Instead, he ventured off the road and into the familiar field to get a look at the action. He could see his totaled rental car now, still overturned, the windows shattered, the driver's side positioned against the ground. The same burly firemen he'd seen earlier climbed atop the car, not unlike when Vanessa had yesterday . . . today, whenever that had been. The fireman peered into the passenger window where the glass had shattered.
“Hey, mister, can you hear me? Are you okay, are you conscious?”
Adam blanched, his face going ghost-white. Fear swimming inside him, his head turned to the point of whiplash. Who the hell was the fireman talking to? Adam was right here, he wasn't inside the car. He couldn't be . . .
“I can't be,” he said aloud.
Though he was standing a mere two feet from the fire chief, who was speaking into a radio, Adam continued to be ignored.
“Get any response from him, Georgie?”
“Nothing. Guy's out, I see a lot of blood, chief. This doesn't look good.”
Adam stood frozen, listening to those words. They reverberated inside him, like a pinball ricocheting off too many targets, his bones and his lungs, his still-beating heart. Firemen and emergency workers suddenly sprang into action, working diligently, quickly, efficiently, but carefully too, at opening the passenger-side door. Crushed glass and squeaking metal drowned out their voices, and when at last the door came free, the lead fireman slipped inside the wrecked car. Time stood still as they all waited for the results of the examination the guy was no doubt performing on the victim.
The victim, who happens to be me, there inside the car but standing here too
, Adam thought crazily. Barely a minute passed before the rescuer reemerged, shaking his head.
“He's gone.”
“What do you mean I'm gone?” Adam asked.
“Gone? Who?”
Adam spun around, expecting to see the fire chief but instead who he saw was Vanessa. He felt her soft hand grasp his, damp with sweat and rain. From her expression she knew something had gone terribly, awfully wrong. Neither of them spoke a word and neither asked for an answer to their unheard question. They stood in shocked silence and watched fruitlessly as Adam's crumpled body was pulled out of the car, laid down on a stretcher that had been fetched from one of the waiting ambulances. He looked at himself from this short distance, afraid to go any closer and see the damage up close. What was happening, it was impossible. Wasn't it?
Another emergency worker leaned over his body, again checking for a pulse on the neck, his wrist, searching in vain for any sign of life and coming up empty. The woman looked up, said to those assembled, “Doubt the guy ever had a chance. Look at that gash on his forehead, you can see a piece of glass slicing right into his skull. It's just the beginning of a nasty shard that looks like it went right into his brain. Guy probably died on impact, or shortly thereafter.”
“Nooooo!” The deafening voice came from beside him.
Vanessa was screaming as she tried to race forward. Adam grabbed her, fighting against the strength of her adrenaline-fueled body. He held her, pressing his face into her cool neck, whispering that it was okay, it was okay, it wasn't real, it was a nightmare, they were back at the farmhouse, still asleep, everything was perfect, it was almost time to wake up and get breakfast before they sought help. Not this kind of help . . . definitely not, because they were alive and they were fine and oh God . . . Adam thought, exhaustion giving way to sudden realization. He touched his forehead, felt the shard of glass still inside him. Why didn't it hurt? Why didn't it bleed? Because the shocking answer was before him. The truth. The EMT pulled a white sheet over Adam's body, covering his entire self, legs, torso, his blood-streaked face. Like Adam had ceased to exist in this world . . . their world. It was just like Adam had awakened this morning, the shroud covering his face.
“Chief . . . over here,” said a new voice booming from beyond the cornfields. “I found the other car. And good news . . . the vic, she's still alive . . .”
Adam turned to ask Vanessa how that was possible, but he discovered he was as alone as he'd ever been. How was that even possible? She'd just been in his arms, crying, protesting the fact of his death. And now he felt nothing, not her touch and not her breath on his neck and the comfort she gave him. Not even did he feel the rain that fell from the sky or the cold wind that ripped through his clothes and smothered his body. He was dead.
