I woke up behind the wheel of a car. My mouth tasted like gin. My vision swirled and blurred. The car smelled like Jessica's favorite grape flavored cigars.

The open road ahead of me was dark in a calming sort of way. Each bump in the road was like the rock of a cradle, lulling me closer to sleep.

Jessica sang drunkenly in the passenger seat, giggling as my hand wandered over her thigh. I glanced over and met her emerald eyes, hazy and unfocused as they were.

"Babe," she whined, her smile forsaking her. "Stop it. You gotta focus on the road."

I felt a smile crinkle the sides of my eyes. "But my sexy girlfriend is just so distracting," I replied.

She giggled again and leaned towards me, pressing her whiskey covered lips against mine. My eyes closed only for a moment. I swear, it was less than a second.

"Alexa!" Jessica screamed, yanking her face away from me. The headlights of an eighteen wheeler blinded me as its horn screamed in the night. My hands clenched as Jess screamed for me to do something.

My brain froze.

I was awake long enough to hear the scraping of metal against metal, to watch the airbag fail to pop open on the passenger side. The awful crack of Jessica's forehead against the windshield, followed by the shattering glass filled my blurry head.

I was awake long enough to feel the warped metal of my car's door slice into my stomach and tear me open. I felt each muscle being torn, each rib breaking. I felt each shard of glass cutting my arms and head.

I was awake long enough to watch her body fly foreward and out of the car, bouncing and skidding across the pavement before the coma set in.

...

"Jessica!"

The word shredded through my throat as I looked wildly around at where I was, my heart and head pounding and my breath failing to properly oxygenate me. I didn't recognize the hospital room I was sitting in. It was too brightly lit to be the Livermoore Hospital and too large of a room to be Ameston's.

Memories started to tumble back into view. The fight, my drunkenness.

I looked to my left and stared into the bright eyes of the worst part of all.

"Alexander."