Love Gone by Elizabeth Nelson Page A

yelled back in fury. “Are you crazy?”
    Faith recoiled from her explosive
anger and instinctively put a hand over her baby bump.
    “Calm down,” she yelled back. “I said
we’re sorry. It was an accident. I have insurance. The important
thing is that no one was hurt.” Why does no one else seem to think
that health is the most important thing here, Faith
thought?
    “Fuck you!” the girl called back
angrily.
    “Hey!” Faith yelped in surprise. A
quick look behind her at her car confirmed what she already knew.
Liam could hear everything. His eyes were wide with shock and fear
as he stared at his mom, his big blue eyes flicking quickly from
her to the girl and back to her. He looked like he was going to try
and get out, maybe try and help or something so Faith waved him
back in anticipation of his intentions. The last thing she needed
was Liam getting in the path of this angry girl.
    Her hands up in front of her now,
Faith slowly walked closer to the girl in the manner most often
used by people approaching a viscous animal. With every cell of her
being she tried to convey kindness and good intentions. This girl
was a freaking basket case. The last thing she needed was this
situation to escalate.
    “Okay,” she said in a soothing tone as
she edged closer. The girl just stared at her with wild angry eyes.
“I see you’re upset. You have every reason to be upset. It’s okay
to be upset.” Should I really be repeating the word “upset” to this
girl, Faith asked herself; probably not, but she wasn’t sure what
else to do. She was a wife and mother, not a psychiatrist. Anyway,
it seemed to be working. She hadn’t yelled back any obscenities in
the last few seconds and actually hadn’t said anything at all.
Faith took it as a good sign.
    Reaching her side she slowly waved her
insurance card in the air. “Here’s our insurance. I’m sure they’ll
pay for everything. It’s not a problem at all. We’re so, so
sorry.”
    Silently the girl watched her, making
no move to take the insurance card out of her hand.
    Cars zoomed past, some with a honk as
if Faith or this girl wanted to be standing outside in the freezing
cold nightfall and just decided to have a powwow in the most
inconvenient spot for all other drivers. Faith rolled her eyes at
the insensitivity of other people. Never again would she ever even
look sideways at an accident, she promised herself. If she could
just get through this and get herself and Liam home to their warm
fire and cozy kitchen, she would never ever even breathe a sigh of
annoyance at being held up by some other accident in the
future.
    “Go ahead, you can take it,” Faith
urged her – a little impatient now – what was wrong with this girl?
“Just write down the insurance information. The phone number and my
name and all that. You can give them a call in the morning. I’m
going to call them tonight,” she rushed to assure her. “But you
should also give them a call tomorrow so you feel confident
everything’s being taken care of. Is this your parent’s car? Let me
give you my phone number so they can call me if they have
questions. I really am so sorry about this.”
    “My parents?” The girl asked
confused.
    “Are you okay?” Faith asked again.
Either this girl was just a bizarre piece of work or she had
sustained some kind of head injury in the accident. She didn’t
appear hurt. She wasn’t bleeding or holding her head or arm like
something was broken or sprained, but she was off somehow. There
was just no other word for it. The girl was off.
    “Why do you want to talk to my
parents?” She demanded again when Faith said nothing.
    “I don’t necessarily want to talk to
your folks,” Faith explained. “I just want you to know that I’m
available to talk to them if they’re anxious about our insurance
paying for this, or if they need to know what happened or anything
like that.”
    “Yeah, okay.” She finally replied
begrudgingly and took the insurance card