But somehow, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it, Vanessa was alive.
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“Where am I . . . who, who are you . . . ?”
They had already pulled her from the wreckage, easing her body onto the gurney.
“Sshh, don't talk, miss. Let us examine you. You're going to be okay, you hear me?”
Vanessa nodded, trying to listen and obey. But she wanted to talk, and when she wanted something, nothing could stop her. “Cold. I'm cold all over.”
“You've been stuck in that car, rain falling on you for over an hour, maybe more. It's not a nice night tonight, the storm's not leaving us anytime soon,” said a man with a gentle smile and crinkly eyes. “But we'll get you safely into the ambulance and get you plenty warm, okay? You just hang in there.”
She was lying down and staring up at the sky, but she closed her eyes to fend off the rain that continued to dampen her confused state. In her frazzled, rattled mind she tried to process what was happening and what had happened, how long ago . . . but nothing made sense to her. She was tired, for sure, and she was colder than she'd ever before felt in her life. What she wouldn't give for Dominick's lush villa on Lake Como, the blazing heat of the Italian sun bearing down on her tanned skin. But that was when? A lifetime ago, now just a passing memory. She'd been warm other times, she had to have been, sweeter memories . . . she thought then of the Forever Yours Senior Prom, when gawky Adam Blackburn had taken her in his nervous grasp for the first time to swirl her around the dance floor. She'd felt surprising warmth then. The dance, her date, her dress . . . Why was she thinking about those silly memories? Why . . . now, and then it hit her, of course, the reunion. She was headed to the reunion to see her long-lost friends who'd stayed while she'd run. She was going to see Adam, all grown up, and finally tell him everything.
She stopped. She paused. Then she spoke.
“Adam . . .”
“It's okay, miss, please, no more talking. Save your strength.”
She didn't understand, but she lay there like a good girl anyway while they attended to her injuries. A soft blanket covered her body in an attempt to stave off further chills. It didn't help. They poked and they prodded, they applied bandages to her bleeding cuts. Nothing felt right, not her body, certainly not her mind, not anything she had ever previously known. Like she'd become someone other than herself, as though between the time of the accident and being rescued an unforeseen transformation had taken place within her.
She could hear huddled voices murmuring around her, but she couldn't decipher words, like she existed in a vacuum. Opening her green eyes, she saw people standing near her. Two men and a woman wearing official uniforms, firemen and EMTs. They were talking with a couple, both of whom appeared to be maybe fifty years old, not much more; she was dowdy and he was robust, and each of them had the look of people who had lived hard, honest lives. They were explaining how they had come to find the accident.
“Laura's folks . . . the Turners, they lived just beyond the bend in the road up there, big old farmhouse up on the hill. Her father passed away about six months ago and her mother had to be moved to a nursing home. Myra Turner . . . formerly Myra Ravens, she inherited the house from a kindly old gentleman . . . I don't know why I'm telling you all this. The house, we don't know what to do with it. We were coming to close it up for the rest of the season, and we almost didn't come today because of the weather forecast. We knew thunderstorms were in the forecast, but still, Mom needed some of her belongings. As we were coming down the road, we couldn't help but notice the skid marks, they looked so . . . fresh, then we saw a section of the cornfield had been mowed down, and not in a natural-like way. So we stopped and that's when we saw the first car . . . the one where you found the lady. We called you immediately.”
“Any idea how long ago the crash happened?”
“Couldn't say. It was five thirty when we came upon the scene.”
Vanessa could hear it all, even if it sounded like she was underwater. She could tell them when it happened, the accident had occurred a few minutes after four that afternoon, so based on what they were saying she'd been alone in that car for only an hour and a half, the chill of the rain and the power of the thunder her only company while she waited to be found. But in her mind the timing didn't seem right at all, surely more time had passed. She had the feeling something more had happened.
“Well, thank you for stopping, for caring, Mr. and Mrs. Cross,” the chief said, shaking their hands.
