“Make sure you have her put some pressure on it,” Josh says.

“Is she okay?” I ask.

“I think she’s—” Brecken cuts himself off with a gasp.

And everything happens at once.

Headlights glare from the wrong angle. Not behind us or on the other side of the road. I realize the danger just before I spot the Mustang cutting the wrong way across the lanes. Over the snow-covered median that separates the opposing lanes of traffic.

My lungs freeze over when the speeding car barrels across the snowy divider, sliding into our lanes. It’s coming right at us.

Someone screams. That stupid alarm dings away. Harper and Brecken are diving into the driver’s seat, headfirst. But I’m frozen like the chunks of snow Brecken knocked off the windshield wiper. All I can do is watch as the Mustang’s back end slides left. Swings wide. The car spins, and it’s still coming.

It’s going to hit us. I can see it—the image of it painted in clean, bold strokes in my mind—Brecken and Harper’s legs pinned between the white leather seat and that wide metal fender. There will be so much blood then.

I close my eyes, waiting for the impact. Any second now.

Any second.

December 26

Mira,

Do you know that your name means wonder? I looked it up after we met yesterday. But even if it meant something else, I knew in that moment that’s what I was seeing. I think you might be a true wonder. Living proof that the universe is good and right.

That day in the hospital coffee shop—I thought it would be a nothing day standing in line for overpriced coffee with a bunch of gossiping nurses. But it wasn’t nothing for us, was it? Do you believe in fate? I suppose I don’t even have to ask. After the connection between us, I know you must. I felt it the moment our eyes met. Did you know even sooner? Did you feel it when you heard my voice, offering to pay for your coffee?

You were so sad, eyes red and swollen. You had that crumpled tissue in your hand, and the clerk had to ask you for payment three times before you realized she was speaking to you. Before you checked your pockets and realized you didn’t have money.

It was nothing to pay for your coffee, sweetheart. I would have paid for much more. But you treated it like the most wonderful gift. I felt like an angel, the way you looked at me, with tears welled up in your beautiful, dark eyes.

I don’t think it’s an accident that we met in a hospital, a place where lives begin and end. It all happens so fast, doesn’t it? First, I’m just going along, and then, you were there. It was like the sun coming out after a long rain.