The Golden Crystal Read Online Free

through this! Are you going to keep running away from our problems even after the baby comes?”
    Jake’s mind raced through the excuses he had planned over and again in his head during the last few days. Maybe they weren’t supposed to be together right now  —  not with his new job. Her post-graduate studies had made things more difficult as well, and they rarely spent time together. Maybe they were too stubborn; maybe he just needed some alone time, maybe… 
    “Jake.” Her voice in his ear woke him out of his thoughts. 
    “I know  —  I’m on my way now; I just need some time to process everything  —  ”
    “You’ve had enough time to process this, Jake! Your work keeps getting in the way, or you’re not ready to talk, or you have some other reason to push this off! The fact of the matter is this baby is coming, and neither of us can do anything about it.” 
    He knew the story  —  it was his fault to begin with. Hearing her retell it, he couldn’t help but relive the past three weeks. 
    The project at work. Knowing she wouldn’t understand, but longing to tell her everything and hope she would trust him. 
    News of his father’s death last month. 
    Traveling to Arizona for the memorial with Ally nearly eight months pregnant.
    The argument over something so small, so stupid really. 
    The fight that grew and grew during the trip, leading to their temporary separation  —  Ally to her parents’ place in Durango, and Jake staying home in Albuquerque to continue working while they sorted things out.
    It amazed Jake how quickly they went from best friends to bitter opponents  —  over something so insignificant. He knew how it would end. She’d apologize for being irrational, and he’d promise to stop being so stubborn. They would laugh a little and kiss, and then go back to the way it had always been since they’d met in college at Boulder, arguing over lab assignments and helping each other out on midterms.
    His reverie slowly faded, and he smiled at the fact she hadn’t yet stopped talking  —  now she was rehashing how her mother had tried to talk her out of marrying him. Man, they’d been through a lot together  —  and it had only been seven years. They’d laughed, cried, fought, and otherwise experienced the full range of human emotions together, and now he thought about how much he cared for her. 
    As Ally talked, the road climbed into a steep left turn around a mountainside, with a sheer cliff on the right. Jake compensated for the incline by pushing down harder on the gas, and began to veer left into the turn. 
    “Jake, are you listening to me? I love you  —  we just need to talk, and I don’t want to do it over the phone. How much longer will  —  ” her voice cut off mid-sentence just as a heavy SNAP sounded around him. It was like the air in the car had been immediately and violently sucked out  —  the resulting pressure change in the car even caused his ears to pop.
    What the hell? He checked his phone  —  dead. As he fumbled for the power button, however, he realized it wasn’t just the phone. Everything around him had gone completely dark. 
    The dashboard wasn’t lit, the radio had died, the red LED on his phone’s charger had vanished; even the solitary streetlights every few hundred yards had gone out. Jake was suddenly plunged into an enveloping blackness.
    But the car was still moving, now cresting the hill and accelerating downward. Jake pressed on the brake, but the pedal slid easily to the floor. He tried the ignition and the power steering as well, but got nothing. It was as if the car  —  and everything around him electronic or mechanical  —  had just shut off at once. He tried to stay calm, to focus on slowing the car, but gravity was against him. His palms started to sweat as he tried to picture the edge of the road  —  the slight shoulder with a rocky gorge beyond. Jake had driven this pass plenty of times  —