Midnight Drive

A short story:

The wind was colder than he thought it would be. The lights came on when he opened the car door, and he was caught off guard by how quickly the cold penetrated through his jacket. Clumsily, he closed the door and zipped up his jacket to his neck, even though it was a short walk to vending machines. He had only been driving for an hour or so, but at 1:00am, with the heater on full blast, he was starting to fight with sleep and this was the first rest stop he saw. Pete stared vacantly at the options in front of him. Typically, he would never go to a vending machine to buy water, but he knew he needed to this time. $1.25 and he didn’t have a quarter, so he inserted two single bills and retrieved his change. He glanced around at the other machines, wondering how far 75 cents would go. Gum. Spearmint. 50 cents. That would have to do. He put the last quarter in his coat pocket and fumbled for the keys again. He wanted to see a friendly face, so he could remark on the peculiarly cold weather this week, but friendly faces are rare that late at night. What is it about faces that look friendly or not? He concluded it was something in the eyes and turned back up the heat. He struggled with the gum package, his fingers too cold to do anything intelligent and ended up opening it from the bottom. No matter. At least it was open. All he had to do was stay awake for another hour and he would be home free. This mid-week trip home was more business than pleasure. His car needed some work done on it and honest mechanics are hard to find. Besides, two hours isn’t so bad, especially when he had been meaning to get back home for some time anyway.

5 miles down the interstate, a woman was driving the opposite direction. The headlights she saw were distorted as she tried to wipe the tears from her bloodshot eyes. The only time she had been yelled at like that was when she was a child. Why did he have to say those things? It was like he could see into her heart and knew what things would hurt the most. As waves of emotions swept over her, again and again, she tried to keep strong. She didn’t know why she felt she had to be strong; there was no one who would hear her cry. Maybe she had to be strong for herself; as if she could fool the one person who knew her. She didn’t know where she was driving to, she just needed to get away. Why did he have to drink so much? She never understood the impulse to drink. As a semi passed her in the left lane, the tall headlights illuminated a fresh bruise on her left temple. The lights hurt her eyes.

Pete drove another 3 miles, feeling more awake now. Between the cold water and the gum, he had jump-started his brain back into cutting-edge clarity. Nothing good was on the radio this late at night, so he chose silence over negative sound. Besides, he could think better when there were no sounds around him. He looked at the cars passing him in the other lane, noting the different states they were from, wondering about each of their stories, why they were on this road, who they were going to see. Pete liked people watching. He liked imagining what kind of people they all were. He wondered what the situations were that made each person who they are. He squinted his eyes to keep his night vision. He hated it when people left their brights on. He avoided looking directly at the light and flashed his lights to remind the forgetful driver to be more courteous. The driver got the message and returned their lights to normal. Pete tried to recover his train of thought, but it was gone.

She was just two exits from where she started, but she could feel the oppressive darkness right behind her head. As if everything that was behind her was everything she had known. Samantha hated everything she had known. Why couldn’t she just keep driving? Why not drive until she ran out of money and make a new life there? She caught her breath at the thought. She was standing on the threshold of freedom and all she had to do was keep going.
She felt the dark cloud of that evening’s events slowly lifting like a mist. Up ahead she saw freedom. In her rear-view mirror she saw darkness. She felt like an animal, wriggling free from a trap and running for the safety of anything else. He would never be able to find her, even if he wanted to; though she was pretty sure he would not. Why had it taken her so long to even want to break free from all of this? Tonight was the last straw. One by one, she disconnected the emotional strings that attached her to everything behind her. As each one flew off like elastic and disappeared into the darkness behind her, she felt one step closer to freedom. Her breathing quickened as releasing the strings came easier and easier. Finally, a fresh idea had come. Something wholly different that anything she had done before. She would leave and she would never look back. This was the greatest moment of freedom she had ever felt! She had two-thirds of a tank of gas and thirty-eight dollars in her purse. With those two, combining forces with her new sense of adventure, she would start a new life wherever she happened to land. As she sighed in satisfaction for the excitement ahead of her, something caught her attention out of the left corner of her eye. Someone had flashed their brights at her. Of course, she flipped her brights off and settled in for the adventure she had just given birth to.