The Wife He Thought He Buried

hovered on

t thing

n inky sky, crumpled steel, the relentless shuffle of passing headlights. Blood trickled from a huge gas

arm barely moved. It quivered against the twisted se

ripped throu

iting deep into her flesh. She could no longer tell where the wreckage ended and her body began. Every heartbeat sent another bolt

asted of blo

at the back of her throat. A wet cough escaped her, followed

d past. Tires hissed over

ne sl

e look

with blood and something else: glass, perhaps. She couldn't tell. H

groaned a

r shoulders, her hair, her forehead. One shard had embedded itself just bel

gainst the seatbelt buc

, swallowing the distant traffic, the r

, foo

ch of gravel came again, followed by the scuffed thu

r ribs so violently that the sound rattled in her sk

clearer with every step. Tall. Broad shoulders. A

was

rmth loosened something ins

, but the air caught painfully in her throa

g down the collar of his coat in silver rivulets. His face remained half-hi

s when she s

. Small.

ircumstance, she might have mist

t as though the shards of glass had pierce

she hadn't been able to stop hearing ever since: "I genuinely wish yo

d many

repare his favorite meal. She remembered the heat of the gas flame against her skin, the quie

. Always

tching him walk past without so much as a glance, as thou

e apologies she'd offered for mistakes she hadn't made. The moments when his anger filled the room and she learned to make herself smaller, quieter, easie

lish she

darkness creeping slowly inward until Grey wa

e failing her. But it didn't matter anymore. Because after everything, after all t

ad me

d wished she wa

es slip

she saw was th

darkness