Chapters (58)
- Cover
- Praise for Abbi Waxman and her novels
- Berkley Titles by Abbi Waxman
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Summer
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- Fall
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Readers Guide
- Questions for Discussion
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
Laura took a deep breath, trying to control her body. “It started with a smell, the smell of the brakes. I was back in the accident, in my head, and I couldn’t pull myself out. I started feeling really sick and we had to pull over.” She flushed. “I threw up all over myself, it was terrible.”
Maggie shrugged. “They’re your parents, it probably wasn’t the first time you’d puked in their car.”
“Sure, but I was twenty-three. They probably thought those days were over.”
Another shrug.
“Besides,” said Laura, still blushing, “it was embarrassing. I couldn’t make myself get back in the car for an hour, and then I had to keep my eyes closed the whole way home.”
“And then?”
“Then I started having nightmares and random panic attacks on the street.”
“Were they really random?”
Laura looked at Maggie sharply. “No, not at all. I looked online about, you know, problems after things, you know, when you can’t deal with . . . when you’re not strong about . . .”
“Post-traumatic stress disorder?” said Maggie helpfully.
“Yes,” said Laura, stammering a little, always feeling intense embarrassment about that term, which she’d thought only applied to soldiers who’d risked their lives, or victims of terrible crimes. “That kind of thing, and I realized the attacks were always triggered by something. A siren, a screech of brakes, a horn . . .” She shrugged. “But there’s an awful lot of that in New York, so it happened all the time.”
Maggie nodded and waited patiently.
Laura took a deep breath. “But anyway, I pushed myself and pushed myself, and it got better. I reached the point where I could take a cab, and thought it was done. Then I got here and planned to get a car but I keep putting it off and then the thing in Bob’s truck . . .” She looked at the table, and pushed a crumb around with her fingernail. “I don’t know what to do.”
Maggie was reflective. Then: “Can I ask you something?”
Laura nodded.
“Why Los Angeles? It’s famous for its traffic, not famous for its public transportation, and it really is quite difficult to exist without a car.”
Laura sighed. “It’s hard to explain.”
Maggie smiled very sweetly. “Give it a whirl,” she said.