It had been sleeting all day. Ice spitting from the sky, the kind of cold that makes your bones ache. The roads were solid glass, and every news station was saying the same thing: Don't drive unless you have to. I had to work at 6 a.m., but even I wasn't stupid enough to drive in that mess. I called John. "Hey, I'm just going to stay at my parents' tonight. It's bad out, and I've got work at six a.m., but I'd rather be safe than dead in a ditch."
You'd think any normal boyfriend would say good idea or be careful. Not John. Instead, he lost his mind.
"Oh, of course you are," he said, his voice sharp and bitter. "Staying with your parents. Sure."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you're full of shit, Lola. You're probably staying with some guy. Don't lie to me."
"John, it's sleeting! I can barely see the road!"
"I don't care," he snapped. "You're not staying down there. You drive home. Now."
I tried reasoning, explaining the weather, the warnings, how unsafe it was. But he wouldn't listen. He just kept repeating, "You're lying. You're cheating. Don't play dumb with me."
So I drove home. I gripped the steering wheel so tight my knuckles went white. Every mile felt like a gamble. I stayed behind a sand truck for traction, creeping along at twenty miles an hour. Finally, I thought, this might be okay. Then I hit the ice.
The car spun. Once. Twice. A blur of white and panic and screaming metal. My head slammed against the window, and when we stopped, I realized my tire was wrapped around a drainage pipe like a pretzel. My dog whined. She'd been thrown against the seat. I touched her, trembling. She was okay. I wasn't.
I called John, my voice shaking. "I got in an accident."
"What?" He didn't sound worried. He sounded irritated.
"I hit the culvert. I spun out. The car's totaled."
"What the hell, Lola! Are you serious right now? This is exactly why I told you to come home earlier!"
"I was coming home!"
"Yeah, after you got done screwing whoever you're with down there!"
"I wasn't with anyone! I told you I was—"
"You're a terrible driver. You never listen. You think you know everything and now look what happened!"
"John, please. It's cold. I can't start my car, It's leaking exhaust. I'm scared—"
"I'm at work," he cut me off. "I can't leave until 10:30."
"It's 9:00! Please, it's freezing!"
"You should've thought of that before lying to me."
My throat burned. "Can't you just ask to leave early? Just this once?"
He sighed, long and loud. "No. You made your bed, Lola. Now lie in it."
Then he hung up. The silence in that car was unbearable. My hands were shaking, my dog pressed against me, and my breath came out in little white clouds. I felt small. Helpless. Stupid.
Headlights. An SUV pulled over, and a woman rolled down her window. "Are you okay? You look frozen! Get in! We've got heat."
I almost cried. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
They let me sit with them, even my dog. The couple was kind, gentle, concerned. They told me they had a daughter my age. I made excuses for him, of course. "He's in the military. He couldn't just leave work. He wanted to, but you know how it is…"
They nodded. I didn't deserve their kindness, but I was grateful anyway. An hour later, his headlights appeared. He parked, got out, and the second he saw me sitting in their SUV, his face changed. Suddenly, he was the perfect boyfriend.
"Oh my God, baby! Are you okay?" He pulled me into his arms like I was made of glass. "You scared the hell out of me." He thanked the couple for helping me, held my dog like she was his, and promised them he'd "take care of everything from here."
They smiled, reassured. They drove off. He waited until they were gone. Then the switch flipped. "What the fuck were you thinking?" he hissed. "You're lucky you didn't kill yourself! You're always so damn reckless. You never listen. I tell you to do one simple thing. ONE! and you manage to screw it up."
"I didn't—"
"Don't. Don't talk. You just sit there and think about how goddamn stupid you are. You embarrass me. You make me look like an idiot."
He was gripping the steering wheel so tight I thought it might crack. My dog was shaking again in my lap, probably because his voice had turned into something loud and mean and familiar. He slammed his hand against the dashboard. "You could've stayed home with me! But no, you always have to push back. You always have to make me the bad guy. You want attention, right? Congratulations. You got it."
