“Thank God you’re awake. Olivia! Stay with me. You gave us a scare.”
I try to sit up, but my head only lifts a fraction before my body screams at me in pain, so I flop back down on the ground. Ouch. Shit.
“Don’t move. You’ve been in an accident.” Daisy’s worried face stares down at me.
I sift through my memories. It all comes rushing back.
“Bike?” I croak out.
“That would be mine.”
I turn my head with a wince.
A man in a bike helmet is kneeling next to me. He’s about my age, with concerned golden eyes, smooth brown skin, and curly hair. I’m not so out of it that I don’t notice he’s cute.
“Next time you cross the street, you might want to look away from your phone long enough to make sure no one is coming,” he says. His attractively wry smile softens the douche factor in his little speech.
“Next time you ride your bike, you might want to make sure you don’t almost kill anyone,” Daisy snaps. I turn back to Daisy with another wince. She’s glaring at the bike guy, but she isn’t fooling me. She’s noticed he’s hot because her dimples flash through her glare.
I close my eyes. I’m not well enough to be subjected to hate-flirting between my friend and the guy who almost ran me over a few minutes ago.
I sit up slowly. Daisy helps me rise into a sitting position. It takes a few minutes, but the world gradually stops spinning.
“He’s right, Daisy. It’s my fault. I wasn’t paying attention. I shouldn’t have stepped out onto the road. I was distracted by—”
My eyes widen in horror. “My phone!” It had gone flying.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I look around wildly, ignoring the dizziness.
“Stop, you’re going to hurt yourself. It’s fine. It’s right there. It’s barely scratched, I bet.” Daisy points to my phone in the middle of the road.
We all watch as a car drives by, giving us a wide berth by edging toward the yellow line and my phone.
“Nooooooooo!” I cry.
Crunch.
The bike messenger gallantly runs into the road to grab my device; the screen is shattered and the case is dented. He hands it to me.
“Um. I’m sure it can be fixed,” Daisy suggests with forced brightness. “It didn’t completely get run over. Just a little. Maybe they can replace the screen. Anyway, the SIM card might be fine. That’s what matters.”
“Besides, I’m sure you do regular backups,” the bike dude says.
Backups. Everything in me slumps. I’ve never been very good at technology. I’m an analog girl in a digital world. I like typewriters. Record players. Even my television is old-school. Every time I tried to back up my phone, it asked me for a password, which I couldn’t recall. I always meant to figure it out. It was on my to-do list. The problem is, as much as I love making lists, I’m not so good at actually following them.
And then I remember Remington. All our texts are in my trashed phone. And nowhere else. I want to throw up, and it’s not only because of nausea from the accident. I try to recall his phone number. I can’t. I’m not a numbers girl, just like I’m not a technology girl. I like English, not math.
Do I have his number written down somewhere? I wonder in increasing worry. Maybe, if he sent me his phone number first. But I realize that he didn’t. I sent my number to him in a letter. I remember, because I was so worried about taking that step, afraid he wouldn’t want to go from letters to calls. In the end, he didn’t call me. But he’d texted. And now, all those years of texts might be gone, wiped away with one accident as if they never existed.
“What matters is that we’re both okay. A phone can be replaced, but people can’t,” the bike messenger says.
I turn my phone over. An edge crumbles in my hand.
“Great, hit-and-run dude is a philosopher,” Daisy says.
“I didn’t hit and run. I’m here. I hit and stayed. And this whole hitting situation isn’t my fault. You may be cute but did anyone tell you that you’re obnoxious?” he asks Daisy.
“All the time,” she says. “So, you think I’m cute?”
A loud pounding sound drowns out their voices. I put my head in my hands, hoping it will go away. But the sound is coming from inside my brain.
“Olivia, are you okay? Olivia—”
And for the second time, it all starts to slip away—the hard ground, the voices, the music of the city, the feel of cool air on my body, the smell of asphalt. I vow, if I can get the world to come back, even for a minute, I’ll do things differently. I’ll go after my dreams. I’ll find a boyfriend and actually have sex. I’ll change my life one risk at a time, so when I finally do die, it won’t be with regret. And I’ll get better at numbers and technology, so I can back up my damn phone.