Adam

ADAM

She almost let me fall.

I know Amelia was scared too, but she almost let me fall. That isn’t something I can just forget. Or forgive.

We’re leaving. I don’t care how late it is, or that there’s snow on the road. I don’t remember us even discussing it. I’m just glad that we are getting out of this place. Even though I don’t want to admit it—to myself or anyone else—I am trapped. In this car, in this marriage, in this life. Ten years ago, I thought I could do anything, be anyone. The world seemed full of endless possibilities, but now it’s nothing but a series of dead ends. Sometimes I just want to … start again.

The road ahead is dark, there are no streetlights, and I know we don’t have much petrol left. Amelia isn’t talking to me—hasn’t spoken for more than an hour—but the silence is a relief. Now that we’ve given up on the weekend away, the only thing I’m still worried about is the weather. The snow has stopped, but there is heavy rain bouncing off the bonnet, performing an unpleasant percussion. We should slow down, but I think better of saying so—nobody likes a passenger-seat driver. It’s eerie how we haven’t seen a single other car or building since we left. I know it’s the middle of the night, but even the roads seem strange. The view rarely changes as though we’re stuck in a loop. The stars have all disappeared and the sky seems a darker shade of black. I notice that I’m colder than before too.

I turn to look at Amelia and she is an unrecognizable blur, the features on her face swirling like an angry sea. It feels like I am sitting next to a stranger, not my wife. The stench of regret diffuses through the car like a cheap air freshener, and it’s impossible not to know how unhappy we both are. When it comes to marriage, you can’t always make-do and mend. I try to speak, but the words get stuck in my throat. I’m not even sure what I was going to say.

Then I spot the shape of a woman walking on the road in the distance.

She’s dressed in red.

I think it’s a coat at first, but as we get nearer, I can see that she is wearing a red kimono.

The rain is falling harder, bouncing off the tarmac, and the woman is soaked to the skin. She shouldn’t be outside. She shouldn’t be in the road. She’s holding something but I can’t see what.

“Slow down,” I say, but Amelia doesn’t hear me, if anything she seems to speed up.

“Slow down!” I say again, louder this time, but she puts her foot on the accelerator.

I look at the speedometer as it rises from seventy miles an hour, to eighty, then ninety, before the dial spins completely out of control. I hold my hands in front of my face, as though trying to protect myself from the scene ahead, and see that my fingers are covered in blood. The pitter-patter of bullet-sized raindrops on the car is deafening, and when I look up, I see that the rain has turned red.

The woman is almost right in front of us now.

She sees our headlights, shields her eyes, but doesn’t move out of the way.

I scream as she hits the bonnet. Then watch in horror as her body bounces off the cracked windscreen and soars into the air. Her red silk kimono billows out behind her like a broken cape.