If You Asked Me

If you asked me, I couldn’t tell you why I decided to go take a different way home that day. It was sweltering hot, and all I wanted to do was get home fast. While I waited to punch my car into a left hand turn, I grew impatient and in a split second I chose to turn the other way and take the longer way home.

If you asked me, I couldn’t tell you why I decided to take the longer way home that day. But I can tell you that because of that decision, my life will never be the same.


“Are you serious?” Nathan sighed in an exasperated tone, as if he had caught a kid doing something he knew he wasn’t supposed to be doing. “I mean really, are you really serious?” He repeated the question again, just in case it hadn’t registered the first time.

“Well… you know I wouldn’t be in here… telling you this unless I was, so…” Faith stammered out the sentence, knowing Nathan would be upset by this news. Which, of course, he was.

Nathan began to pace around the room, and drew his shaky left hand up to his collar to fidget with his tie and pull the top button loose. A habit he frequently turned to when he was stressed or irritated. Or in this case, both.

“I can’t believe you let this happen.” Nathan bit out the stinging remark towards Faith. She kept her professional composure outwardly, but inside she was fuming, and her mind reeling. She had to keep her cool. So she just stood there, staring back at him blankly, as if the comment had fallen on deaf ears.

“I mean, this really is all your fault. If you had told me about this sooner, we could have fixed this. You could have left me a memo or something, anything.” He continued his rampage, ripping off his tie now and throwing it to his desk as he paced like a caged lion behind his office chair.

It was all Faith could do to keep from attacking back to defend herself, and to keep the tears behind her carefully constructed wall around her emotions and heart. She stood with her chin held high, and let her eyes wander around the roomy office while Nathan continued to blow off steam.

Large, floor to ceiling windows acted as the back wall to this room, and opened out into a lush courtyard, complete with a tall, bubbling fountain. A regular oasis in the middle of the desert heat, where one could periodically escape the harshness of the sun.

Faith’s eyes flitted to the other three walls. Two were modestly decorated with “tasteful” pieces of modern art, accompanied by a few professional photographs of the companies buildings and blueprints. The last wall was Nathan’s “Glory Wall” as he said. It contained over thirty framed diplomas, certificates, and awards. Most people would keep it to a prized few, but that wasn’t Nathan’s way. He had crammed as many as he could onto that small wall until it looked like a tacky, over-crowded dance floor.

But no certificate or fancy piece of paper was going to bail him out of this sticky case. Faith sighed and finally let her head drop and let her eyes drop to examine the grey carpet at her feet. She heard Nathan continue his pacing, only it got closer to her and stopped a foot away from her. She could hear his long, frustrated breathing, but she didn’t dare look up into what she knew would be furious eyes. But it wasn’t her fault. It never had been, and never would be. Would he see that?

Nathan let out one more long, exasperated sigh and drew in the next breath. Faith dared to lift her head to meet his gaze. She was right, his eyes were furious. They were their brilliant blue, but full of terrible anger and fury. She had never seen him like this before, and it was downright scary. She recoiled an inch, and immediately saw his eyes flash with rage, and suddenly go blank. And in that instant, the rage unleashed in a flurry of hateful words.

“I want you to get out of my office NOW! You are never to come back, do you hear me? You are good for nothing, and you couldn’t even do your job right! Now look what you’ve done to me! Just GET OUT!” Nathan’s voice roared over Faith’s small frame, and she drew back again, shocked at his sudden rage and completely caught off guard at his blank eyes. There was nothing, only a black hole.

Obscenities began to fly out at her and she tried to suppress the urge to fight back, and throw in her two cents about how he never did anything but build himself a nice little throne to bark orders down at his “minions” to do his bidding. But she bit her tongue, and chose to find the door instead. Once she was out, she bolted down the hallway, tears stinging her eyes as she raced past the curious onlookers who poked their heads out of their own offices to see what was going on.

Nathan’s broken and enraged voice echoed down after her. “You’re nothing to me! Nothing! You are good for nothing!”

Faith hit the door running and never looked back.


“You’re nothing to me! Nothing! You are good for nothing!” Nathan screamed out of his office after his co-worker, Faith who had just fled from his wrath. His voice began to crack and wobble, and his veins began to bulge out of his red, heated neck. His vision began to blur and his head spun. He was vaguely aware that he was screaming, but he couldn’t really remember what he was saying.

Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember anything he had said after he had walked over to Faith. Weird. Nathan walked to the door, and peaked his head out into the hallway. He was met with at least six pairs of curious, fearful eyes. He quickly drew his head back in and shut the door, leaning back against it. What had just happened?

He sank down onto his haunches and drew his knees up to his chest. He exhaled slowly and brought both hands to his face and drew them over his face and into his hair. All he knew was that the company had just been issued an investigation for fraud, and that he didn’t know how this was happening. Then he got frustrated. Then, he walked over to Faith to talk to her about the whole situation. Then- something?

Nathan stretched his brain, searched every corner of his short term memory for what happened. I mean, he was there for crying out loud, he should remember what he said! Maybe it wasn’t anything at all. No, it had to be something, she left sprinting down the hall, and he vaguely remembered screaming. Maybe for her to come back?

“Ugh!” This was all wrong, Nathan thought. He tangled his fingers into his hair and tightened his fists. “Why can’t I remember!” After a few seconds, he realized the unnecessary pain was bringing him no results on remembering the conversation. He eased his grip, and decided it was time to head home.

