When We Collide by A. L. Jackson

placed it in the bed of his truck and slammed the
tailgate shut. “Guess that’s all,” he said as he exhaled heavily
and stared at the things piled in the bed of his truck.
    Glancing back, I caught our mother watching us from
the kitchen window, her hands overlapped and pressed against her
chest as if she were trying to hold her heart in. Our eyes met, and
my mouth formed into a thin, sympathetic smile. Everything was so
hard on her, but this had been the worst. Packing up Lara’s things,
sifting through the memories, keeping the few things she couldn’t
bear to part with, and setting the rest aside.
    A few moments later, the back screen door slammed
shut behind her. The heavy winter coat she wore appeared as if it
would swallow her whole.
    “I’ll ride with you.” Mom lifted her face to me,
mustering half a smile as she descended the stairs. She brushed an
appreciative hand across Blake’s arm as she passed before she went
to stand at the passenger side door of my SUV.
    Blake didn’t question it. He just agreed with a bob
of his head and climbed into his truck.
    I drew a lump of cold air in through my nose, felt
it burn down my throat and expand in my lungs. She’d heard me last
night, I was sure. I’d seen it in the way she had regarded me all
morning and into the afternoon. Worry had been held in the
appraisal of her eyes as she’d steal surreptitious glances from
wherever she sat and packed a box, worry in the way she watched me
going in and out of her house to load Blake’s truck.
    Sliding into my seat, I started the car and fiddled
with the thermostat to turn the heat to high. I shifted the car
into reverse and looked over my shoulder to back out of the
driveway. This time she didn’t try to hide the intent gaze. She was
studying.
    My stomach twisted, tied up all the way to the top
of my throat.
    It’d been six days since I’d seen Maggie. Six days
since I’d seen the child. Each one had been excruciating. A war had
ravaged inside of me, a battle between heart and mind. My heart
claimed the child, claimed the girl, while my head screamed at me
to run, screamed neither of them were my concern.
    Forcing myself into believing Maggie wasn’t my
concern had been the only way I’d survived in California. I
couldn’t allow myself to believe there was anything else I could
do.
    But seeing her had shattered that belief.
    I’d spent the week holed up in the confines of my
room, unable to eat, unable to sleep.
    Last night I had reached the boiling point.
    I’d fought with Kristina. I’d been so tired, verging
on deranged from the days spent in my room
pacing—contemplating—that I should have known better than to have
accepted her call. I should have waited until I’d cleared my mind
and decided what I was going to do. But I’d grown so frustrated
with the demanding messages and the snide little remarks she used
to try to control me, and I’d snapped when my phone lit up with her
name again. She’d demanded I be back in California in two days,
threatening to fire me if I wasn’t. Anger had burned, spewed as
hatred from my mouth. Six years of pent up discontent and
resentment were unleashed into the phone. I told her even if I went
back to California, it wouldn’t be to her. I was done.
    Hours later, cut free from the life I’d bound myself
to for the last six years and drained from the days I’d spent in
dread, I finally succumbed to the exhaustion of my body.
    And I’d dreamed. Saw the boy for the first time
through new eyes. When I’d awoken, I wept for a child I didn’t
know.
    I trained my attention out the windshield, felt my
mother’s probing stare.
    “What happened to you, Will?” It spilled as fear
from her mouth, abject intuition.
    I found myself wanting to confide in her. Tell her I
thought I might be losing my mind. Tell her I was terrified I
wasn’t and have to admit the dreams were real. I just didn’t know
how.
    So much time had been spent deceiving myself,
believing my own