I helped a boy get home, but when his mother saw me, she turned pale and said, “It’s… you?”
I looked at her, puzzled, and when she began to speak, a shiver ran through my body, and everything around me seemed to stop.
I was driving on an empty road, thinking of nothing. Just the sound of the rain and the rumble of the engine.
And suddenly — a figure. A little boy, in the middle of the road, soaked to the bone, holding a puppy to his chest.
I braked sharply. The wheels skidded on the asphalt.
— What are you doing here? — I shouted to cover the sound of the rain.
He looked up. The puppy was trembling. The boy too.
— I got lost… I didn’t want to leave him alone. Mom said I couldn’t, but I went anyway.
I muttered under my breath and reversed.
— Okay, get in. We’ll take you back to your mother.
He sat behind me, holding the puppy like a life preserver. We drove off.
After a few streets, he suddenly said:
— Here. This house.
I stopped. He jumped, ran to the door, and knocked.
The door opened. A woman. A tired face, a look — like an electric shock.
For a second, she seemed unable to believe what she was seeing — then she rushed outside and hugged the boy.
— Where have you been?! — her voice broke, trembling with fear and relief.
She held him close, kissing his wet hair… and suddenly, she looked up.
Our eyes met.
She froze, turned pale.
— It’s… you?
I furrowed my brows.
— Do we know each other?
She stepped forward, still holding her son by the shoulders.
Her voice trembled. And her next words sent a cold shiver down my spine, as if the rain had pierced me…
— You… at that moment… — she couldn’t finish her sentence. Her lips trembled, her gaze slid past my shoulder, as if someone were standing there, in the darkness.
— Forgive me, — I said softly. — I think you are mistaken.
She shook her head.
— No. I remember. You got us out of the car… that night, on the road, five years ago. There was a tanker truck on fire.
I was holding my child, screaming — and suddenly someone opened the door… It was you.
The words hung between us, mixed with the sound of the rain.
I wanted to say it was impossible — that that night my son had died, that I had barely survived myself.
But I couldn’t.
The boy looked up at me, and in his eyes, I saw the same expression I had seen long ago, just before losing everything.
The woman stepped forward.
— Why did you come now? — she asked softly.
I lifted my eyes to the sky.
For a moment, it felt as if everything was beginning again.
The same rain. The same fear.
— Perhaps, — I said, — because some roads don’t end until you know why you are on them.
She offered me a coffee and invited me inside.
I looked at the road for a moment, then at her door, and thought that perhaps all of this was not a coincidence — that it was time to leave the past on the road and step in…
I slowly got off the motorcycle and walked toward the house.
