Just One Kiss - J. Saman Page 0,2

my lungs, slamming my fist into the button to shut off the music that is happily chirping from my speakers. “Shut up!” I yell at it, running a frazzled hand through my hair and trying to rein myself in. Panicking like this will get me nowhere. I need to think. I need to calm the hell down.

Sucking in a deep, meant to be fortifying breath, I straighten my spine and steel my nerves and resolve.

I catch a sign that says something about a glass warehouse, a motel, a gas station, and yes. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

But in my stupid enthusiasm, I press a little too hard on the gas pedal, and as if my car is chastising me the way my father would, the front tires start to slip and sway, skidding on the packed snow and ice that coats the road.

“No,” I bellow, my voice skipping up a notch to a startled screech as the back tires start to get in on the action, overcompensating for the front. “Stop that. Don’t do this. Please, I swear, I’ll ease into whatever motel I find if you just stop doing that.” My hands grip the steering wheel tighter, twisting it to the right and then the left frantically, trying to realign the suddenly out-of-control vehicle.

Oh my god, this cannot be happening.

My foot hits the brake and the wheel shimmies, the tires making a horrific grating noise. I press on the gas once more, but instead of correcting the problem as I anticipated, the car starts to spin, doing a full 360. I slam back on the brakes but to no avail.

We’re not stopping.

We’re not even slowing down.

If anything, the car is moving faster. Terrifyingly so. My heart is racing out of my chest, blood thrumming through my ears at a deafening decibel.

My hands are flying this way and that, but now the car is gaining speed, heading straight for… “Ahhhh!” I scream, my eyes wide and unblinking, my hands white-knuckling the wheel as I barrel toward a row of trees on the side of the highway without any way to stop.

My eyes close just at the moment of impact, my body tense and coiled as the front driver’s side hits the tree with a sickening crunch.

The impact throws me, my head smashing into the window, and then my body lurches, slamming against the steering wheel. No airbags. I have no idea why they didn’t deploy in a seventy-thousand-dollar car, but that’s a serious problem as my head explodes with blinding pain.

Warm stickiness dribbles down my face as the car shifts and moves a little more before stopping completely, wedged against and under the tree.

I fall back into my seat, panting for my life and searching around the car. I sit here for a stunned, silent moment, mentally assessing everything. I have no idea if anything else is injured other than my forehead. I move my toes in my Uggs then my fingers.

“Jesus Christ. I can’t believe I just crashed,” I whisper.

Outside, I see nothing but white. Trees and an endless fucking sea of white.

I glance down at my lap and then over to the console, but I can’t find my phone. A splatter of blood drips from my face onto my jeans.

Blood.

Oh my god. My stomach immediately rolls as my vision sways. I take a few deep breaths, forcing myself not to think about that. About the red, wet, sticky stuff that’s now everywhere. I touch it with my fingers and that’s just the wrong thing for me to do because it makes the dizziness worse. But holy bejesus, it really is everywhere. I scramble for my purse that fell into the well on the passenger side, searching for something, anything that will help wipe the blood off my face and body.

I have to get rid of it.

Dizziness consumes me as I move. A fresh wave of nausea hits me hard, cold sweat coating my skin like bad makeup. I close my eyes, fighting the black prickly dots around the edges of my vision before I reopen them, find my purse, and pull out my pack of tissues.

I wad up a ball in my hand and press the paper into the cut on my forehead. A whimper passes my lips at the sharp, shooting pain that accompanies that, but I soldier on, determined to find my phone and get the hell out of here.

My cell is on the other side of the passenger seat, but the second I pick it