Free Warrior Beautiful by Wendy Knight

room, this house. She had loved Trey so much — those memories were some of the happiest she had. They’d been the stereotypical perfect couple — she was on the drill team, he was a big, tough football player. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t have done for her — until the accident.
    And that was it. All those wonderful memories were overshadowed by a single painful nightmare. She threw the blanket off her, trying to escape the house before the images caught her, but she wasn’t fast enough.
    “ Don ’ t worry, baby, we ’ ll get your homework done on time. I just want to stop and say ‘ hi ’ to my boys. ” Trey ’ s eyes sparkled as he watched.
    “ Fine. But you owe me big time, ” she teased. He grinned over at her and grabbed her hand, kissing her fingers.
    “ Stop sign! Stop sign! ” Scout laughed as he blew right through it, but it died in her throat as the semi ’ s horn blasted from her right. She spun toward it in time to see the grill so close she could touch it… and then nothing.
    She woke up in a hospital two weeks later. Her parents and Lil Bit sat around her bed, pale and exhausted. She looked for Trey, but he wasn ’ t there. Her first words were, “ Is Trey okay? ” Surely, he must have died in the accident if he wasn ’ t there when she woke up.
    “ Yes, he ’ s okay, ” her dad answered, looking down at the floor. She should have realized something was wrong when he wouldn ’ t even meet her eyes.
    “ When can I see him? ”
    “ I don ’ t know, sweetie, he… hasn ’ t been by. ” Laila rubbed her hand like that could take away the pain.
    Scout waited. She called. He never came.
    Scout escaped the house, fighting tears because she refused to cry over it again, and if she was going to cry over anything today it would be her family, lost in a hospital. She ran down the driveway, sucking in lungfuls of air, not seeing Trey’s truck until it nearly ran her over. She shrieked and dove out of the way as tires squealed. “Scout? What on earth?” Trey leaped from the car and stomped to her side, lifting her out of the dirt.
    “I didn’t see you!”
    “ How did you not see me? There’s no one else even awake on this entire street!” Trey’s hand on her arm shook violently. “I almost killed you — Again.” The way his voice cracked hurt, and Scout didn’t want to hurt anymore.
    She shook his hand off. “I almost killed me, Trey. Not you. I thought you were going to the hospital.”
    “They’re quarantining everyone in their homes. We were stopped two miles down the road and sent back.” He ran a hand through his unruly hair, scanning the area like he thought quarantine-enforcers were going to come popping out of the woods at any second. “Where were you going? You said you’d wait for me.”
    “You told me to wait for you. I said I needed to go home. You said you’d come there. I never okayed that, by the way.”
    Trey suddenly looked exhausted, almost on the verge of a total collapse. “Scout, please. Please don’t push me away right now.” His voice was low, and Scout wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t want Kylin to overhear him or if he was just too tired to raise it to a normal decibel.
    She crossed her arms, glaring at him. “It feels like the world is ending, Scout.” His voice was barely above a whisper now.
    “Fine. Get your little girlfriend and you can come to my house,” she snapped, spinning on her heel.
    She stalked away, making it to the next house over before she heard Kylin’s shrill voice. “What? Why?”
    “Awesome. This is going to be so much fun.” Scout kicked viciously at a rock, watching as it rolled across the road. She’d just get them settled, go up to her room, and sneak out the window. She’d done it a zillion times when she and Trey had been together. No problem.
    “It’s dinner time,” Kylin said when Scout opened the door and let them in.
    Scout glanced at the gigantic clock hanging over the mantle. Six