Everything Changes

morphine drips. It might be a trick getting Rael out, but they’d use the Jaws of Life if they had to, right? I mean, this was clearly a job for the professionals, and I was supremely unqualified, would probably do more harm than good.
    “Zack!”
    “Yeah.”
    “Wake up, man.”
    I rolled over and sat up, the torn steel of the roof slicing painfully into both of my knees, and I had to fight the powerful urge to flee the claustrophobic confines of the ruined car. I crawled over to Rael, whose face, I now saw, was bloodied and swollen, and his chest, fuck, his chest was a mess, and I had to just look away, because if I looked at his broken body any more, I would just collapse into a weeping mess.
    “Jesus, Rael,” I said.
    “I know,” he said, his voice frighteningly calm, almost detached. “It’s okay. I can’t feel anything.”
    At some point I managed to reach around to where I thought his waist should be, my trembling fingers seeking out his cell phone. His sweater was soaked with blood and the heat was emanating from him in waves. It took the ambulance forever to show up, and in that time Rael drifted in and out of consciousness, and I did my best to support his suspended head by sitting cross-legged under him, placing my shoulder under his head like a table. I think I prayed a little.
    “Tell Tamara I’m sorry,” Rael said.
    “Tell her yourself.”
    “Come on, Zack,” he said. “Don’t waste my time. Just tell her I love her, and I’m sorry. Will you do that for me?”
    “You want me to call her right now?”
    “No. I don’t want her to hear me like this.”
    “Okay. I’ll tell her.” I was pretty sure he couldn’t see the tears that had started to run down my face. He coughed up some more blood, which landed with a heavy thud, like it was something more solid than just blood.
    “Zack.”
    “Yeah.”
    “I can feel myself dying. I can actually feel it.”
    “Just hang in there,” I said. “They’re on the way.”
    He shook his head. “I’m already gone.”
    “Fuck you! Just stay with me.”
    “Believe me,” he said, his voice starting to get weaker. “I’d love to.”
    “We’ll be hanging out in your house in a few weeks and you’re going to feel really stupid about this.”
    “Tell Sophie about me,” he whispered. “When she’s older, I mean. Tell her what I was like, okay? Tell her she made me happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”
    “Okay,” I said. “Just please, try to stay with me.”
    “I didn’t see this coming,” he said, more to himself than me. “I never would have guessed this.”
    “Please, Rael. For fuck’s sake, just hang on.” I was weeping audibly now. In the distance, I could hear the sirens. “You hear that?” I said to him. “They’re here. Just stay awake!”
    The sirens stopped and I pictured the paramedics grabbing their fat orange cases and heading urgently up the embankment to find us.
    “Zacky.”
    “Raely.”
    He closed his eyes for the last time and smiled. “We should have gone to fucking Vegas.”

Chapter 8
    Usually, whenever I leave Tamara’s house, I need Hope in the worst possible way. I run to her like a junkie to crystal meth, needing to believe that my reality is every bit as good as the insane fantasies I entertain in Tamara’s universe. Even before I’ve started the car, I’ve got one hand on my cell phone, ready to flip it open and say her name, to hear the reassuring steadiness of her voice on the other end, so firmly grounded in reality that it leaves no room for doubt, and to be whole again. “Hope,” I say at the voice prompt. I get her voice mail and leave her a message, not mentioning where I am, but telling her that I miss her and that she should call me. It’s six thirty, and I know she’s working late tonight.
    This is what happens. You’re in your car, driving slowly along the service road of the Henry Hudson Parkway as dusk turns into night and the headlights of passing cars are laying claim to the highway. (Ever since the accident, you will always choose service roads over highways.) You’re thinking about one woman while trying to reach another, and despite this apparent abundance of women, you feel lonely and desolate as hell, and, almost unconsciously, you drive to the house of a third, and the third woman is your mother. It has to be unconscious, because conscious, you’d know right away that it’s a big mistake. Somewhere, there’s a therapist sitting alone in his office,