she was on her way home from work she would have been going down the highway. It’s a crazy idea. I don’t care. I run down my drive way. I climb my hill, from which I can overlook the highway.

Lots of emergency lights blinking. Maybe half a mile down from where I am.

Jesus no.

I run down my road. The cars on my left are piled up behind the activity ahead. This isn’t happening. This is ridiculous. There’s no way. She’s fine. I’m asleep. I’m dreaming. This is someone else’s car accident.

I stand on my road, watching the people and the cars and the searing lights. There’s a car that’s smashed up, it hit the side of the hill between my road and the highway. I hear sirens. I’m here before the police.

I watch the cop cars pull up. I hear the firefighter’s siren rise above the night, howling its guts out from town. I watch as the firefighters arrive, in their reflective thick coats and blaring red trucks. They get out. No one seems in much of a hurry. I’m biting my arm, watching from the road. I can’t quite see the crashed car. I can’t tell if it’s one I recognize. I don’t know what it is, and more importantly who is in it.

I watch.

Some people from a house on my road come out in their pajamas. They ask me what’s going on.

“What the hell happened?” a lady asks me. I turn around and see her and probably two sons of hers coming up behind me.

“Car accident,” I say. I’m standing in the high grass of the median. My left hand is clenching several stalks of the grass, twisting them, clutching them as hard as I can. My right hand is in my pocket, clutching my cell phone, praying for a call. I want to hear her voice. They can tell I’m distraught.

“Were you in it?” she asks me.

“No,” I said. “I live on this road.”

“Who was in that car? How many?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you okay?”

“I was on the phone with someone. And I heard the crash.”

“So someone you know might be in the car?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

The family and I watch as one of the ambulances pulls away, after they strap and load someone into it on a stretcher. I can’t see clearly, through the grass and the blinking haze. I here a firefighter shouting orders. Something about how they needed to find someone else. How that someone could have been ejected. They spread out and sweep their flashlights through the grass of the median.

The family slips away behind me and goes back to their driveway. I assume they went home. I assume they are sleeping soundly. More power to them.

I stay and watch.

No no no no no, I was saying to myself, on the run down here. No no no no, I say to myself, watching the scene.

A firefighter shines his light at me from the highway. He does it a couple times. They’re probably discussing who I am. He clambers through the grass and up to the fence, and shines his light at me again.

“Sir?” he says.

“Yes?”

“Did you come over from the highway?”

“No, I live on this road.”

“Alright,” he said. “We’re looking for someone. Wasn’t sure if it was you.”

He goes back to his search.

“Was it…” I say.

He turns toward me again.

“Was it a young woman, pulled out of the car?”

“Yeah,” he says. He turns away again and keeps looking.

There are helicopters overhead now. I call her phone a few more times, leaving several frantic messages. I don’t know what I said. Just begging her to be alright.

This is really not happening. It really can’t be.

After a while I just walk away. I can’t handle all the blinking anymore. All the questions. I need to get away. A man in a van passes me on my road. He stops and asks what happened.

“Car accident,” I said. “Smashed into the side of the hill or something.”

“Yeah,” he says. “They’re backed way up on the highway.”

He drives off. I keep walking. I feel like Orpheus on his way out of the underworld.

Just don’t turn around, and she’ll make it out with you. Just don’t turn around.

A car goes by me, and screeches to a stop. The driver rolls down the window and says my name.

“Who is it?” I say.

It’s a good friend of mine. What a place to see him. What a time.

“What the fuck is going on man? This looks bad.”

“Yeah,” I say. I wipe my eyes a bit as I approach the light from his car. He’s driving with three friends.

“Car accident,” I say.

“Well what’s going on at the fair grounds?”

“The fair grounds?” I ask.

“There’s a medvac chopper that just landed over there. We drove out to see what was up.”

“Jesus,” I say.

“What’s wrong man?”

“I was talking to someone on the phone. I heard a crash. I think they were in it.”

“Who?” he asks.

I tell him.

“Woah, man,” he says.

I don’t know what to say. I’m gripping the side of his door.

“Wanna get in man?”

“Sure,” I say. “Just take me anywhere.” I open the door to the back seat. His two friends back there slide over for me. I close the door behind me. It smells like weed in here. These guys have been having a fun night, no doubt. More power to them, I guess.

He turns around in a driveway, and starts back the other way. His friends want a closer look.

