Chapter 78: I Don’t Feel Good

Eric reached into the back seat for a bouquet of pale orange flowers that he’d purchased earlier that morning. They were called Juliet Roses, and they were wrapped in vintage brown paper that had been imported from England.

Eric watched Crystal cross the street, and he was about to get out of the car when he saw a van drive up alongside her from the corner of his eye. What the hell is going on here? - he wondered. The van stopped, and for a moment, his view of Crystal was obscured, and then it took off like a bat out of hell.

At that moment, inspiration struck, and for fear of losing his nerve, Eric didn’t give himself time to think. Instead, he jumped straight into the action.

Without a word of explanation, Eric ordered Antony out of the car, and he slid into the driver’s seat. He smashed his foot to the pedal and took off after the van. And it only took a moment for him to catch up. Then, when the driver applied pressure to his brakes at the next Stop sign, Eric slammed his car into the van. Eric’s head slammed forward as the two vehicles collided. The airbag exploded, bashing into Eric’s forehead, and he lost consciousness.

Eric was only out of it for about two minutes, and when he came to, he saw that the force of the collision had pushed both vehicles off the road. The front of his car had crumpled, completely ruined, and every part of his body hurt.

The door of the van opened on its own, swayed, and eventually clanged to the ground. Then a man jumped out, turned to Eric, and began to shout and swear at him. “You stupid jerk!” he shouted. “Don’t you know how to drive?”

Eric raised his head and tried to push away the airbag. He felt dizzy and more than a little confused. I must have been out of my head - he realized - Otherwise, why would I have done this? He had always had a carefree YOLO - You Only Live Once-attitude, but he had also always valued his life. Thus, he had never taken such a desperate risk before. “Holy crap,” he sees a priest once this is over. Maybe he can exercise whatever demons have entered his head.

Eric turned his head around and spotted Crystal and her friend standing on the sidewalk. They were staring at the wreckage in shocked disbelief.

Once Crystal saw that Eric was alive, she rushed to the side of the Lamborghini. As she ran, she said to Serenity, “Call the police! And call an ambulance.”

Crystal yanked open the car door, and Eric’s charming smile greeted her. “My hero,” he sighed. He was impressed by her heroic courage. He could not even imagine that Crystal would do this kind of act.

The people around her, even the man from the van, were too frightened to approach. They

were afraid that the vehicle would explode at any moment, but all Crystal seemed to care about was the passenger’s safety. When Eric thought about this, it made him glad that he hadn’t slept with the wh*re the previous night or defiled himself by masturbating. He thought - She is such a sweetheart!

Once the door was open, Crystal touched Eric’s shoulder and asked, “Are you all right, Sir? You seemed to get hurt,”

“I don’t feel good,” Eric replied. “I think my neck is broken.” His exaggerated expression was visible on his face.

When Crystal heard this, she had a feeling of déjà vu. Why does this event seem so familiar to me? She asked herself. But no answer was forthcoming. “Can you give me the number of a family member or a friend?” she asked. “If so, I can call them and let them know what’s happened. You needed some medical attention,”

“Where’s Antony?” Eric asked.

“I don’t know who that is,” Crystal said, still in shock after she saw what happened to this guy.

“M-My f-friend from last night,” Eric stammered. “He was beginning to feel very weak. “H-He was just w-with m-me...”

Crystal looked around frantically, and it didn’t take her long to see a face she recognized.

After witnessing the collision, Antony was scared out of his wits, and it took him much longer to recover them than Crystal had. This is because everything had happened so fast.

When Crystal saw him just standing there, she gave him a vicious look and shouted, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you just standing there?”

Antony shook his head to clear it and raced toward the accident. Until then, he had thought that this was an accident, and he hadn’t been able to make heads or tails of it. He knew that the brake line hadn’t been cut because he’d just been driving the car. Now that his head was clear, though, he understood that the collision wasn’t an accident, it had been a part of his boss’s Master Plan all along. By staging this collision before Crystal’s eyes, he was sure to garner her sympathy!

Crystal turned to Eric and said, “He’s coming. Is there anyone else that I should call?” Eric said that there was, and once Crystal had her phone in her hand, he rattled off a series of numbers. Crystal punched them in, pressed send, and almost immediately, a phone could be heard ringing - from inside the car!

Crystal didn’t understand what was going on, and she had a confused look on her face, but when she saw the triumphant expression on Eric’s face, it all began to make sense. “Eric?” she gasped as she realized that the number he had given her was his phone. number. “What the literal fuck?!?!?”

Antony saw all of this, and he almost fell to his knees. This method of picking up girls is fantastic! - he thought.

Crystal scowled, “Did you fake an accident to get my attention?” she asked. “You aren’t even hurt, are you?”