"Turn down the light, Meredith," I heard to my left.

I opened my eyes again, letting them get used to the light and saw an older nurse with short, blond hair looking down at me.

I opened my lips. "Mama" I tried to say, but nothing came out.

"Shhh," the nurse said, "don't try to talk, honey. You were in an accident. You're in the hospital, Archer, and we're taking real good care of you, okay? My name is Jenny and that's Meredith." She smiled sadly and pointed to a younger nurse behind her, checking something on the machine next to my bed.

I nodded my head. Where was my mama? More tears fell down my cheeks.

"Okay, good boy," Jenny said. "Your uncle Nathan is right outside. Let me go get him. He'll be real happy you're awake."

I lay there staring up at the ceiling for a few minutes before the door opened and shut and Uncle Nate was looking down into my face.

"Welcome back, little soldier," he said. His eyes had red all around them and he looked like he hadn't showered in a while. But Uncle Nate always looked a little weird in some way or another. Some days he had his shirt inside out, others he was wearing two different shoes. I thought it was funny. He told me that it was because his brain was so busy working on more important stuff, he didn't have time to think about whether his clothes were put on right. I thought that was a good answer. Plus, he slipped me good stuff like candy and ten-dollar bills. He told me to start a stash somewhere no one could find my money. He said I'd thank him later and gave me a wink like I'd know what "later" was when it came.

I opened my mouth again, but Jenny and Uncle Nate both shook their heads and Jenny reached for something on the table next to her. She turned around with a pad and a pencil and handed it to me.

I took it from her and brought it up, writing one word:

MAMA?

Jenny's eyes moved away from that word and Uncle Nate looked down at his feet. Right in that moment, the whole accident came screaming back into my brain–pictures and words pounding through my mind so that I slammed my head back on the pillow and clamped my teeth together.

I opened my mouth and screamed and screamed and screamed, but the room remained silent.

Bree

On Saturday as I was clocking out at the diner, a number came up on my phone that I didn't recognize.

"Hello," I answered.

"Hey, Bree? This is Melanie. We met in the diner last week?"

"Oh, hi!" I said, waving bye to Maggie as I walked toward the door. "Yes, of course I remember you."

Maggie smiled and waved back.

"Oh good!" she said. "Well I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time, but me and Liza are going out tonight, and we wanted to see if you'd like to join us."

I stepped outside into the muggy afternoon sunshine and started walking toward my car. I remembered my thought about trying to be a normal girl again, do normal girl stuff. "Um, well, yeah, okay, that sounds good. Sure, I'd love to."

"Okay, great! We'll pick you up. Nine okay?"

"Yeah, that's good. I'll be ready." I gave her my address and she knew right where it was, and so we said goodbye and hung up.

Just as I was putting the key in my lock, I noticed a group of boys about ten or twelve years old on the other side of the street, laughing uproariously. The bigger of the boys was pushing a smaller kid who was wearing glasses and had an arm full of books. As the big kid gave the smaller boy a particularly hard shove, the boy lurched forward, his books scattering on the sidewalk. The other boys laughed some more and walked off, one of them calling behind him, "Nice one, freak!" Even from across the street, I could see the embarrassment that washed over the small boy's face right before he squatted down to pick up his books.

Little jerks. God, I hated bullies.

I headed across the street to help the boy.

When I got there, he looked up at me cautiously, his chin quivering slightly. I noticed that he had a light scar where he must have had surgery to fix a cleft palate. "Hey," I said quietly, smiling a small smile at him and bending down to help him pick up the books. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said quietly, his eyes darting to me and then away as his cheeks colored.

"You're a reader, huh?" I asked, tilting my head toward the books.

He nodded, still looking shy.

I looked at the title in my hand. "Harry Potter… hmm. This is a good one. Do you know why I like this one so much?"

His eyes found mine and he shook his head no, but didn't look away.

"Because it's about an underdog who no one at all believed in–this funny looking kid in glasses who lived under his aunt and uncle's stairs. But guess what? He ends up doing some pretty cool stuff despite everything he has going against him. There's nothing better than watching someone no one expects to win, come out ahead, don't you think?"

The little boy's eyes grew wide and he nodded his head.

I stood up and so did he. As I handed him the books I had collected, I said, "Keep up the reading. Girls love it." I winked at him and his face broke into a huge grin, beaming at me. I smiled back and turned to walk away when I noticed Archer Hale standing in a doorway just a few stores away, watching us, an intense, unreadable expression on his face. I smiled at him, tilting my head, and something seemed to pass between us again. I blinked and Archer looked away, turning to walk down the street. He looked back at me once as he moved away, but when I caught his eye, he immediately turned again and kept walking.

I stood there for a couple seconds, watching Archer walk in one direction, and then turned my head to see the little boy walking in the opposite direction. I huffed out a breath and turned around and walked back across the street to my car.

I stopped at the local nursery on the way out of downtown and picked up some flowers and soil and a couple plastic planters.

When I got home, I changed into shorts and a t-shirt and spent a couple hours re-potting the flowers, placing them on my porch and doing a general yard clean-up, including weeding and sweeping off the front stairs. One of them was loose, and getting looser, but I was a disaster when it came to home improvement projects. I'd have to call George Connick.

When I stood back to admire all my work, I couldn't help smiling at my little cottage. It was adorable.

I went inside and took a long shower, scrubbing the dirt from under my nails and shaving everywhere. Then I turned on the small radio that was in the cottage and listened to a local music station and took some extra time doing my hair, drying it, and curling it with a curling iron so that it was long and wavy. I put on my make-up carefully and then lotioned my legs up so that they would look nice in my stretch knit, dark silver dress with the scoop back. It was casual yet sexy and I hoped it would work for where we were going tonight. I made it even slightly more casual with my slip on black sandals.

The last time I had worn this dress was a graduation party my dorm threw. I had drunk my fair share of keg beer, laughed with the other girls on my floor, and made out with a guy I had always thought was cute, but hadn't spoken to until that night. He wasn't a very good kisser, but I was just drunk enough not to care.

As I stood there remembering, thinking about the girl I was, I missed her. I missed my old self. I hadn't been a girl unmarked by tragedy. I wasn't naive to the ways of the world. I knew that you weren't guaranteed anything and that life wasn't always fair. But my father and I had survived the tragedy of my mother's illness together and we were strong. I had never once considered that he would be snatched from me in an instant, in a senseless moment that left me alone and reeling. And that I wouldn't get to say goodbye.