A Christmas Wish For Us

Chapter 5: The Kaleidoscope

The next morning was Saturday. The sun was blindingly bright, reflecting off the fresh snow that blanketed Chicago, turning the world into a sheet of white overexposed film.

"Wake up, sleepyhead!"

Sarah was standing over the bed, fully dressed in jeans and a thick white sweater that made her look like a cloud. She threw a pillow at his face, the impact soft and smelling of lavender detergent.

"We have a mission," she declared, bouncing slightly on her heels.

Liam groaned, shielding his eyes with his forearm. For a split second—just a heartbeat—he forgot. He forgot the office with Dr. Henderson. He forgot the spiderweb on the MRI. He forgot the lie he had told in the kitchen last night.

He was just a guy waking up next to the girl he loved.

Then the throb in his temple returned, sharp and insistent, a drill bit twisting into the bone behind his left eye. Reality crashed back in.

"Mission?" he rasped, his voice thick with sleep.

"Groceries," Sarah said, pulling the duvet off him. "The fridge is empty. If we're going to have this 'stress-free weekend' at the cabin, we need supplies. I'm thinking excessive amounts of cheese, hot cocoa, and ingredients for those cookies you like. The ones that are basically just butter and sugar held together by hope."

She looked so excited. So normal.

Liam forced himself to sit up. His body felt heavy, uncoordinated, as if his limbs were submerged in water. He had to concentrate to swing his legs over the side of the bed without stumbling, placing his feet flat on the cold floor to ground himself.

"Groceries," he repeated. "Right."

He got dressed slowly while Sarah waited in the hallway. His fingers felt numb, fumbling with the buttons of his flannel shirt. He missed a loop and had to redo it, his hands shaking slightly. He cursed under his breath, praying she wouldn't walk in and see him struggling with a task a five-year-old could master.

"Ready?" Sarah asked from the doorway, jingling the car keys.

"Ready," Liam lied.

They walked out into the cold, bright morning. The air was sharp, stabbing at Liam’s sensitive eyes. He squinted, a spike of pain drilling through his skull.

He opened the passenger door for her, but Sarah tossed him the keys. They arc through the air, glittering in the sun.

"You drive," she said. "I want to be DJ. I made a 'Christmas Bops' playlist and you are going to listen to all of it."

Liam caught the keys. He stared at them in his hand. He looked at the bright sun reflecting off the windshield.

He felt the warning throb in his head. It was louder today.

I shouldn't drive, he thought. The doctor’s voice echoed in his memory: Motor functions could be affected. Seizures.

But Sarah was already climbing into the passenger seat, plugging in her phone. "Come on, slowpoke! Mariah Carey is waiting!"

He couldn't tell her he couldn't drive. That would lead to questions. Why can't you drive? Are your headaches that bad? Maybe we should go back to the doctor. Questions would lead to the truth.

It’s just a ten-minute drive to the store, he told himself, gripping the keys until the metal bit into his palm. I can do this. I'm fine. Just get us to the store and back.

He got into the driver's seat. He put the car in reverse, backing out of the driveway. He smiled at Sarah as the music started blasting—an opening chord of sleigh bells that felt aggressive in the small space.

He didn't know that this was the last time he would see her smile as his fiancée. He just shifted into drive and pulled onto the road.

---

The song "All I Want for Christmas Is You" was vibrating through the dashboard, shaking the rearview mirror.

Sarah was singing the high notes, pointing a gloved finger at Liam during the chorus, her head bobbing to the beat. She was pure joy, a burst of color in the gray interior of the car.

"Come on!" she shouted over the music, laughing. "You know the words! Don't pretend you're too cool for Mariah!"

Liam gripped the steering wheel at ten and two. He forced a smile, though it felt like the skin on his face was too tight, a mask that was shrinking.

"I am absolutely too cool for Mariah," he teased, his voice sounding distant to his own ears.

"Liar!" She turned the volume up. "I heard you humming it in the shower yesterday."

The world outside the car was a blinding, pristine white. The sun reflected off the snowbanks piled high on the roadside, creating a glare that was sharp enough to slice through Liam’s retinas.

He squinted, reaching for the visor, but it didn't help.

The dull throb behind his left eye—the one that had been a constant companion since breakfast—suddenly changed.

It stopped throbbing and started humming.

A low, electric buzz originated from the base of his skull, like a high-voltage wire snapping in the wind.

Liam blinked hard.

For a fraction of a second, the road ahead disappeared. It didn't turn black; it turned into a burst of static, like an old television losing signal. White noise filled his vision.

Whoa, he thought, his heart skipping a beat. Focus. Just focus.

"You okay?" Sarah asked. The music seemed to dip in volume, sounding like it was coming from underwater.

Liam shook his head, trying to clear the static. "Yeah. Just... the sun is bright."

"Do you want sunglasses? I have mine in my purse." She started digging around in her bag, distracting herself, looking away from the road.

Liam looked back through the windshield. The static was gone, but now his peripheral vision was narrowing. It was like looking through a tunnel. The trees on the side of the road were blurring into gray streaks.

Pull over, a rational voice in his brain screamed. Pull over right now.

