I didn’t know what else to say, and it was obvious that she didn’t want to talk. I backed away a step, and she turned, opened the car door, and practically fell into the seat.

“Are you sure you’re all right driving home, Dianne? I can drive you, or get you a cab or something.”

She avoided my eyes as she started the engine. “I’m fine, Jack. Good night.” She slammed the door and threw the Mustang into gear. She worked it out of its spot between two other cars on Carl’s giant circle drive, and I watched as she sped around to the street where she turned left without stopping or seeing the Land Rover speeding straight toward her.

The only car crash I’d ever seen had been on a sound stage during the shooting of DC, and it had been entirely choreographed. This was so fast and loud and unexpected that for a second I was rooted to the ground by the sheer power and noise of the thing. But then my adrenaline kicked in, and I screamed for someone to call 911 as I ran to the cars, now smashed together like some mutated machine. The Mustang had been pushed up onto the parkway and against a tree planted at the edge of the curb. I heard shouts behind me as people poured out of Carl’s house, then his neighbors’, and I nearly went sprawling as my body tried to move faster than my feet toward the mess. Glass crunched under my shoes as I approached the wreck, and I shouted hoarsely for Dianne.

The Land Rover’s front end was crushed accordion-fashion to half its length and melded to her door. I climbed over the Land Rover’s hood and knelt beside her—I didn’t feel the bits of glass embedding themselves into my knees through my jeans—and gently touched her cheek, slick with blood pouring from a gash in her head. I pulled at my shirt, popping buttons, and yanked it from my back, then wadded it up and gingerly laid it against the wound with one hand and applied pressure from the other side to keep her head from moving. Blood soaked through the shirt, and before someone could give me something else to use like I was yelling for them to, the sound of sirens was heard and growing louder down the street. Their lights came into view before the rigs themselves; it looked like a carnival reflecting off the drooping fronds of the palm trees that lined the street. Suddenly someone was pulling me off the Land Rover, and I heard myself say to the medics, “She’s got HIV.” In my head I begged her to forgive me for spilling her secret.