"Thea."
My name. In that accent. With that emphasis on the second syllable that makes it sound like something more than it is.
I don't turn around. If I turn around, I'm going to do something stupid like ask him his name or why he's been counting or what any of this means.
"Drive carefully," he says. And then, quieter: "Please."
I get in my car. Close the door. Start the engine.
It takes three tries.
Three humiliating, mortifying tries while he's standing right there watching, and on the third try the engine finally catches, and I put the car in reverse and pull out of my parking space without looking at him.
I make it out of the parking lot.
Make it onto the main road.
Make it about half a mile before I notice the headlights behind me.
They're keeping pace. Not tailgating. Not aggressive. Just...there. A steady presence in my rearview mirror, close enough that I can tell it's his car, and just having him follow me like this...
It just makes me feel warm, like having hot chocolate on a cold day, slow and sweet and unexpected.
I've driven home alone every single night for two years.
Six nights a week, fifty-two weeks a year, that's—
I do the math automatically, because that's what I do.
Six hundred and twenty-four nights.
Six hundred and twenty-four drives home in the dark, in the cold, in the snow and ice and wind. And honestly, it’s in these quiet drives that memories of the past often claw their way back to the surface, and I’d find myself remembering when I was just seventeen when my father’s trial ended, and all I could do was watch as law enforcement took him away in handcuffs.
The road curves ahead, and I feel my tires slip slightly on a patch of ice. My heart jumps, and I overcorrect—too much, too fast—and for a second the car fishtails, and I'm gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles go white.
But I get it under control.
Straighten out.
Keep driving.
In my rearview mirror, his headlights are still there. Steady. Constant.
Like he's not going to leave until he knows I'm safe.
Thank You, God.
The prayer comes automatically, the way prayers do when you've been talking to God long enough that it becomes reflex.
I don’t know what role he’s supposed to play in my life, but I know all things work together for good for those who love You...
My hands tighten around the wheel.
And so whatever happens, thank You.
The drive back home takes twelve minutes. I know this because I've timed it approximately six hundred times, because timing things is just another form of counting, and counting is what I do when I need to feel in control.
Twelve minutes from the café to my apartment complex.
