I'm driving 110 mph on the freeway. I can barely see past the end of my hood with all the rain. Not that it would really matter. I'm so drunk my teeth taste like sugar, My breath has grown a film of vodka on it.
She asked me for a ride most mornings. I happily agreed. It was nice to have company on the drive in. And she only lived a block away. Yes, of course that's the only reason I gave her a ride. It was also so that I could feel a little better about driving myself. Carpooling and all that. Just trying to be a little green. And the company didn't hurt.
I'm following the brake lights of the car in front of me as carefully as I can. It's not easy because every turn takes me farther and farther from my home, but at this point I'm just trying to survive. Trying to hold onto the steering wheel and my consciousness with my fingers.
I could hear her laughing from across the warehouse. I loved her laugh so much. So hearty and full and carefree. She always seemed so... confident in her laugh. Like there was no way the little snort it always started with was at all ever strange. I always smiled when I heard her laugh. I found myself wishing more and more often it was me making her laugh.
I keep thinking I could just pull over. I should. I really should just pull over. At the very least stop speeding so fast the bends in the road seem like sharp turns that I'm reacting to slower and slower. Sleep a little while. Try again later. I even have a blanket in the back seat I could use. I could just wrap myself up and go straight to sleep and wait for the sun to come out and chase away the dark thoughts and go on with my life.
She asked me to come over to her place sometimes. We would just watch TV, or even just talk. We would turn off all the lights and close all the windows, and lie on opposite couches, and close our eyes shut. We wouldn't fall sleep or anything. We would just pretend we were dreaming, speaking out what we were doing. So we could share our dreams. I don't know why but I would always be so happy about the situation, but feel so sad. I would never shut my eyes like I was supposed to. Eyes staring at black ceilings that I couldn't tell apart from the insides of my eyelids. And tears would just stream down my face. She used to laugh at me when I claimed it was from drooling in my sleep. I loved to make her laugh.
I am now on a country back road. There's nobody anywhere in sight, and the road is dark. The only light is from my headlights, peering down the infinite path cut through the trees in front of me. I turn off the headlights, and reach back for the blanket. I hold it up to my face and wrap it around me, as the shadows of trees rush past on either side. It smells slightly of sand, and salt water. The beach.
She hadn't liked the beach. She thought there was too much sand, too much sun, too much smell, too many kids. She had spent the majority of the 23 minutes we spent there sitting on the blanket she had brought with her. I didn't mind either way, I was just happy to be out with her. I mostly laid on the blanket, closing my eyes. The blanket smelled of her: a mix of jasmine and lavender. I had been to her place often enough to know she didn't have soaps or shampoos or anything that smelled anything like that. She seemed to just exude it. Or maybe it was just my mind pretending her scent smelled nice at all. I closed my eyes and just swam in the smell a little until she wanted to leave. We got in the car and drove around for awhile, until it got slightly dark. We pulled to a part of the beach where the road ended right by the water. We parked there, and climbed in the back seat, wrapped in our blanket in our warm car on that cold spring night. Huddled together. My arm around her. I couldn't remember feeling more content.
The car was gently rocking me. I was vaguely sure I was still pointed straight ahead, and I reasoned, in my hazy brain, that the trees had seemed pretty thin as we zipped past, if I brushed up against or hit them, it would probably just slow me down a little. I shut my eyes, burying my face in the blanket. I was hit with that scent. It seemed so faraway, but it was there. Underneath the sweat and vodka and sand and salt water and everything. The faintest scent of jasmine and lavender.
It was three weeks after the beach that I first found out about it. About him. She said she had always had a boyfriend, how could she never have brought it up, she wondered. She talked about how they had been together for three years, how she only really spoke or saw him once a week, but it was serious enough that they were talking about marriage and kids and their future together. I couldn't understand at all. "How could you marry someone you see so little of?!" She said she saw him enough. That they would see more than enough of each other once they were married. I just couldn't even fathom it. I had stopped trying to convince myself her behaviour was just overly friendly. I was sure we had been openly flirting for at least a few weeks now. I was going to take her on a real date next week. She had already agreed to meet, I was just going to take her somewhere nice.
"Don't you love me?"
"Of course I do! I love you more than anyone I know!"
"But, how can you love HIM and me as well!?"
"That's not the same, he's going to be my husband. You're like a really good brother. Or cousin. Or something"
"But... what about the beach."
"...?"
My car has always been my sanctuary from the rest of the world. With a rented out room in a house I don't like in a town I know almost no one in, my parents long dead and having no one else. I had no where else to call home. The town I grew up in had never felt like home, certainly. Now all I had was this car. And this blanket. I take a deep breath, filling myself with her. Why is my car rocking me like this? Oh yeah, it's still driving. I should get up and make sure I don't hit a tree. Maybe just a few more minutes...
