The Collide. Kimberly McCreight
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man,” Jasper growls, his fists clenched. He swallows down the urge to use them. Don’t hit him, he’s old. Don’t hit him, he’s old, Jasper chants to himself. But he’s not sure it is working. He can feel the punch already, the impact.
“Stop yelling! Please!” the girl shouts, startling the old couple. She waves her hands. “It was my fault. I ran the light.” She pushes herself unsteadily to her feet. She is pretty and fit in her high-tech, expensive-looking bicycle clothes, even those old-school sweatbands on her wrists and, luckily, a helmet. When she takes it off, her long, dark hair falls over her shoulders. “Please don’t call the police. My parents will be mad at me for not paying attention. They’re always on me for that. And I’m fine anyway.”
Jasper feels a guilty wave of relief. He’d be much happier, all things considered, if they didn’t call the police. His mom would say this proved her point about Wylie being a bad distraction. Coach might consider it his last strike.
“I really am sorry,” Jasper manages, meeting eyes with the girl for the first time. They shimmer between hazel and gold, like two small kaleidoscopes. Jasper’s never seen eyes like that. For a second, he forgets what he was saying. “Um, I didn’t see you.”
“Well, of course you didn’t see her,” the woman snorts.
“You kids and your damn cell phones,” her husband adds.
“I wasn’t on my phone,” Jasper says, and pretty mildly, considering how far up in his face they are. “I was distracted for a second and then you blew your horn—I don’t know what happened. She said she went through the light.”
“It was totally my fault,” the girl confirms as she moves her bike off to the shoulder. The wheel is so bent. There is no way she is riding it anywhere. “I’m not used to so many traffic lights.”
“I’ll drive you home,” Jasper offers. “We can throw your bike in the back.”
He hates the idea of not going straight to Wylie’s right this second. But what choice does he have? He hit this girl with his car.
“If anyone is going to drive her, it should be us,” the woman says. “You should go get yourself some driving lessons.”
The girl looks the woman right in the eye. “Thank you for stopping,” she says, calm but fierce. “But if you could stop yelling, that would be great. I know it’s making you feel good, but it’s not helping me. I already have a headache. And maybe you should worry less about me and more about why your husband is so jacked up that he was laying on the horn like that in the first place.”
“Ugh.” The woman recoils, disgusted. She waves at her husband to come along. “Let’s go. They deserve each other.”
And with that, the two march back toward their Buick sedan.
“THANK YOU,” JASPER says when the couple is finally pulling away.
The girl shrugs. “The biggest jerks always spend the most time pointing fingers.”
Jasper smiles. She’s right about that. “Anyway, sorry again. I’m really glad you’re okay. I should have been paying more attention.”
She tilts her head. “You seem really invested in jamming yourself under the nearest bus. I said I ran the light.”
Jasper feels himself blush. He wants to put his hands up to his face to cover it. “Let me give you a ride home,” he says. “It’ll help me get out from under the bus.”
She looks down at her bike, taking in how damaged it really is. Finally, she nods. “Okay.”
IT ISN’T UNTIL Jasper has her bike loaded into his Jeep and is finally pulling into traffic that he thinks about Wylie again. But maybe the delay is a good thing. To calm him down. He does wish he could call Wylie to let her know he is on his way. But, conveniently, he doesn’t have her number programmed into his brand-new iPhone. God, his mom is good.
“They couldn’t roll over your contacts, for some reason,” she had said when she gave it to him.
But he hadn’t cared at the time. Wylie didn’t like to talk on the phone from the detention facility. She said it was too awkward, people waiting in line, listening to your conversation. Not that he could have called her there anyway. Wylie’s cell number was the only one he really cared about, and with Wylie locked away that hadn’t mattered either until now.
But that’s okay. He’ll drop this girl wherever she wants to go, then he’ll calmly and slowly drive back to Wylie’s house. And he’ll focus. Because even if he doesn’t want it to be, hitting this girl was a reminder: bad things can happen when you’re distracted. Even by somebody you love.
“I’m Lethe, by the way,” the girl says, bringing Jasper back. He’s been inching down Newton’s main street, so totally distracted again.
“I’m Jasper,” he says. “Where to, Lethe?”
“I’m at BC. The campus is just—”
“I know where it is,” Jasper says, and too forcefully. “I mean, I just started there, too, preseason hockey camp.”
Lethe smiles tentatively, motions to herself. “Lacrosse.”
And Jasper feels that familiar tug—it’s fate. He knows that’s stupid, that he is stupid for feeling some kind of connection—even for a second—with some random girl he hit with his car on the way to see Wylie. But old habits die hard. And no one’s perfect. Not Jasper. Not Wylie. Right now all he can do is be polite and responsible and get this girl who he hit with his car home. As fast as he can.
“Lacrosse?” he asks as he focuses again on the road. “That’s cool. I would have taken you for a cyclist.”
“I’d rather be a cyclist for sure,” Lethe says. “But there aren’t any cycling scholarships for girls. And I happen to be really good at lacrosse. So my parents are just like, ‘do that,’ because who I am and what I want don’t even matter.”
Jasper turns to look at her after he stops squarely at a red light. She seems embarrassed.
“Sorry. I probably sound like a spoiled brat,” she says. “I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong. I’m just also really annoyed. Does that make sense?”
“Completely,” Jasper says. Lethe is describing exactly the way he feels now. “My mom works her ass off to give me, like, everything. But I still wish I had, I don’t know, more options or something.”
Lethe turns and looks at Jasper for a long time. “Exactly,” she says. “You know, not that many people are willing to admit it, though. Whenever I say something like that, I always end up feeling like a monster.”
Jasper smiles, shrugs. “I have low standards.”
She nods. “So if you’re at BC, what were you doing all the way over here?”
“I was going to see a friend,” he says.
“Oh, I don’t want to hold you up,” she says. “If she’s expecting you.”
Did Lethe nail the she in a way that was supposed to be a flag or something, or did Jasper just imagine that?
“She’s not,” he says. “I was going to surprise her.”
“Oh,” Lethe says—and like she wants to ask something more but doesn’t.
THE TWO OF them are quiet then as Jasper drives the rest of the way to campus. Finally, Lethe points toward a gate up ahead. “I’m in Mavis Hall. You can drop me on the corner. It’s faster to cut through from here.”
Jasper double-parks at the curb. “I’ll get your bike.”
It isn’t until Jasper pulls the bike out of the back that he sees just how messed up it is, totally unusable, actually. When Lethe gets out, they stare