Cam Girl —1—
A car crash is a work of art.

At first it’s Cubism: the hood folding, doors crumpling, windshield splitting into a mosaic of shattered light, the whole world breaking into shards of color and noise and tumbling around you like a kaleidoscope. Screeching tires and cold air and gasoline and your own scream are all just bits of debris flying around, gorgeous chaos. When the tires stop spinning and the engines die, you’re left sitting in a smashed puzzle of metal and glass, trying to figure out which way the pieces go now, why some are stuck together and won’t come apart. Why there is an eye next to a foot, steel where there should be skin.

I listened to a soft dripping and the sigh of steam. By then it had become Surrealism. My hands were puppet hands, one arm bent at a bizarre angle. A deflated airbag lay in my lap like a bloody surgery sheet. The seat belt (I buckled up, I didn’t really want to die) was some kind of medieval bondage device and I clawed at it senselessly before clicking the release button. Then I saw her.

Ellis slumped in her seat, limp against the seat belt. Red-gold hair hung in her eyes. She was utterly still.

I kicked my door open. Staggered through the electric prongs of the headlights to her side of the car. My right arm was heavy, pulling toward the ground, so I used the left to haul her out. Impressionism now: the dashboard glow dappling her pale skin cyan, black ice reflecting swirls of white starlight. My breath spiraling wildly into the sky. I cried her name as I pulled her onto the road, her legs dragging.

“Wake up, Elle. Please, please, wake up.”

You idiot, I thought. You know CPR.

I brushed her hair off her forehead, leaned close. No warmth on my ear. My right arm had begun to tingle and buzz and it was going to make this difficult. I took a deep breath, but before my mouth met hers she coughed and her eyelids fluttered open. Details became acutely clear, almost Pointillist: stars glittering in her eyes, ruby droplets freckling her skin. I touched her face, smearing the blood.

“Vada?” she said weakly.

“Can you move?” I couldn’t take my hand off her cheek. “Move your arms. Ellis, move your arms. Okay. Now your legs.”

She obeyed.

I grabbed her in an awkward one-armed hug but hugging wasn’t enough so I kissed her cheek, her mouth, cupped her face and stared down into it. “Are you okay? There’s so much blood.” I wiped her face again but it only got worse. “Where’s it coming from? Are you hurt?”

We both noticed my right arm at the same time. The sleeve of my hoodie ripped to tatters. The sliver of white showing through red near the elbow.

“Oh my god,” Elle whispered, her breath musky and sweet. Tequila.

I let go of her.

The other car.

His headlights made an X through ours, a crucifix of light across the blank black night. We were on a highway bridge between nowhere and eternity, the ocean glinting beyond the treetops. The other driver lay sprawled facedown on the ground. My eyes traced the path he’d taken through his windshield, the bloody stripe running over the hood of his Jeep.

“Vada,” Ellis said.

I dropped to my knees at the man’s side, feeling for breath, pulse. My right arm was completely numb now. When I lifted his head, a warm red gush flooded my palm.

“Call 911.” My voice was calm.

Elle fumbled in her coat pocket and then at the screen and almost dropped her phone. As I watched I thought, She’s drunk. God, she is so drunk.

I took her phone and painted by numbers with the stranger’s blood.

“I need an ambulance.” I described the river nearby, the bridge.

Elle sank to the ground beside me, those lucid green eyes locked on the body. Her glasses were gone. She couldn’t see how bad it really was.

On the asphalt, pieces of skull lay scattered like pottery fragments.

Can you tell me what happened?

“Car accident. This guy wasn’t wearing a seat belt and he’s . . . on the road.”

How many people are hurt?

“Three. We’re okay but this guy is—we need an ambulance.”

It’s on the way, miss. Is the man breathing?

“I don’t think it really matters anymore because I can see his brain.”

My voice remained calm but Ellis clapped a hand over her mouth.

The dispatcher asked another question. Elle stared at me, horrified, over splayed fingers.

In a few hours, she wouldn’t remember any of this. The concussion and the alcohol would blot it out.

But not me. I’d never forget.

“Vada,” I said. “My name is Vada. I’m the driver.”