I didn't say another word the whole ride home. I stared out the window at the ice flashing by under the headlights, trying to swallow the ache in my chest. The same hands that had hugged me ten minutes earlier were now clenching in fury beside me. The same mouth that had told strangers how much he loved me was now spitting venom. That night, I learned something that would take me years to say out loud, sometimes the crash isn't what hurts the most.
The second accident happened right before John's deployment. We had just found out we were having a boy. I had the sonogram pictures in my purse, still warm from the printer, like proof that something good was growing inside me. I couldn't wait to show my parents. That day, we were driving down to their house to play paintball with friends, Brad and Kelly. My parents were the kind of people who opened their home to anyone, especially the young military guys stationed nearby. Every weekend, their kitchen smelled like coffee and home-cooked meals. Their house was a safe haven. Warmth, laughter, a place to breathe when the world felt heavy. It was supposed to be a good day.
Brad was driving. Kelly was in the passenger seat, I sat behind Brad, and John sat behind Kelly. Everyone was talking, laughing, the windows cracked just enough to let in that crisp spring air. I remember feeling light for the first time in weeks. We were only a few miles from my parents' house when we came up behind a slow-moving farm truck. Brad flicked on his blinker and pulled left to pass. Right as we moved to go around, the truck turned left.
No signal. No warning. Just, turn. The sound was deafening. Metal screamed. Glass exploded. The front end crumpled as the passenger side slammed under the back wheel of the flatbed. The world jerked sideways, hard enough to knock the air out of me. My seatbelt dug into my chest like a punch. Then, silence.
For a second, no one moved. Then Kelly screamed. She was crying, gasping, calling her mom. "Mom! Oh my God, Mom! We wrecked, we wrecked, I think I'm gonna die—"
Her mom started screaming back through the phone. I could hear both of them panicking. Something inside me flipped. I'd had CNA training, just enough to know when panic could kill faster than blood loss. "Kelly," I said firmly, "hang up the phone."
She kept crying. "I can't feel—"
"Look at me." My voice went calm, steady, the opposite of how I felt. "Can you wiggle your toes?"
She blinked, hiccupping through tears. "What?"
"Your toes. Move them. Can you?"
She nodded. "Yes."
"Good. You're not paralyzed. Can you feel your legs?"
"Yes."
"Then you don't have broken bones. You're okay."
Her breathing slowed a little. The front of the car was crushed, trapping her. The passenger of the truck ran over to help, and we guided her out through the window. My arms were shaking, but I kept my voice calm. "We've got you. You're fine. You're out. You're safe."
When she was finally on the grass, she started crying again, softer this time. I sat beside her, trying to steady my own breathing. My chest hurt, but I figured it was just adrenaline. John's face was bloody, broken nose. But he was walking, talking, moving. Brad was pale but unhurt. The old man driving the truck looked worse off than all of us; he was clutching his chest and muttering that he "didn't even see us."
It took thirty minutes for the ambulance to find us. We were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but fields and fence posts. By the time EMTs arrived, Kelly was calmer, though she still cried when they loaded her on the stretcher. They put the old man on one too. When one of the EMTs came to check me, I said, "I'm fine. Just chest pain, probably adrenaline."
He didn't buy it. Next thing I knew, I was the one on the stretcher, being lifted into the ambulance. The metal frame creaked under me, and the cold air bit at my cheeks. When Kelly saw me, she panicked again. "Oh my God, is the baby okay?!"
"He's fine," I said quickly. "I'm fine. Promise." I smiled even though my hands were trembling. "They just want to check me out. Just being thorough."
Truthfully, my heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my teeth, but the only thing that mattered was that I could feel him moving. That little flutter. That proof of life. When my mom showed up, she didn't even hesitate, she gave Ben and John a ride to the hospital. No questions. No judgment. Just the calm, steady kind of love that holds the world together when it's spinning apart. That night, I remember sitting in the hospital bed with monitors on my belly, listening to my son's heartbeat, steady, strong, alive.
The same kind of chaos that had destroyed me once… I'd faced it again. But this time, I wasn't scared or small. I stayed calm. I protected. I led. I wasn't the girl begging to be rescued anymore. I was the one keeping everyone else alive.