(no subject)
80 Miles to Jersey
The rain was driving and cold, but I felt nothing. I just kept my hands at 10 and 2 and the pedal to the floor. The old car whipped around the back-roads of eastern Pennsylvania, and I swore that I’d never let myself care about anything else ever again. As the car shook with speed, I flicked on the high beams, and autumn’s first moon watched me through oak trees. The leaves were beautiful, like glistening fire, but the car was all that mattered. I turned up the music louder as the bass channel poured through my body, down through my fingertips... mixed with the beating of my heart. Either I couldn’t tell the difference between them, or perhaps my heart stopped beating altogether.
The rain grew heavier, but I didn’t care. I slid around the turns with ease and my mind grew even heavier with thoughts of worry and fear. "I can’t be everything," I said out loud, but no one could hear: not even me. Before long, the rain became blinding and my eyes were silently giving in to gravitational pull of the moon. Road signs just kept passing, and the yellow lines became as blurry as ever. I drove for what seemed like days. Hours passed seemingly quicker than even the road signs. "Just keep driving," I thought to myself. "Only 80 miles to Jersey."
I could make it there in another hour. I had done it many times before in years of snow and early morning fog, playing CD after CD of screaming music that kept me awake and kept me going. I had already replaced the speakers twice, because at 25 I was still listening to the music of an angry, young teenager. The years of dead end colleges and failing semesters brought tears to my eyes, and I realized that all I had left was right there: the car, the empty cups of coffee in the passenger seat, and pages of handwritten directions lining the dash.
I kept driving. Kept turning. Kept thinking of him and the empty apartment I woke up to that morning with the rain beating helplessly against the window. He wasn’t there, but neither was I. An alarm clock was going off on the nightstand, and with sweaty palms, I smashed it against the wall. I cried as I picked up the pieces.
Eighty miles to Jersey, it couldn't be much longer now. Flashing headlights appeared from the other end of a steep bridge that crossed the state border. I could almost feel the frigid water in my lungs as the river tossed silently 30 feet underneath me. I took my hands off the wheel to zip up my jacket. And in slow-motion like an old silent movie, I saw nearing headlights blinding me and my dazed hands hopelessly jerking the wheel. In a piercing sound of screeching tires, broken glass, and cold November water, the car broke the bridge’s makeshift guardrails. And then I saw him looking at me- like always.
"Alicia, what are you doing?" he asked me angrily through the passenger window. "You are the worst driver, I swear. You almost plowed right into that mini van."
"Sorry," I mumbled. "I guess I thought I had the right of way."
But as the words flowed from my mouth I couldn’t bring my eyes to settle on anything but the way his wet hair was falling across his face. He had just run two blocks to catch up to me at a stop sign. The locks clicked as he settled into the passenger seat of the car. I didn’t want to let him in again, but I had to. I always swore that I’d never let myself care about anyone else ever again.
The seats were new and the car a brilliant shade of red. My dad had just bought it for me a few months earlier even though I didn’t make the best grades through junior year. At 17 years old I already felt like a grown-up- I knew I'd only get more cynical with age. But I loved that car, and feeling of being in control of something in my life for once. From the day I got it, I always blared the music. I was the classic definition of an angry, young teenager.
"The tide is high on Fourteenth Street," sang the stereo, as I watched him from the corner of my eye shivering from the cold rain.
"Here," I said as I took my hands off the wheel for a second to unzip my jacket and throw it in his direction. At the same time, I pulled the car out of park and drove away from the intersection.
"What is wrong with you?" he asked, brushing the hair from his eyes.
It pained me to tell him what I was really thinking, but I had to.
"I can't be everything," I said, baring looking in his direction.
"Just forget it. It's only 80 miles to Jersey."
I'm thinking about using it for my writing sample for Chatham. Any opinions?