“What have you been keeping from me?”

She looked so nervous. It broke my heart.

I pulled her hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles. She turned to face me, pulling up one leg and holding her knee to her chest. She needed something else to hold on to, bracing herself for my answer. The rain-speckled windows were beginning to fog, softening her. She was the most beautiful and saddest thing I’d ever seen. She was strong and confident, and I’d reduced her to the worried big-eyed girl next to me.

“I love you, and I want to be with you forever.”

“But?” she prompted.

“No buts. That’s it.”

“You’re lying,” she said.

“From now on, that’s it. I promise.”

She sighed and faced forward. Her lip began to tremble. “I screwed up, Shep. Now, you’re just content to keep going like we have been.”

“Yes. I mean … is that okay? Isn’t that what you want? What do you mean, you screwed up?”

Her lips pressed together into a hard line. “I shouldn’t have said no,” she whimpered softly.

I exhaled, trailing off in thought. “To me? When I asked you to marry me?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice almost pleading. “I wasn’t ready then.”

“I know. It’s okay,” I said, squeezing her hand. “I’m not giving up on us.”

“How do we fix this? I’m willing to do whatever. I just want it to be the way it used to be. Well, not exactly, but …”

I smiled, watching her stumble over the words. She was trying to tell me something without saying it, and that was something she wasn’t comfortable with. America always said what she wanted. It was one of the million reasons I loved her.

“I wish I could go back to that moment. I need a do-over.”

“A do-over?” I asked.

She was both hopeful and frustrated. I opened my mouth to ask why, but quarter-sized hail began to pelt the windshield.

“Shit. Shit!” I yelled, imagining every dent being pounded into the body. I slowed down, looking for an exit.

“What do we do?” America asked, sitting up and planting her hands on the seat.

“How far out are we?” I asked.

America scrambled for her phone. She tapped on it a few times. “We’re just outside Emporia. So, a little over an hour?” she yelled over the sound of rain and a thousand ice chunks nailing the paint at forty miles per hour.

I slowed down even more, seeing the glow of brake lights from vehicles pulled over on the shoulder. The windshield wipers were echoing my heartbeat in a fast but steady rhythm, like the dance music at The Red.

“Shepley?” America said. Worry tinged her voice like before, but she was also afraid.

“We’re going to be okay. It’ll pass soon,” I said, hoping I was right.

“But your car!”

The tail end of the Charger slipped, and I tore my hand away from America’s, using both of mine to navigate the wheel against the skid. We slid across the road, toward the median. I overcorrected, and then the Charger began to fishtail toward the ditch. Hand over hand, I turned the wheel again, taking my foot off the gas. The Charger tilted to the side, and we slipped down a short embankment before landing in a full drainage ditch.