She was leaving the rehearsal hall; the long strap of her little purple purse was strung over her right shoulder, as always, car keys in one hand, dance shoes in the other. Her feet, slid into ballet flats, felt light. Her legs, in dance tights and leggings, glided forward as she moved along. She walked down the steps, soundlessly and nonchalantly, keeping to herself and not looking at anyone or anything in particular, and walked right past where he was sitting and into the openness of the parking lot. She couldn’t pick out his voice – although she could have easily, and she was listening for its rich, ringing tones – among those of the group he was with, but she was nonetheless very aware of where he was. She shouldn’t be. But she was anyway. The parking lot was situated along the right side of the Hall, separated from the busy street in front of it by a foot-wide strip of bark. The sky was a blue-gray. Not really gray, but when dusk fell, the sky always looked a little gray to her, but with streaks of gold and pink in patches that had always been her favorite part of the drive home.
She walked up to her car, opening the silver door to the driver’s side backseat. She was still achingly aware of where he was, as if his eyes were watching her every room, so every little thing she did was very perfectly calculated. But it had been months since he had always kept his eyes on her, though it felt like eons ago. She heard a loud bump behind her and people talking loudly, but she paid no great attention to it; she was busy listening to the song in her own mind. She set her shoes down on the backseat and slid her purse off her shoulder, dropping it inside and shutting the door. That was when she heard the squeal of tires, and somewhere a voice shrieked her name. “Move!” She turned. A small gold car sailed from the main road through the strip of bark as if it were water and into her legs.
Her head slammed into the hood of the car, her body like a rag doll. Her legs were pinned between her own car and that of the drunk driver that had hit her. A voice inside the car slurred, “Aw, s***,” and the gold car went into reverse, leaving the parking lot with as much throbbing chaos as it had entered with. She slid across its front as it moved out from beneath her until all her limbs collected on the asphalt.
The other kids in the parking lot – most were not really kids, but being merely eighteen and nineteen, they were still very much children – stood in shock, with mouths wide open. There was one that moved first, though. He stood from the curb that he had been sitting on, and he moved through his friends with her name just a whisper on his lips. Then it was a shout. And he was running. People stayed still, watching him go. He sprinted to the collapsed body with the bloody, crumpled legs. He was screaming her name, now, and then saying it softer, pleading. He held her in his lap, one arm under her shoulders, holding her face in his other hand.
“Look at me. Open your eyes.”
She was so limp and heavy. And bloody.
“Please.” he begged. He could hear everyone else moving behind him, the director coming out of the Hall and yelling to see if someone had called an ambulance. People were whispering hurriedly, like a panicked wind, but they stayed back from him.
She moaned, her eyes rolling behind closed eyelids. Then they fluttered open, breathlessly, painfully, miraculously. “There you go,” he was smiling, he was relieved. He could feel his hands shaking. “Look at me, hey. Hey, sweet girl.” He kept talking to her softly, gently. Her lips trembled, an inaudible whisper escaping from between them. He hushed her softly and kept talking to her, his voice like honey. Her eyes were wider now, as she stared up at him. She reached for his arm and clutched it with frail and determined fingers.
He felt the ache in his heart. It was always there, and he tried constantly to push it away. He couldn’t, though. He couldn’t live a day without her. Those past few months without her sweet smile had not been living; they had been a walking death. They had been drinking, and partying, and drugs, because he knew she hated them. She didn’t know he was doing them, but it made it hurt a little bit less, and he was thankful for what little relief he could have. He knew the same ache was always there for her, too. She held her heart more openly on her sleeve than he ever would, and she thought he didn’t know, but he had seen her red eyes, the streaks through her cheeks, and the way that her friends had held her so close to them, attempting to protect her from the contents of her own heart.
“I’m so sorry.” Her gaze softened, her eyes became glazed with tears. “I can’t do it, anymore. I thought I was doing the right thing and I’m not. I’m sorry. But you’re going to be okay, alright? You’re going to be fine by tomorrow, we’re going to get you all fixed up. Okay? You’ll be laughing and dancing around in no time. No, no, no, you have to stay awake. Eyes on me, alright? Right here. I’m not going anywhere and neither are you.”

Her eyes were pleading with him, begging for him to make the pain stop, to comfort her and hold her. He leaned down, then, and kissed her gently, as if she were a tulip and he a tornado. It was a striking moment, just as before, and yet, more vivid, because it was clearer and more vibrant every time. She turned her head into his chest, and at once he understood. He kissed her forehead and rocked her back and forth.

The paramedics and a fire truck came. They came with sirens, and precise, collected manners, and they surrounded him. They took his angel from his arms, but she held onto his shirt with an iron lady’s grip and refused to allow the paramedic to persuade her otherwise. He sat beside her in the ambulance. Someone had said that were going to call her parents.

He sat beside her bed in the hospital. They said her legs had both been crushed, and bones were shattered, and tendons and ligaments were torn. She would probably know which ones if you asked her; she was a genius like that. It was one thing he had always admired about her. But for now, she lay half asleep near the edge of the bed. He moved a single brown curl from her face and let his hand rest on her shoulder. She still had one hand clamped onto the sleeve of his shirt.

They were alone in the room, and there was no one to hear them, but some words seemed better delivered at a whisper, he thought. “I want to be what you need.” Her eyes met his. “I can do it.” A small smile slyly lit up her face, bringing more color back to it by the second. She let go of his shirt and took his hand from her shoulder, encasing it within her own delicate fingers and closing her eyes.

He started singing. He had always told her that he wouldn’t, but he knew that she loved to just listen. It was what had made her cry the most those first two weeks after he called it off; listening to the sound of his voice. To how it echoed, and filled everything around her. He sang her favorite song, in tones loud enough for her and no one else, as if it had been written only for her ears.

Stars fading, but I linger on, dear, still craving your kiss. I’m longing to linger ‘till dawn dear, just saying this… Sweet dreams still sunbeams find you. Sweet dreams that leave your worries behind you. But in your dreams, whatever they be, dream a little dream of me.

And she sang back in hushed tones, because despite it all, she knew she had to.

I wish you bluebirds in the spring, to give your heart a song to sing. And then a kiss, but more than this, I wish you love. And if you like lemonade to cool you in some lazy glade, I wish you health, and more than wealth, I wish you love. My breaking heart and I agree that you and I could never be, so with my best, my very best, I set you free. I wish you shelter from the storm, a cozy fire to keep you warm. But most of all, when snowflakes fall, I wish you love.

And at once, he understood.

And then he dissolved into the air, like the smell of his sweaters, and his hat. Just melted away into nothing. And so did the hospital room, and her crushed legs, and the drunk driver. Even his voice was just a wisp of a memory. A dream, more like.