“I wanna see this sucker get towed,” the guy in the passenger seat is saying. “I wanna know what kinda car it is.”

You and me both, asshole.

“No,” my friend says. “We ain’t stopping. That’s a bad idea.”

My friend, the only real friend of mine in the car, the one driving, just starts driving away. We’re going away from my house. He knows it.

“Want me to drop you at home man?” he says.

“I’ll walk from here,” I tell him.

I open the door before the car is completely stopped and hop out. He says something like “Later man,” as I shut the door behind me. He knows not to bug me anymore. He drives off.

Get stoned, guys. Have a good time tonight.

I walk back. Since we had driven a ways I had a bit farther to go this time. And I had to walk by the scene again. Once again, I was Orpheus, leading my lover out of the underworld, not looking back.

I prayed that my story would not end like his.

I walked the mile or so home. My steps stayed even. I knew I couldn’t stop. A lot of cars passed me. They must have been avoiding the jam by taking my road. Nobody stopped to ask me questions this time. Maybe it was my scowl showing up in their headlights. Either that or they didn’t care why it was backed up. Just wanted to get where they were going. And who am I to blame them for that? That’s what roads are for after all. That’s what cars are for.

They weren’t made for killing people. They sure as hell weren’t.

I get home to my basement and collapse on the sofa. I can barely think, barely move. Eventually I get up, and bring my laptop from my room to the basement. On the way up my dad calls to me from his office.

“Getting up at ten tomorrow?” he asks.

“For what?” I say.

“Soccer game. Brazil versus Egypt.”

“I might,” I say. “We’ll see.”

I bring it all down to the basement and set up my station. Laptop. Cell phone. A drink to calm you down. Some pillows. Blankets. Music? No, no music.

I will not sleep until I hear your voice.

I call her phone a few more times. Useless. Maybe my messages are touching but they aren’t doing shit.

Which hospital would she be at? There’s only one around here, really.

I look it up online. Jot down the phone number. I’m too scared to call it right now.

I call a friend of mine. I need to tell someone about all this to get my head straight. But not someone who is going to go talking about this to everyone.

I tell her the situation. She calms me down a bit.

“You should go ahead and try the hospital,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say.

So I do.

I get a recording. Press one if I want to be transferred there. Wait for an operator if I want anything else. I wait. Hold music? Are you fucking serious?

“Hello, operator.”

“Hi,” I say. “I was wondering if an ambulance pulled in any time recently? From a car accident?”

“I… have no idea,” she says. “Let me patch you over.”

I wait a moment. I hear ringing.

“Hello, emergency room.”

God dammit.

“Hi, I was wondering if an ambulance pulled in recently? From a car accident. Someone I know may have been in it.”

“Well, not real recently. But there was one. A little bit ago.”

“Can you give me a name?” I say. “Anything?”

“Well, what’s the name of this person? Who do you think it may have been?”

I tell her the name.

“Yeah, she’s with us.”

Sharp inhalation.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Is she alright?”

“She’s doing really good.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she’s doing really good.”

“Any broken bones, anything?”

“I… don’t know, but I do know she’s doing very well.”

“I don’t suppose I can talk to her?” I say, with a nervous laugh.

“I can give her a message.”

“Thanks,” I say.

I tell the lady my name, and give her my cell number. I thank her again. I hang up. I wait. I pace. I pace like few men have ever paced. I call back the friend I had called before, just to give her the news. I pace some more. My phone rings.

“Hello?” I say.

“Hi,” says the lady from the emergency room. “I’ll put her on now.”

She does.

She starts to explain, but I already know the story. I ramble a little, about the sirens, and the lights, and the watching from the road. But there’s no need, right now, for that. Her voice is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. I tell her that. I ask if she is okay. She says her back hurts, and her neck, and her left arm, but everything moves and everything works, and she’s laughing. There are tears in my eyes. She says everyone there is very nice, but maybe they’re just getting paid to be nice. Well, they seemed nice enough to me. After a while she says she has to go. I’m rambling about something else, about coming to visit her if I can this very night, about when I can see her, about her calling me again, when she interrupts me and says she loves me. I reply with the same. She says she has to get going. She sounds tired. I say yes, of course, just call me again soon. She says okay. She says bye. I say bye. I close my phone. It’s about one forty-five. I said I wouldn’t sleep until I heard your voice. I wasn’t lying. Hell no, I wasn’t fucking bluffing. And now I’ve heard it. Now I’ve heard it. Goodnight.