Somewhere along the line, he’d had a drink. She’d suggested it, her smooth voice slightly tainted by the drinks she’d already had. She then proceeded to slide him a glass full of the amber liquid, light catching the bubbles inside. 

He looked at the drink in front of him. He’d always been a lightweight, but her eyes prompted him into sipping it down. It burned as it slid down his throat. Not necessarily unpleasant, but his throat was already sore from screaming over the noise that reverberated through the small club. 

“There ya go. Now you’ll loosen up!” She sang. 

Even though they’d come here together, he’d spent most of his time around the edges of the crowd, or on the faded faux-leather barstool he occupied right now. This had always been more of her domain anyway. 

“Come on! Let’s go dance!” She slipped off her barstool and tugged him into the thrumming crowd of dancers.

He was hesitant; there were so many people. Even as they tried to find a spot on the cramped dance floor, as they moved as nimbly as they could through the maze of bodies, both were bumped into and purposefully hip-checked several times. 

When they finally reached a space large enough for the both of them, he could feel his vision ebb away on the sides, his peripheral becoming fuzzy. It was fine, not that bad at all. He could still drive them home, as he always had to do on nights like these. 

Even though the closeness of strangers bothered him, he could feel himself getting lost in the beat that thudded its course through every bone in his body, until he felt as though his heart itself was beating in time with the rhythm.

They danced together the rest of the night. Not in the aggressive way the other couples around them danced, but in their own way. They were next to each other, laughing as music pumped through their veins and into their very hearts and brains. They were dancing together. 

It occupied them for hours on end. Even when the muscles in their legs screamed out in soreness, out of rhythm with the screams around them. Even when the flashes of colors from the strobe lights blinded them so thoroughly that all they could see when they closed their eyes was puddles of color swimming in front of them. Even then, did they dance and move and occupy this moment in time together. 

They didn’t stop dancing because they were together. Their closeness could overcome any pain, any blindness. Through it all, they would always be able to see each other in the same way they could find each other in the crowded club. 

It was early in the morning by the time they’d both decided it was time to leave. She was on her fourth or fifth drink, her dancing becoming less and less of a controlled sway and more and more of a drunken shimmy. 

He’d stuck to the first drink and the first drink only. He wanted them to get home safely. She did too, and he knew that when she asked him as they were about to leave, “You good?” 

Her words were slurred, but he was able to grasp their meaning just fine. “Yup. I’ve only had one. The edges aren’t even that fuzzy,” He said as he held open the door that led to the hot, sticky air of the summer morning outside. 

“Alright. Be careful.” She said as she climbed into their car. It was a dark sedan, appearing almost black against the starlight of the early morning. 

“Always.” 

He got in the driver’s seat before putting on his seatbelt. 

“You got your belt on?” 

She looked down to check. “Yup.” 

“We’re off then.” The motor started, it’s rattling quieter and less rhythmic than the noise they’d just left. 

“I can’t get that beat out of my head.” She said as he stopped at a red light, placing her hands against her temples.

His hand hovered over the radio knob. “You want me to find something?” 

“Yeah. You can pick a station you like, since I know the music back there wasn’t your favorite.” She smiled at him in the mirror. 

Classical it was then. He turned the dial and the soft music filled the car, the piano’s notes flitting into his ears. 

Beside him, she rested her head on the headrest, eyes closed. He might’ve risked a second look at her if he wasn’t as worried about getting them back safe. He wasn’t inebriated, but he’d still had a drink, and he knew what that could mean if he wasn’t careful.

Not much longer now until their apartment, where he’d help her upstairs and fall into slumber beside her. 

He was just passing through another green light when a blinding light seared itself into his vision. 

Two headlights, he realized too slowly. Two headlights coming right at them. 

He swerved to miss the oncoming car, but he couldn’t make his own car move fast enough. The impact sent their car spiraling. 

He was screaming. No, she was. They both were. 

He couldn’t stop the car from spinning. No matter how hard he spun the wheel, the metal cage continued to spin. He couldn’t understand it. It was the middle of summer-the roads weren’t icy, he hadn’t been speeding. 

But the other car had been. So fast, that he could do nothing as his dark sedan slammed right into the side of a tree. So fast, that they didn’t even slow down to see what destruction they had caused.

In slow motion, leaves fell around them. His head was ringing, and he couldn’t get his eyes to focus. But that didn’t matter. His injuries didn’t matter because as his eyes focused slowly, painfully slowly, he made out the silhouette of her body.

He screamed her name. She didn’t respond from where she was slumped onto the dashboard, blood dripping slowly off her nose. He searched his pocket for his phone, then remembered he’d left it back at the house. 

She never went anywhere without her phone though, and when he searched the pockets of her dress-her favorite, simply because it had pockets- he realized something that turned his blood to ice in his veins. Ice that traveled through his body, to his heart, to his brain, freezing him still. 

Her seatbelt. He’d asked if she’d been wearing her belt, and she hadn’t lied. The slim, black band hung at her waist, more for decoration than practical use. The seatbelt was hanging  against the side of the car, unused. 

He cried out, and searched her other pocket. She stirred, turning her head to him. “What happened?” She choked out through her bloodied mouth.  

It was even worse than he could’ve imagined. There was a bump on her forehead the size of his fist. Her lip was split and bleeding. There was glass littered around her, and some shards had managed to slice her cheek. 

“Crash,” He squeaked out, barely able to comprehend her wrecked state. “Phone?”

Her eyes were dazed and distant as she dug through her other pocket and handed over her phone with shaking hands.

When she turned to look at him, he noticed how deep the cuts looked. Blood was leaving an angry, red trail down the side of her face, dripping onto her dress and the car around her. 

He punched in the number for 911. He was answered by a cheery operator who assured him that help was coming. When he glanced over to tell her the news, he found her head resting against the broken glass of the window. 

He shook her once, lightly. No response. 

He shook her again, rougher this time. No response. 

He shook her hard, causing her head to rattle against the broken window. No response. 

He was screaming into the phone. Screaming for help. Screaming for her to wake up. 

When help did come, he could barely see it. His window had cracked into pieces that refracted the light and the windshield was covered in leaves from the tree. Even as the sirens wailed, his ears played the notes of the piano back at him. 

As help came closer, the piano music was louder, until it filled his head the same way her blood filled the car, until he was deafened by piano notes and drowning in blood.