He tried to lift his foot off the gas pedal.

He sent the command: Lift right leg. Move to brake.

Nothing happened.

His leg felt like a block of concrete. It was heavy, dead, disconnected from his brain. The signal traveled down his spine and simply vanished into the void of the tumor.

He stared at his own knee in horror, willing it to move, but the line was severed.

"Liam?" Sarah’s voice was sharper now. The playfulness was gone. "Liam, you're drifting. Watch out for the mailboxes."

The car was veering slightly to the right, heading toward the shoulder where the snow was deep and unplowed.

"I..." Liam tried to speak, but his tongue felt thick, filling his whole mouth like cotton. "I can't..."

"Liam!" Sarah dropped her purse. She grabbed his arm. "Liam, stop the car! What are you doing?"

The tunnel vision collapsed.

Suddenly, a kaleidoscope of colors exploded behind his eyes—white, gold, violet. It was blindingly beautiful and utterly terrifying.

He couldn't see the road. He couldn't see the car. He couldn't see Sarah. He was floating in a sea of electric light.

"I can't see!" Liam choked out, the panic finally breaking through his paralysis. "Sarah, I can't see!"

"Hit the brake!" Sarah screamed. He felt her lunge across the center console, her hands grappling for the steering wheel.

"I can't move my leg!" he yelled back, tears of frustration hot in his eyes. "It won't move!"

He felt the car jerk violently as Sarah yanked the wheel to the left, trying to correct their course.

The tires caught a patch of black ice hidden beneath the fresh powder.

The world spun.

The sensation of gravity vanished. The roar of the engine was replaced by the terrifying sound of tires screeching—a high-pitched wail that sounded like a human scream.

I'm killing her, Liam thought with crystal clarity. I tried to save her from a broken heart, and now I'm killing her.

There was a sickening crunch of metal hitting something hard—a guardrail, a tree, the earth itself.

The airbags deployed with the sound of a gunshot. Dust filled the air. The car rolled. Once. Twice.

The world was a tumble of white snow, shattered glass, and the violent end of a perfect morning.

Then, everything stopped.

---

Silence.

That was the worst part. The music had stopped. The engine had died. There was only the sound of the wind whistling through a broken window and the tick-tick-tick of the cooling metal.

Liam opened his eyes.

He was upside down. The seatbelt dug into his chest, holding him suspended in the air. The kaleidoscope in his vision had faded to a dull, gray haze.

His head felt like it had been split open with an axe.

"Sarah?" he rasped. His voice was barely a whisper.

No answer.

Panic, cold and sharp, flooded his veins, overriding the pain in his body. He fumbled with the seatbelt release. His fingers were shaking, slick with something warm and wet—blood.

He managed to click the button. He fell, hitting the roof of the car—which was now the floor—with a heavy thud.

He groaned, ignoring the flare of agony in his shoulder, and crawled toward the passenger side through the debris of shattered glass and grocery lists.

"Sarah!" he yelled, louder this time.

She was slumped against the dashboard, her seatbelt still locked. Her head was lolling to the side at an unnatural angle. Her hair, usually so full of life, was matted with blood on the left side.

Liam reached her. He touched her cheek. It was warm, but she was devastatingly still.

"No, no, no," Liam sobbed, his hands hovering over her, afraid to move her, afraid he had broken her. "Sarah, please. Open your eyes. Please, baby. Don't do this."

He checked for a pulse. He pressed two fingers to her neck, holding his own breath.

Thump... thump... thump.

It was there. Weak, but there.

Liam collapsed back against the shattered window, letting out a ragged breath that turned into a sob. She was alive.

But for how long?

He looked around the wreckage. The grocery list Sarah had written—cheese, cocoa, happiness—was fluttering in the snow outside the broken windshield. The dashboard was crushed.

This was his fault.

The diagnosis. The secrets. The decision to drive. Every choice he had made in the last twenty-four hours had led to this moment. He had been so arrogant, thinking he could control the timeline of his own tragedy. He thought he could choreograph a clean breakup.

Instead, he had let the monster take the wheel.

"I'm sorry," Liam whispered, stroking Sarah’s limp hand. Blood from his own head dripped onto her white sweater, staining it crimson. "I'm so sorry."

In the distance, the wail of sirens began to cut through the winter air. They were getting closer.

Liam looked at Sarah’s peaceful, unconscious face. A new, darker resolve settled in his chest.

He hadn't just crashed a car. He had crashed their life.

When she woke up—if she woke up—he couldn't be her fiancé anymore. He couldn't be the man who loved her. He had to be the villain. He had to be the stranger.

He had to make sure she never got in a car with him again.

The blue and red lights of the ambulance began to flash against the snow, illuminating the wreckage in harsh, strobing bursts.

Liam leaned forward and kissed Sarah’s forehead, right next to the cut bleeding into her hairline.

"You have to forget me," he whispered into her skin. "I promise, Sarah. I’ll make you forget me."

The paramedics appeared at the window, their voices shouting orders, pulling the door open with a screech of metal.

Liam let them pull him away, his eyes never leaving her face until the darkness finally swallowed him whole.