I tugged open the door and stalked toward the bumper. The music poured out of the open cab behind me, my soundtrack to a breakdown. I thought I heard my name but my ears still felt blocked, pulsing with the sound of rushing blood. Even as I told myself I was overreacting, even as I tried to calm my beating heart, I couldn’t stop myself. I picked up the bumper. It was heavier than it looked and threw me off balance for a moment. I stumbled forward but then righted myself. I lifted it over my head, my shoulders protesting with a sharp pain ripping through them. I ignored the warning and hurled the bumper with all my might to the ground. It kicked up a few rocks but skidded to a halt, its leash still attached to Cooper’s truck. I picked it up again by one end and hit it over and over again onto the driveway. Each strike left a black mark on the white pavement. And each strike mangled the bumper a little more. As I was about to lift the bumper again, a crackling voice came out of the cab of Eric’s truck behind me.

“Those are the songs that make me feel alive. Although, if you’re listening to this now, it’s probably because I’m dead. In which case, I hope you played at least one of those songs at my funeral. If you didn’t, go dance on my grave to one of them. I know, Mom, too morbid. But if you can’t laugh, what’s life worth?” His voice was so familiar, a bit like my dad’s, and yet so foreign.

I couldn’t catch my breath. It came in rapid short bursts that weren’t filling my lungs like they needed to be filled. My shoulders hurt so bad I was sure I had torn something.

My eyes darted to the bent and battered bumper. A pair of arms wrapped around me from behind. The smell of flowers enveloped me. Amelia. “You’re okay,” she whispered. “You’re going to be okay.”

Jackson was on the ground untying the bumper from the rope.

Cooper was out of his truck, eyes wide. “I’m sorry, I thought that ring was anchored to the frame.” He was pointing at a piece on the back side of the bumper. “I hadn’t meant for the bumper to handle all that pressure.”

“Can we fix it?” Jackson asked, freeing the bumper and analyzing the damage. “We can rebuild the platform, right?”

Cooper’s eyes went to the collapsed platform still beneath the truck behind them.

Abby was walking around it now. “The supports are just bent. If we unscrew them and pound them out . . .”

“No,” I said.

Everyone went still and looked at me.