Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 10

unconscionable. He grabbed Nate's sleeve. "Please, Nate, wait! I'm sorry! I was being a dick. Please, Nate, don't go."
    Nate yanked his arm away. "Leave me alone, Ben. I'm sick of arguing with you. You won't listen to reason, and now this? No more. It's over." He stalked to the door, shrugging into his leather jacket. "Do me a favor and lose my phone number, okay? We're done."
    The door slammed open, rain sweeping inside, wetting the floor. Then it closed with a solid bang. Nate was gone.
    Ben stood stock still in the living room, staring at the door. How had it come to this? He'd lost his temper like some schoolyard bully trying to force another kid to give up lunch money. Now he'd lost Nate, possibly for good, from the sound of things.
    In that moment Ben realized something so profound, that it nearly brought him to his knees. He loved Nate.
    And now, through Ben's own greed and stupidity, Nate was lost to him.
    It was his fault, all of it. He'd ruined everything. How could he have been so stupid? He turned away from the door, feeling as if his entire world had tilted on its axis. As he walked slowly through the living room toward the bedroom, something black and gleaming caught his eye. It took a second for him to realize what it was.
    Nate's helmet lay on the sofa where Nate had tossed it when he first arrived. In his angry rush out the door, he'd forgotten it.
    Suddenly, Ben heard the unnerving screech of brakes squealing from outside. His blood ran cold as he spun on his heel and hurried back toward the door, terrified of what he'd find on the other side.
    Everything happened in slow motion after that. He pulled the door open and ran out into the rain swept night. In the street in front of his building, there was a pickup truck, raindrops glittering like diamonds in its headlights. On the street, a motorcycle, or what was left of it, was lying on its side. A body lay crumpled near the curb.
    As he approached the street, his heart began to pound, fear icing his belly. When he saw Nate's face, the blood drained from his head and he nearly passed out. He fell to his knees, heartache like none he'd ever felt before ripping through him.
    "Nate? Nate, baby? Can you hear me?"
    Nate's unseeing eyes gave him his answer. Nate was gone.
    "Oh, God, no! Nate, not you, you can't be dead. No, baby. No!" Raindrops camouflaged his tears, but did nothing to ease the pain. How could this be? It wasn't possible. They'd just been inside five minutes ago. They'd been arguing.
    Arguing. He'd made Nate angry, angry enough to leave. It was his fault Nate was dead!
    "Oh, God, I'm so sorry, Nate! Please wake up. I promise not to argue with you anymore. Please don't be dead!"
    Sirens wailed, and the street lit up with flashing red and blue lights. Within moments, paramedics were forcibly pulling him away from Nate. He stood nearby, watching helplessly as they tried in vain to bring Nate back.
    The paramedics loaded Nate's body into the ambulance, but he knew from their expressions that it was hopeless. They were only going through the motions until they got to the hospital and a doctor officially declared Nate dead.
    A policeman patted his shoulder. "Friend of yours? Man, I'm sorry." He sighed and shook his head. "Accidents like this happen all the time, and there's nothing you can do about it. No helmet. Damn shame."
    A thought suddenly occurred to him, and his eyes widened. The cop was wrong. Accidents happened, yes, but there was something he could do about it. In fact, he was the only person in the world who could do something. He could change things.
    Using their research, he could stop the accident from ever happening in the first place. Ignoring the officer, he turned and ran back into the house to get his keys.
    He needed to get to the lab.
    CHAPTER 4
    As Ben's fingers flew over the keyboard, his brow furrowed in concentration, his mind racing several steps ahead of the keystrokes. Empty, cardboard coffee cups littered his desk, along with a few fast food wrappers. "It must be an error in the special relativistic time dilation calculations. That explains why I keep going back to a few seconds before the crash, instead of a few hours or even minutes earlier." He spun his chair around and faced the dry erase board behind him, his gaze flicking across the complicated equation written on it. "But where's the error? I've checked and rechecked the data a thousand times!" His frown deepened as he concentrated, his lips pressed together