The Causeway in Flood

By the time the sun dropped behind the gums, the rain had already turned the back roads into slick ribbons of mud and shine. Adrian had promised that the trip would be quick: pick up a pile of spare parts from a seller out past the farms, load them into his old wagon, and head home before dark.

Serena went along because she knew the route and because Adrian, for all his charm, had a talent for taking bad ideas and calling them confidence.

The pickup itself went fine. The parts were heavier than expected, but they managed to cram them into the back of the car. Then the weather worsened. By the time they reached the causeway, the road they had crossed only an hour earlier had vanished beneath a sheet of brown water.

Serena stared out at it in disbelief. The crossing was broad and flat, and the current moving across it looked far stronger than it should have been. She had seen floodwater before. Years earlier, she had been stranded on a similar stretch of road when a torrent shoved her car sideways and almost took her with it. The memory sat in her bones. She would not do it again.

"We turn around," she said at once. "There’s another route. It’s longer, but there’s a bridge farther up."

Adrian shook his head and eased the car forward.

Serena’s stomach dropped. She told him to stop. He said they’d be fine. The water was already pushing at the wheels.

Then fear took over.

She grabbed the door handle and jumped out while there was still bare gravel at the edge of the road. She landed hard, but safely. Behind her, the car lurched on.

It barely made it a few meters before the current caught it broadside. The wagon slewed, tipped, and rolled with terrible suddenness. For one awful second it vanished in the churn, then slammed upright again downstream, pinned against the bank like a toy.

Serena ran.

Adrian was alive, somehow, clinging to the side of the wrecked car when she reached him. She helped him out of the water, and only then did the shaking begin.

Instead of relief, he was furious.

He said her weight had thrown off the balance. He said if she had stayed in the car, he would have made it across. He said she had made him unsafe by leaving.

Serena could only stare at him. The wagon was old, heavy, and loaded with metal parts in the back; the idea that her body had somehow doomed the crossing felt absurd. But the shock in his face had curdled into blame, and blame was all he wanted.

They called for help and waited until the river began to fall. Eventually they were able to cross on foot and recover what they could. The car was ruined. Adrian stopped speaking to her after that.

A week later, an envelope arrived at her apartment.

It was a formal letter from a lawyer in town, demanding payment for the vehicle and damages. The language was stiff and polished, but the accusation inside it was unmistakable: Serena had endangered the car by getting out and was therefore responsible for the loss.

She read it twice, then a third time, waiting for the anger to settle into something she could name.

Instead, all she felt was astonishment.

She had not forced Adrian to drive into floodwater. She had not asked him to gamble with a swollen river. She had simply refused to remain trapped in a sinking car because he wanted to prove a point.

By the time she folded the letter and set it on the table, her hands were steady again.

If that meant losing a friend, she thought, then perhaps he had been lost long before the river ever rose.