I glanced at the microwave clock.

 

2:35 pm.

 

My gut clenched and I broke into a cold sweat as I watched the digital display, praying it would change to 2:36 before she spoke. Please, please…

 

“Honey?” Mallory called from the living room, and my heart plummeted. I shut my eyes, despairing, as she continued, “Have you seen my keys? I can’t find them anywhere.”

 

She sounded stressed. I knew she would have that worry line between her brows, and she’d be biting her lip as she came around the corner. I knew this, not only because we had been together for almost a decade, but because I had lived this moment countless times before.

 

Keeping my eyes shut, I replied woodenly, “They’re on the table.”

 

I didn’t need to look. That’s where they would be. Even if I had tried to hide them in the coat closet, or hold them in my hand, or - as I did once, out of desperation - throw them into the woods, at 1:15 they would magically reappear on the dining room table.

 

I opened my eyes, resigned. Yes, there they were. Her turtle keychain ornament glinted, the cheerful colors mocking me, daring me to try to change destiny. But it was no use.

 

Mallory would die today. Again.

 

She came around the corner then, heels clicking on the hardwood floors, worry line between her brows, biting her lower lip. It hurt to look at her. I stepped forward as she scooped up her keys, and enfolded her in a hug, breathing in her scent.

 

“Michael,” she laughed. “We’re late,” she reminded me.

 

My voice was muffled as I embraced her for the last time.

 

“I love you,” I told her, and stepped away. I knew her response before she said it; a script she was bound to follow. There were slight variations, depending on what I said or did, but it always ended the same.

 

“I love you, too,” she said, stepping back. She added, as I knew she would, “Do I have lipstick on my teeth?”

 

I shook my head, and she smiled, turning away.

 

I was tempted to say, let’s skip it…let’s stay home…or even tell her what I knew. But it was pointless.

 

I had tried that – I had tried everything. It would only lead to a fight. Eventually Mallory would storm out the door and be killed by a pickup truck running a stop sign…if we fought, she would die alone, without me holding her. No, it was better this way.

 

We got into the car and she turned on the radio as we pulled onto our street. She punched several buttons, and I knew she would settle on the station playing oldies. We’d pass the teenage hitchhiker… we’d marvel at the tacky Easter decorations crowding the neighbor’s lawn… I would joke about buying plastic pink flamingos for our yard and she’d swat me on the arm and laugh.

 

Then, no matter how careful I was - checking all around for any vehicles, taking a different route altogether - at some point a pickup truck would come out of nowhere and barrel through an intersection. It would T-bone us, plowing into Mallory’s door and tumble us into a gully.

 

I would be trapped by the wreckage, unable to move my lower body, and Mallory would suffer severe injuries from the branches of a massive oak tree. She would die in my arms as I awkwardly twisted in my seat to hold her, with the cold March wind blowing through the smashed windshield, freezing the tears on my cheeks.

 

A song by The Temptations came on, and Mallory sang along. I stayed silent, brooding, and she glanced over at me.

 

“C’mon, sing with me!” she implored, grinning. “I know you know the words!”

 

The teenage hitchhiker appeared ahead, and my hands tightened on the wheel, an idea forming. I slowed down.

 

Mallory stopped singing and switched off the radio.

 

“What are you doing?” she frowned as I pulled over and waited for the girl.

 

Mallory glanced incredulously at me. “Michael! Don’t pick her up!”

 

I stayed silent. I didn’t want to fight, but I had to try something different.

 

The girl opened the back door and hopped in.

 

“Thanks,” she mumbled, meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror, then quickly looking away.

 

“Where are you headed?” I asked, pulling back onto the street.

 

Mallory sat rigidly in her seat. I could tell she was furious with me.

 

“Nearest town, I guess,” the girl said.

 

Watching in the rearview mirror, I saw her glance first at Mallory’s fur coat, then shrewdly slide a look down at her Gucci purse. My pulse started to race. Maybe this had been a bad idea.

 

We stopped for a red light next to a Starbucks. Before I knew what was happening, Mallory got out of the car, announcing, “I’m taking a cab.”

 

She slammed the door and stalked away. Automatically, I started to pull into the parking lot after her, when the point of a knife pricked my side, startling me.

 

The hitchhiker hissed, “Keep driving.”

 

My mind spinning, I slowly drove on, watching Mallory in the mirror. I breathed a sigh of relief as she entered the coffee shop. At the next corner, I slowed down for a traffic light turning yellow, and furtively looked around, hoping to spot a cruiser.

 

My passenger jabbed me again, commanding, “Gun it. You’re not stopping.”

 

I quickly looked both ways but saw no one. Stepping on the gas, I barreled through the intersection just as the light turned red.

 

The pickup truck came out of nowhere.

 

There was a tremendous crash; metal squeaking and scraping as my car was pushed across the road. We tumbled into the gully and I saw the massive tree branch crash through the windshield just before it impaled me.

 

Realization dawned, bittersweet but filled with gratitude, just before my world went black.

 

I had finally succeeded.

 

I had saved Mallory.