Showing She Tumbled Down: a short story by Lorraine Devon Wilke

New Year's Eve. It's late, well past the midnight hour. A woman looking for respite from noise, champagne, and tensions with her boyfriend steps out to clear her head. She calls out that she'll be back shortly and heads down the quiet neighborhood street... and never comes back.

A man who's had too much to drink, driving too fast a car, roars by on that same darkened road and, in a flash of motion and impact, is stunned to see the face of a startled woman smash into his windshield. When the car stops he shakes in silence, waiting for... something. But when no one approaches, no cars go by and no inquiring lights flicker on, fear and panic take over and he makes the unfathomable decision to drive away... and never look back.

"She Tumbled Down," a short story by longtime Huffington Post contributor and author (After The Sucker Punch, Hysterical Love), Lorraine Devon Wilke, follows the ripple effects of this tragic hit-and-run, attempting to answer that unanswerable question, "Who could do such a thing?" From that first fateful moment through the months and years that follow, the narrative weaves through the lives of seemingly disparate characters, threading the initial event into another story, a love story, that ultimately links to the tragedy in unexpected ways. "I was hoping against hope that what happened at the story's climax wasn't going to happen, but it did happen, and I am still feeling the effects now."