The rattle of the beast beneath me ignites a fear inside me.
“We going or what?” he asks, expectant.
At the question, my hand maneuvers out of Park, but my foot slips too hard and too fast. The car flies forward, grumbling at the jarring velocity with which it’s been thrust into action. Hector’s shout is but background noise to my high-pitched screech.
Forward, we lurch and creak. This is it. This is how I die: attempting to impress a guy by doing a very simple task most adult humans can do without second thoughts. Sad in so many unique and humiliating ways.
Clearly not incapacitated by fear like I am, Hector pulls the emergency brake before we plummet into the ditch at the end of the driveway. The timing is impeccable.
The stop sends us both thrashing back into our respective seats. I try desperately to catch my breath. I realize there was no anxiety attack. Not that that’s an improvement. I didn’t have time with the whole life-flashing-before-my-eyes bit happening.
I’m a moron.
“Dude, what thefuck?” he asks. He pulls off his knit mittens and feels his face to check for blood or some other sustained head injury.
“I don’t remember how to drive,” I admit, which feels both good and bad. His eyes go wide with unmitigated shock.
“Seriously?” he asks. “Look, I know this is a heap of overused metal, but I don’t want it compounded anytime soon. Jeez, it’s like you think I have a death wish or something. Do you even have a license?”
“Yes,” I say, patting around for my wallet. “But now that I think about it, it’s probably expired…”
His jaw goes slack. “Okay, not only did you almost kill us, but you almost killed usillegally? You are seriously something else. Get out.”
I do as I’m told, childlike embarrassment settling in my bones. We play a game of seat swap. I can’t even look him in the face as we counter around the trunk.
We drive into town in tense silence. We take the same single road I’ve walked down, only this time trees, houses with brown roofs, and snow-covered fields flit by. Everything blurs together into a pastoral watercolor painting.
I hate the way I’m qualifying his worst ideas of me with one epic fail after another. Maybe my parents were on to something when they sent me here to sort out my shit.
Though I’d never in a million years admit that out loud.
I begin fake planning a Happy We Didn’t Just Die Silent Disco.
Sponsored by Bose. Top 40 pop hits with themes of ephemerality and mortality. A laser light show and a massive disco ball presiding over the floor.
What I wouldn’t give to dance away some of these worries right now.
My heartbeat settles back into a DJ sample-worthy rhythm, and my pulse drops down.
When we come to a stoplight in the Downtown District, I clear my throat.
“I thought it would be like riding a bike,” I say softly. He cocks his head and grumbles something I can’t make out. “You know, like, you never forget how to ride a bike. I kind of thought driving a car would be the same way. Obviously not…”
“No, obviously not, dude. One of those things we let toddlers ride and the other kills millions of people a year,” he says, though there’s some protectiveness in his tone. It’s like maybe he cares about me…like he’d be upset if I got hurt.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. I’m brimming with so many maybes.
I’m overwhelmed with the urge to share that I didn’t want to seem completely useless again after the wood-chopping and butter-beating catastrophes. But what would I gain from that? Any chances of impressing this guy flew out of my hands the moment that ax—maul, whatever—did. Now I’ve given him even less of a reason to believe in me.
On this end of our Odd Couple, I still have some serious damage control to do.
The Havensmith College sign in all its storied, stone glory comes into view. I’m thankful we’re almost there because I can’t stop sweating. Hector’s radiating frustration like a furnace.
The campus extends out in all directions. The buildings are red brick with vines chasing each other across the facades. On the quad, a lone, newly made snowman sits. One twig arm waves in the breeze as if to welcome us. Students scramble up and down the winding pathways. It’s finals week and you can see it in the hunch of their shoulders and the size of their travel coffee cups.
“How did you end up here?” I ask, hoping the question will quell some of the uneasiness between us.
“My dad grew up not far from here,” he says. With a flick of his wrist, he kills the ignition in a nearby parking space. “He went to school here. Met my mom here.” The cadence to his sentences slide together like he’s singing an incantation.
