Sparks the Matchmaker (Aaron Sparks Series) by Russell Elkins Page A

think I was just about to hit my growth spurt too, but I didn’t grow anymore after that. It looks like I’ll be stuck at five foot three forever.”
    “Who was the driver? What happened next?” Ollie sat on the edge of the bed with a horrible sinking feeling.
    Sparks nodded. “For a long time, I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember anything about the accident at first. I woke up in a hospital, unable to recognize any of the sad faces surrounding my bed, incapable of recalling any details from the accident at all.” He paused and held a hand to his mouth.
    After a while, he continued. “My brain was damaged, but in a really unusual way. You know how different parts of the brain work to control different things, right?”
    “Sure. One part is for vision, other parts control aggression, anger, memory… all that kind of stuff.”
    “Yeah. To illustrate that point— and sorry to bring back something painful— but when we pulled up at Anne’s and you saw her with that other guy, your brain was going nuts. It immediately started communicating with all the different parts, piecing together what everything means.”
    “And you could read that in me?”
    “Sorta.”
    “Are you trying to tell me that the part of your brain that interprets cause and effect was somehow… I dunno, that it got some sense knocked into it instead of getting damaged?”
    Sparks grimaced. “Not exactly. It’s more like blind people. They tend to have very sharp hearing, right? It’s sorta like that. The accident was permanent in some important aspects, but not in others. The parts of me that weren’t damaged now work a little better than usual. Like you said, the ‘cause and effect’ parts.”
    Sparks cleared his throat. “It’s been about a decade now. The more I work at it, the better I get at understanding what makes things the way they are and what’s going to happen.”
    “So at some point— I’m guessing— you were able to put together the missing pieces of what happened with your accident. You caught the guy who hit you, didn’t you?”
    “I did piece things together, yes. I remembered it all. I didn’t turn him in to the cops, though.” Sparks looked down and his face clouded with pain. “No. I never turned him in.”
    “That was big of you. I woulda.”
    “I’m not proud of what I did, Oliver. I should have turned him in. Instead I decided I’d go to his house and knock at the front door. When he answered, all I said was that I knew what he did and I wouldn’t forget it. Then I turned my back on him and walked off his porch.”
    “That’s it?”
    “That’s it.”
    “That’s not so bad. You’re a bigger man than I would have been. I would have maybe hit him. I’m not that quick to forgive.”
    “I wish forgiveness were the case.” Sparks didn’t raise his eyes from the floor. “I knew when I limped my way up his front steps that I would be sending his life into a tailspin. My senses had grown keen enough by that time to see how those simple words would be all the revenge I would need. What I wasn’t yet any good at, though, was seeing how my words would affect the rest of his family. He left ‘em, Ollie. He left his family. That night he loaded as many things into his car as he could fit, and without a word to his wife and daughter, he was gone. The thought of being charged with a hit-and-run, spending the next few years in prison, that was too much for him. He took off.
    “Then, after a little less than a month, he came back, but the damage to his marriage was done. He turned himself in to the police, did six months, and by the time he got out the divorce was final. The story only goes downhill from there, and all because of the way I handled it.”
    “It wasn’t your fault. The guy committed a crime.”
    “Yeah, but I could have handled the situation differently. That was the hardest part, knowing that things wouldn’t have ended up how they did if I’d chosen to have the whole conversation.