A/N for 2018-04-14: Beta'd by Eeyorefan12, and then tinkered with by me, so all errors are my own.
~ Erin
"Snow!" Joshua said, repeating this word as he bounced towards the car with his mother.
"Yes, snow," Bella said, smiling at him.
He flapped his arms, jumping up on his toes. "SNOW!"
"Yep, snow," Bella mumbled, biting her lip as she fussed with the car seat buckles, getting them ready. "We can play in it when we get home, 'K?"
Josh bounced a little more, but climbed into his seat. "Snow!" he said, one more time, eyes big, smile wide.
Mer rolled her eyes and said, "We know, Josh. Snow. Got it."
Suppressing a chuckle, Bella got into the driver's seat, then turned the ignition over and pulled away from the curb.
"Are we having pizza tonight?" Meredith asked.
"I think we can. You wanna help me make the dough?" Bella asked.
Joshua interrupted this with an excited, "Pizza! Snow!"
"Yeah, dude, like all your dreams come true." She smiled, getting ready to round the corner up the small hill to the main street.
The snow was still coming down in large, fat flakes. Her students had been distracted by it all afternoon. She had just been glad she'd forgotten to get the snow tires taken off at the end of March. There was never any snow this time of year.
Enough had accumulated over the last few hours to leave a thick layer of slush on the roads. Caught off guard by the abruptness of its arrival, most Vancouverites were unprepared, and her drive back from work had been long and harrowing. They were only a few minutes from home and she was looking forward to parking and not having to drive anywhere else for the remainder of the day.
Testing her traction on the slope, Bella shifted into four-wheel -drive and was satisfied that she could safely make it to the top.
They were halfway up when a beige sedan nosed over the crest.
"Okay, still good," Bella muttered to herself. She was watching the other car carefully. Its driver seemed to be doing the same, because the other car's front wheels angled slightly, like they wanted to give Bella a bit more room.
She watched as the sedan slipped sideways, its front end angling directly towards her.
"Shit!" she said, turning the wheel hard to the right, trying to get out of its way. She knew, watching the angle and velocity of the other vehicle, that there was no way she could avoid a collision.
The silence was profound as Bella's sense of hearing abandoned her. Her mind only had room for the other car moving towards them in what had become the slowest of motions. Time distorted itself. The only thing that moved quickly were her ballooning feelings of horror and dread for her children's well-being. Meredith was buckled in right behind her!
Suddenly, she felt the car lurch, sliding impossibly to the right by another foot. At the same moment, she caught a reflection In the rearview mirror of a familiar face creased with worry.
Edward's face.
There was no time to ponder the fleeting and ghostly image before the impact's jarring crunch arrived. Momentarily stunned, Bella found herself waiting for the sound of Meredith's screams or cries of pain.
But there was nothing.
"Meredith! Josh!" she called, trying to turn herself around, wincing at the twinges in her neck and back.
"Car!" Joshua said.
"Mama?" Meredith called shakily. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Are you?" Bella's voice trembled.
"Yeah, but I think that car broke our car."
Shaking, Bella opened the driver's side door, looking back to see the crumpled section just behind where Meredith sat. She'd been inches from injury.
Bella wrenched open the rear door, kneeling in the snow, one arm around her daughter, the other reaching for Josh's wiggling foot. "You're okay," she whispered. "You're okay." She was on the verge of tears, trying to keep her face composed.
Meredith said nothing, putting her little arms around Bella's neck.
A man's voice reached her. "You alright?"
"Yes, we're fine, I think," Bella said, looking up to see him approaching. The tan sedan sat at the bottom of the hill, the driver's door open, blocking the upper part of the roundabout.
"Yeah," he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
Something about the way he was looking at her made Bella uneasy.
"We need to exchange information," she said, trying to take control of what was happening. Her hand shook as she lifted it to sweep the hair from her face. "I just need to get my stuff."
"I'll get mine too," he said, turning to walk back to his car.
"Sure," Bella muttered. Fishing through the papers in the glove box, Bella found all the insurance for the last three years, but not for the current one. Digging deeper in the mess of papers, she finally located it, wedged between a brochure for a window company and a take-out menu for the local Vietnamese restaurant.
Then the passenger door opened and the other driver climbed in.
Bella blinked, not quite sure how to handle this invasion.
"Um—"
"Thought you'd rather do this here, so you can stay with your kids?" he offered. "Unless you want to stand in the snow?"
This made sense, even to her racing mind. Her next breath brought with it the irksome scent of stale cigarettes. A wave of nausea washed over her.
"Just shock," she murmured to herself.
"Huh?" he asked.
"Nothing," she answered. She knew better than to say she was talking to herself.
He handed over his license and registration and she passed him hers.
He began writing, making easy notes. Bella stared at the papers in front of her.
She could read them, and she understood she needed to write things down, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure out what she was supposed to write or how to organize it.
"Maybe this will help?" the man said, handing her a small card. It had the name of the insurance company at the top, with a preset list of all the information she'd need to collect.
"Thanks," she murmured, taking it and beginning to fill it out.
At the bottom was a section asking for a brief description of what had happened. She stared at it, trying to put in words what had transpired. There was no issue recalling the events, but language evaded her.
"You hit my car pretty hard," the man said.
She whipped her head up and to look at him, grimacing with the pain that accompanied the motion. What the hell? He'd hit her.
"Pardon?" she asked instead.
"I said, you hit my car pretty hard. The front end is completely smashed in."
Drilled into her, from even before she began driving, was her father's injunction to never, ever, ever discuss fault at the scene of an accident. This, however, was a matter of fact. "I didn't hit you. You hit me, coming down that hill."
He made a derisive sound in his throat. "You sure you're okay? You didn't hit your head or something, did you?"
If there was anything that could trigger her anger and indignation, it was the suggestion that she wasn't thinking straight.
"I know exactly what I saw, mister," she spat, "and unless you're interested in going to jail for insurance fraud, you'd better get your damn story straight. I'm going to go check your tires and take pictures and I won't be at all surprised if you don't have snow tires. I do."
She opened the driver's side door and then, remembering her children, said, "Stay here. I'm going to go check on this man's car. And you, get out." She tossed his papers and license onto his lap.
He didn't say anything as he left her car, but then he pulled out a cigarette and began to light it.
"NOT NEAR MY KIDS!" she yelled, making him jump. He took several steps away from her car.
Sure enough, his tires were all-seasons. He had been an idiot trying to take the hill. She shook her head on the way back up, only pausing to snap, "You'll be hearing from the insurance company," before she got back into her own vehicle.
Her bravado spent, she paused before turning the ignition over. Then she let the engine run, trying to assure herself that seeing the ghost of Edward Cullen meant nothing at all. Her efforts were pointless. Instead of reassurance, she felt a frisson of fear and apprehension, and then one of exasperation too, for whatever else life was going to throw her way.
