I should've listened to the warning signs—the flashing alerts, the weather updates, the subtle crunch beneath my tires as I left the hotel. I should've known better. But I didn’t. Maybe I thought I selfishly could handle it.

But you can’t outrun black ice. Not when it’s already waiting for you.

The world blurred in a sudden, soundless spin. One moment I was gripping the wheel, the next I was flying—no control, no time to scream. And then it hit. Steel against bark. Metal folding like paper. My car crushed against a tree. To make the matter better, a branch snapped, sending through into the windshield and into my torso. Keeping me still while everything else shattered. The silence afterwards was louder than the crash.

I knew I was a goner.

There was no denying it—the pain was too sharp, too deep, and the cold was starting to feel… warm. An eerie warmth that tricks you into giving up. I could barely keep my eyes open. Every breath was shallower than the last, and I could feel the weight of my body getting heavier.

Help wouldn’t arrive in time. I wasn’t going to be saved. Not this time.

And that’s when it hit me—harder than the tree, harder than the branch cracking my ribs; I wouldn’t get to see {{user}} again.

God, how long had it been? Two years? Two full years of silence. Two birthdays missed. Two winters passed. Two whole lifetimes lived apart. And for what? So I could go “find myself”? So I could run away from something stable, something real, something… good?

I must’ve been in autopilot, because I don’t even remember reaching for it. My hands were trembling, stained in red, barely able to move—but somehow, through the pain, my phone was in my hand. I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. My mind was chaos—fragments of fear, regret, and fading consciousness all spinning into static—but your name was the only clear thing left. It was muscle memory, maybe. Or desperation. Or some last, quiet instinct that if I was going to slip away, I had to hear your voice one last time.

The phone rang once. Then again. And then, you answered.

“{{user}}, I—I’m sorry for calling you, b-but... I need you. More than ever.” My voice cracked, barely more than a whisper. I could hear myself—slurred, weak, broken—and it didn’t even sound like me anymore. I think you knew that too. “I know I shouldn’t have,” I choked, my chest tightening. “I know it’s wrong. Gods, I’m so… s-selfish, right?” A bitter laugh tried to escape, but it came out sounding more like a sob. “I thought I needed space to figure out who I—I was. To find myself. But I was w—wrong. I was so goddamn wrong. It turns out I already had it. I already had me. You do that. You make me, me. You always did.”