“Will they be okay?”
“The man we found in the other car, unfortunately, there was nothing more we could do for him. The pretty lady over there, she's gonna need some attention, so we're gonna take her to Rochester, closest big hospital to handle what must be internal injuries. Can't take a chance with a crash like this. But we're hopeful. Feel free to call the station, ask us for an update. For now, why don't you two get out of the rain and cozy up in that nice farmhouse of yours. I remember your folks, Mrs. Cross, nice folk. Sorry again to hear about your father. Sad day, all around.”
“Thank you. They lived full lives when they moved to Danton Hill. They always wanted a house like the one they found. My mother once took care of the old man who built the house, and when he died she inherited it. We never met him, it was before Laura was born. Retirement was good for them. Some nights, they would just sit on the porch swing and watch the world go by.”
An image flashed in Vanessa's mind.
Finally, words that meant something filtered deep into her soul.
And then she saw the porch swing.
She saw a couple sitting beside each other.
They were not elderly. They were ageless, spectral . . . but they belonged together.
They were . . .
“Adam,” she spoke, her strained voice a whisper, all she could muster. She wanted to scream it aloud, but she didn't have the energy. Did she even need to? Surely they . . . no, not them, him. Surely he could hear her.
“I'm here,” she heard inside her mind, like sounds being telegraphed across the wind, and that's when Vanessa opened her eyes again, wide, surprised, the world before her fuzzy. He was leaning over her. “You're going to be fine.”
“No, I can't be.”
“Of course you are,” he said. “Vanessa, I don't know how you can see me. But you can, right? You can see me?”
A smile crossed her face. “Yes, yes, I can.”
“Who am I?”
“Aidan . . . no, you're Adam.”
He bent down, pressed his lips against hers. “Right.”
“What's going on?”
“You can feel my kiss, can't you?”
“Yes. It's like magic, your touch.”
He gripped her hand, pressed hard, as though even her weakened pulse could heal him and restore his breath. She recalled the farmhouse, and now she remembered the sirens howling in the morning, how their intrusive sound had made her run from the house. She remembered the blazing fireplace and the sweet creak of the swing, the wine and the fresh burst of corn and the way Adam had touched her . . . she remembered it all, the letters and the story of Aidan and Venture.
Venture
, she thought, and then she gasped with sudden pain. She felt, she remembered it all, the events of the recent past coming back to her like a flood in these cool rains. Cool, she thought . . . cold. Her body shivered.
“It's okay, Vanessa. Just hang on.”
“Not without you,” she said.
“Don't be silly. You don't even know me. I'm just some kid you went with to a dance.”
“No, that's not true,” she insisted. “You waited for me, somehow, all these years. I didn't know, I didn't believe. Inside, you knew . . . how did you know? Adam, you and I, we danced, yes, back then, but we also danced yesterday or today or whenever this now is. We danced on the porch, and there was no music except between us, and you kissed me and you held me and you made love to me, and we talked, and you learned about what I had done, what I denied you. What the world denied me. You convinced me that I was more than just me, that my heart was yours and my soul was Venture's. Adam, how is any of this possible?”
“I don't know, I can't explain anything. Perhaps when tragedy strikes it allows life the time to clear your mind before you pass . . . before you're ready for whatever waits on the other side. Maybe it gives you a chance to reconnect with who you once were before you become the who you'll forever be. We're free now, I know what happened and I have no regrets. Nor should you, because it's time for you to put your demons to rest and finally be free of them. Live your life, Vanessa Massey.”
“Not without you. Not after what we shared.”
“No.”
“I can't. We just found each other. After all these years.”
“It wasn't real,” he said.
“But it was, I felt it. You did too.”
She heard him laugh. “But I'm dead. I can't feel anything.”
“I don't believe you, Adam Blackburn. Aidan Barton.”
“That I'm dead? Or that I'm some old man who wrote endless letters to the woman he loved and lost?”