Cici knew he probably didn’t hear anything she said. She walked to her car crying. At least this time she wasn’t stranded somewhere she didn’t know. Cici made it to her car. Her hands were shaking as she started the car. She was so upset that he would just walk away from her like that. She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take. She was sitting in her started car just crying her eyes out. Cici put on her music from her radio before she started to drive. She was devasted that Jonas seemed so hot and cold. She really didn’t understand this guy at all. She started driving and the music was making her cry even more. She was crying so hard the heavy snow only made it worse, blurring everything in front of her. The road disappeared beneath the white, the world narrowing to headlights and breath and panic. She barely realized how fast she was going until—
BOOM.
The sound of metal crushing was louder than anything she had ever heard. Her body was thrown forward, uncontrolled, her head slamming into the windshield with a sharp crack. Pain exploded across her forehead as glass spiderwebbed and cut into her skin, warmth spilling down her face. The car spun, skidded, then jolted to a violent stop. For a moment, everything went quiet. Her left arm screamed when she tried to move it, the pain blinding and immediate. She cried out, dazed, the sound weak and broken as snow drifted past the fractured glass. Her vision swam, her thoughts sluggish, slipping away from her no matter how hard she tried to hold onto them.
Then she saw him… Jonas… Not angry… Not smiling… Just there — his expression stripped of the sharp edges he used on her, the fear and frustration gone, leaving something softer and far more dangerous. He looked at her the way he never allowed himself to when he was awake. Like he was scared of how much he cared. Her chest tightened painfully.
It didn’t make sense. He had just told her to stay the f^ck away from him. His words still rang in her ears, harsh and final. And yet this version of him didn’t push her back. He didn’t turn away… He just watched her, like letting her go was the hardest thing he’d ever done. Her breath caught. Maybe it was shock. Maybe it was denial. Maybe it was the truth finally breaking through. Her eyes fluttered, the cold seeping in as darkness closed around her, and the last thing she saw before everything went black was Jonas’s face — quiet, unguarded, and gone too soon.
Cici woke slowly, awareness returning in dull fragments. The first thing she noticed was the pain — a deep, throbbing ache radiating from her left arm, heavy and immobilized in a cast that felt far too big for her body. Her head pulsed in time with the steady beeping somewhere nearby. She swallowed, her throat dry, and forced her eyes open. White ceiling… Fluorescent light… The faint smell of antiseptic… A hospital.
Panic flickered, brief but sharp. She tried to piece it together, but her thoughts slid away from her, leaving nothing but blank space where memories should have been. No crash. No road. Just the echo of fear and the sense that something terrible had happened. She turned her head slightly, expecting someone to be there — a nurse, a doctor, anyone — but the room was empty. The chair by the bed sat unused. She was alone.
Her chest tightened. How did I get here? What happened? And then, uninvited, another thought surfaced, fragile and urgent. Jonas. The question followed immediately, lodged in her throat. Was he okay? Her good hand fumbled for her phone on the bedside table. The movement sent a sharp reminder through her body, but she ignored it, gripping the device like an anchor. The screen lit up, painfully bright. 3:02 AM.
A notification slid across the top. Jonas is live on Instagram. Her heart stuttered. She stared at the screen for a long second, unsure why his name alone made everything feel heavier. Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she tapped the notification.
Cici froze, her thumb hovering uselessly over the screen. Hearing her name out loud — her name — felt unreal, like it belonged to someone else. For a moment, something warm bloomed in her chest, a fragile kind of awe, the kind that made her wonder if she had ever really known him at all. But it didn’t last. His voice cracked through the speakers, raw and breaking, and the memory of his last words cut in just as sharply. Stay the f^ck away from me. Confusion twisted with something that hurt worse than the crash ever had. She didn’t understand him. She didn’t understand why he could push her away and then bleed her name into a song for the whole world to hear. Before she could think too much about it — before hope could take root — she closed the live, the silence in the hospital room rushing back in around her.
Cici let the phone slip from her fingers, the screen going dark as it landed softly against the sheets. In the quiet that followed, something shifted. The beeping, the ache in her arm, the tight pull across her forehead — it all lined up at once. The snow. The crying. The sound. Her breath hitched as the memory finally broke through, sharp and unmistakable. The wreck. Her stomach twisted, her body tensing despite the pain, and she stared up at the ceiling as the weight of it settled in. She hadn’t just woken up here. She had been brought here. And whatever happened on that road had almost taken more from her than she was ready to admit.
@Kbail
