Youssef
AMEN BREAK: A highly influential drum solo sampled in many pieces of music
I sit nextto the driver and try to keep up with the conversation Matt and JP are having in the back of our Uber. They were some of my first friends in the Montreal music scene back when I moved here, and their band has blown up in the past few years to become one of the biggest in Canada.
You’d never know they were famous rock stars out to catch a show with me tonight, though. They’ve spent the whole ride having a passionate argument about whether or notAtlantisis the best Disney film.
“Right, Youssef?” JP grabs the back of my seat and brings his face up beside mine. I agree even though I didn’t catch what he’s asking me or why, and he flops back into his seat. “Tu vois, Matt? Even Youssef thinks that movie about the bugs is stupid.”
I start tuning them out again. In about two minutes, we’ll be pulling up in front of Shi Bar. Paige will be there.
I still haven’t gotten over the shock of her agreeing to see me again. With the way things were going at that bar on Monday, I was bracing for yet another Game Over. She did seem to perk up more at the idea of us never having to see each other again after this than at the off-chance we end up as friends, but I’m choosing to focus on the present.
I’m also trying very hard to focus on friendship. I might want to grab her and kiss her like we’re teenagers again every damn time I lock eyes with her, but wearen’tteenagers. She might be even more stunning now than she was then, but what I really need is to be near her, to talk to her, to find out why I can’t seem to let her go.
“Hello, Earth to Youssef. I asked how you know Chanly.”
“Oh.” I glance at the guys in the back. “Right. Yeah. I—”
“Ah,merde,” our driver curses as we turn onto a street lined with upscale restaurants that’s currently blocked by some sort of accident.
I can see a red car stopped diagonally in the middle of the road up ahead. All its lights are still on, and the driver’s side door is thrown open. There’s a small crowd hunched around something in front of it, and the sidewalks hold even more people looking on with grim faces.
“Shit.” Matt leans forward between me and the driver. “That must have just happened. There are no cops or anything yet. It looks like someone got hit.”
An eerie tension fills our car. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I stare at the group huddled in the street.
“Do you think they need help?” JP asks, his voice low.
We all come to the decision that there are plenty of people on the scene already and not much we could do to help, so the driver starts navigating his way around the accident with a handful of other cars trying to do the same thing.
Our route takes us right past what happened. It’s impossible not to look at the somber tableau, and I feel my stomach roll with dread as I take in the sight of a woman crying and shouting something I can’t make out while two other women hold her up. They’re standing just at the edge of the ring of people crouched in the middle of the street. As we pass, a man stands up to speak into a cell phone, and I get a glimpse of what they’re all surrounding.
“Stop.”
Our driver looks at me but keeps going.
“STOP!”
I have my seatbelt off and my door open before the car has even stopped moving. I don’t think. I just move as I sprint around the back of the car and over to the accident.
I hear the guys calling my name, but it sounds like it’s coming from miles away. Everything feels distant and slow, like I’ve slipped beyond time and gravity as I charge toward the circle of people and start shoving them out of my way.
“PAIGE!”
Even my own voice seems oddly detached from my body. I sound frantic, deranged, but I still don’t feel anything.
Not until I sink to my knees in front of her and she looks up at me.
Then my whole body floods with a relief so intense I have to brace a hand against the pavement and gulp a huge breath of air down into my lungs to keep myself from passing out.
Her head is resting in some woman’s lap, and there’s a cut leaking blood from her temple, but her eyes are open, and she’s okay. She has to be.
Is she okay?
“She’s all right.”
I look up at the woman cradling Paige’s head and realize I spoke out loud.
