EPISODE 3 — Miller’s Curve
The lake had frozen early that year. Tommy and Buddy went out on the ice like they always did — Buddy skidding and sliding, Tommy laughing so hard his sides hurt.
They stayed too late. The sun dropped. The temperature dropped faster.
“Come on, bud,” Tommy said, teeth chattering. “Let’s get home before Ma kills us.”
He’d had two beers. Just two — enough to feel warm, enough to make the ice invisible and the curves feel straight. Enough.
Miller’s Curve was a gentle bend in summer. In winter, with black ice under a dusting of snow, it was a trap.
The pickup hit the ice at fifty and spun like a top. Tommy fought the wheel — wrong, everything wrong, too much correction — and the truck went sideways into the ditch and rolled once, hard.
Tommy woke up upside down, bleeding from the scalp, the world smelling of gasoline and cold.
“Buddy?” he croaked. “BUDDY?”
The passenger door was gone. Buddy had been thrown clear — forty feet into the snowbank.
Tommy crawled. Dragged himself through the snow on his belly, leaving a red trail, until he reached him.
Buddy was breathing funny. Shallow. Wrong. He looked up at Tommy with those eyes — not blaming, not angry. Just confused. Asking the only question dogs ever ask:
What happened?
Tommy held him. Held him and promised him things — I’ll slow down, I’ll be better, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry — and the snow kept falling, soft and endless, and Buddy’s breathing got slower.
And then it stopped.
Tommy sat in the snow on Miller’s Curve and screamed until his throat bled.