Nathan gathered his belongings into his black leather briefcase, and headed for the door. He knew this was going to be like the walk of shame. He bolted from the door, turned and shut it as quietly as he could, so as not to draw attention, and set his sights for the exit. His blue eyes were kept straight ahead, but his peripheral vision told him that several workers had come to the door to shake their heads at him as he left. Nathan’s face began to burn under the scrutinizing stares, so he quickened his pace.

His hands finally registered the cool glass door, pushed it open and he was free. Immediately the stifling heat flushed his already red face, and began to make him sweat tiny rivers of moisture. Nathan quickly found his car, unlocked the door, jumped in and jammed the key into the ignition and brought the engine to life. He sat idling only for a few seconds so he could catch his breath and twist the air conditioning knob to full blast at ice cold to try and alleviate the heat.

Then his foot had no problem finding the accelerator as he threw the shifter into reverse, and then into first gear. Nathan was only in the parking lot but had already sped through to third gear. He was in a hurry to leave work and leave this day behind him for good.

Soon he was waiting at the back entrance to make a quick left hand turn and speed home. Nathan had seen that there was a lull in cross traffic as he approached the exit, but of course, as luck would have it, the minute he pulled up to make his turn, everyone in the city decided they needed to drive down his back road. He sighed in exasperation and began to count the cars as they passed in both lanes. When one lane would wane, the other would pick up and vice versa.

While in reality the wait had only taken about one minute of Nathan’s time, it seemed to him like an hour. He could see his work building looming behind him like a dark and menacing storm cloud, and quickly decided he would just turn right and take the longer way home. It would probably end up being faster anyway, he thought, than waiting here for everyone and their grandma to drive by at a snail like speed.

Nathan punched the hesitant car into first and flew out to the right and roared down the road. He let the dull groan of the engine carry his mind off to think about the investigation. He honestly had no idea what he was going to do. He had known that some of his employees were shady, sure. But he never thought it would amount to anything like this.

“UGH!” Nathan let out a frustrated scream of sorts, and slammed both fists into the undeserving steering wheel. “This isn’t fair! I didn’t ask for any of this! Take it back!” He shouted with all the anger that was coursing through his veins. Who he was shouting at, he wasn’t sure. But he had to shout at somebody. Anybody.

Brown and brown-green hues streaked past his blurry peripheral vision as he clipped down the road at an average of ten miles over the limit. He didn’t care. Not today. Not now. He just wanted to get home and forget.

Suddenly, an old beat up car decided to chug out onto the road in front of him, turning out from the local super market. Nathan sighed with agitation, hoping the decrepit car would pick up speed quickly. Of course, it did not. He was not in the mood for this.

He whipped into the left lane quickly and sped by, daring to take a look over his passenger seat towards the car and what kind of driver had the audacity to pull out in front of him like that. His anger must have been painted obviously on his face, because the little old man in the car next to him looked over apologetically and raised his shoulders in defeat.

Even in his aggravation, Nathan couldn’t find room in his heart to be unkind to the older man, so he gave him a similar nod in return to gesture that he finally understood. As he did this, he registered a look of horror wash over the old man’s face, and the sound that filled his ears was only that of a loud horn blaring obsessively over and over again. Nathan looked at the old man oddly seeing that he was the one blaring the horn. In a split second, the old man’s eyes met Nathan’s again, filled with terror and sympathy.

Nathan’s flushed face instantly went ghostly white. He realized it was for him. The honking was for him. He spun his face towards the front of the car with horror, and his heart felt like it stopped working and dropped down to the floor. He was sick to his stomach. He couldn’t even scream anymore.

Only a few seconds had passed from when Nathan sped past the old man, looked over and looked back. But in the next instant, a horrible metal on metal sound penetrated the sound barrier for a mile wide. He didn’t see the car waiting to pull out left, and had punched his gas at the wrong time to speed past the old man. If only he had stayed behind the old man’s chugging piece of scrap metal.

Now his car was the real scrap metal. He couldn’t even think as he saw the hood of his small car buckle of towards him. The sound was deafening, and everything seems to fly in slow motion. It was the strangest sensation he ever felt. Was he dieing? Would he die? Maybe, he thought as he saw the airbags shoot up towards his face in a plume of white cloth and powder.

He felt his body lurch forward and collided full force into his seat belt as the clash of metal against metal continued to fill his eardrums. Was he spinning? Flying? Rolling? He wasn’t sure. Suddenly the windshield shattered and he could feel glass cut his face and neck open with a sharp, stinging force. A warm trickle of wetness snaked across his face. Sweat he thought? Yes, it was a hot day. He was dizzy now, and his head hurt.

Suddenly, another crash rocked his world. This time, it slammed against him from behind. His head lurched forward again and found contact with something hard. The steering wheel? The dash board? He couldn’t tell. Everything was getting fuzzy and everything was spinning. He wasn’t sure if it was the car, or him.

Wasn’t it day time out, too? It was suddenly getting very black he thought. He finally noticed that he didn’t feel like he was jostling around anymore, so he lifted his hand to his head. He drew it away, shocked that he was covered in blood. His blood? No, it couldn’t be. This doesn’t happen to people like me, he thought. It must be the poor person he hit. He thought it would be a good idea to get out of the car and go help them and call 911.

Nathan reached haphazardly for his seatbelt buckle, but instantly collapsed. He slumped forward against the deflating airbag, his head and chest pressed against the steering wheel. Steam and smoke began to filter into the crumpled, mangled lump of metal that once resembled a car.

His mind had finally gone black with thoughts of getting out to help the others, and with the sound of sirens, or maybe screams he thought, filling his ears. Good, he had thought, feeling very sleepy, maybe help is on the way.

If you asked me, I couldn’t tell you clear details. Only chaos encapsulated in a few small seconds. Those few seconds are changing my life forever.