Just Drive [old version]

[ chapter twelve ]

            It wasn’t a bad night out. There was a light breeze running through Pittsburgh, and the combined light of the moon and streetlights made it cozy enough. It was still just brisk enough to draw my jacket in closer to my body, but it was still comfortable. It was the perfect weather to try and forget.

            It’s funny how quickly the weather could change. Just a few short hours ago, it still felt like summer; right now, it was really starting to feel like fall. Or maybe it was just that I was too enraptured in Austin’s presence that I didn’t notice the weather. It’s hard to tell.

            I made it a few blocks out before I realized I would have nothing to do, except maybe top my head with a neon sign to alert the area’s rapists that I was awake. But in all seriousness, there was nothing for me to do. Going to a bar was out of the question, not that I’m twenty-one, a drinker, or a juvenile delinquent that carries around a fake ID. No store in their right mind would be open at this time, so window-shopping was impossible, and I’ve already scarred the entire Pittsburgh pigeon population earlier tonight. I suppose if I was lucky, I might stumble across one of those twenty-four-hour cafes for late-night insomniacs, although I guess I am a late-night insomniac myself.

            Sighing, I tucked a piece of flyaway hair behind my ear and continued walking. I’m sure somewhere along the way I’ll find something to do.

            “Hey, sweetheart!”

            Oh no. The rapist thing was actually going to happen. I could tell just by the phrasing of the words that the dude was drunk. Very drunk.

            Quickening my strides, I made an effort to get away from him, but I could hear the sloppy running from behind me. The most I could hope for was that he was going to trip and fall while chasing after me.

            No such luck. “Wait!” he called out.

            “Why would I wait for you?” I scoffed.

            To this he sobbed, which, I’ll admit, piqued my attention. Maybe he wasn’t a rapist. Before I could think my decision through, I stopped running and turned around.

            He didn’t look like a rapist. Under the streetlight, his hair had a tinge of orange to it, and it was clearly disheveled beyond hair gel repair. Every now and then, I could catch a shimmer of a tear on his cheek. Or maybe that was a splash of unaccounted booze. Either way, he was a complete and utter wreck.

            When he finally caught up to me, I could tell this guy was beyond repair. Everything about him, from the hurt puppy eyes to the messy mop of brown hair that was clearly matted down and ruffled up with sweat and booze.

            “Hannah. Please. Baby. Forgive me,” he breathed.

            “Um¾”

            “Hannah, I love you!” he cried as he threw arms over my shoulders. Before I knew it, I was squarely entangled in an unwanted drunken embrace. Fun.

            “I promise I’ll make it up to you,” he muttered as he lowered his lips.

            That was when I had enough. There was no way on earth I was going to let my first kiss be taken away by some drunken stranger who thinks I’m some chick named Hannah. I may be the girl who’ll drive her ex-almost-boyfriend to California to see his current boyfriend, but I refuse to be the girl who kisses random drunks, so I did what any rationally thinking girl would do.

            I kneed him in the balls.

            The dude was already weak with hysteria and alcohol, so I shouldn’t have been surprised at the fact that he crumbled like a Jenga tower the minute my knee made contact. Thankfully, I suppose, he still had his arms wrapped around my shoulders, so I was able to catch him before he hit the ground. I could deal with him being unconscious, but I certainly wasn’t going to sacrifice one of the few sweatshirts I packed in case he got a bloody nose.

            That left me with the question of what the hell to do with the dude now. I know for a fact that it wouldn’t be polite to just leave him there, even if he was drunkenly molesting me. What if he woke up and a rapist found him? Heartbroken drunks were scary, but rapists at three A.M. were scarier.

            Sighing, I realized, for now, the nicest thing I could do was give him a place to sleep and nurse his broken heart; the only problem was I didn’t have the slightest clue as to how I got here, but I guess I have to start somewhere. With one last hand-squeeze, I turned around and started walking back.

            Somehow, I managed to make my way back to the car with the dude, whose name I still have yet to learn, still securely latched onto my back like an overgrown kindergartener.

             Smiling with accomplishment, I propped him up against the car door as best as I could to prevent a last-minute bloody nose while I figured out how to position him in the car without disturbing Austin. I suppose he could just take my spot in the driver’s seat, but hardly knew the dude. I certainly wasn’t going to put him in the driver’s seat of my mom’s car. Besides, knowing Austin, he’d probably wake up and think I was some sort of magical unicorn hermaphrodite that just happened to transform into a drooling man overnight.

            I decided putting Mr. Drunkard, for a lack of a better name, in the driver’s seat was not a good idea.

            I must’ve stood there for at least ten minutes trying to figure out where I could stash his body. Eventually, I gave up on trying to make him comfortable and threw him in the hatchback trunk.

            “I wonder if this is how murderers feel,” I muttered as I closed the trunk.  At this point, I could only hope that he wouldn’t sue me for kicking him in the balls, dragging him to the car, ruining the hem of his pants along the way, and stuffing him in a trunk. To the rest of the world, saying he was about to take away my first kiss was a pretty measly excuse.

            It was important to me though. I’ve thought about it for a while¾pretty much four years, to be exact¾and I’ve always wanted my first kiss to go to Austin. It was supposed to happen at prom, but that never happened because he went with Kellie.

            I had it all planned out in my head. We would be those cliché high school sweethearts that get married in the suburbs and have two and a half kids. At least, that’s what Austin always wanted. He’s never wanted anything more than to give his kids the perfect, picture book life. I wasn’t exactly crazy about that plan. I’ve always wanted to live in the city and adopt a kid, but I guess we could compromise. We used to joke about having one and a quarter kids and pretending to be ghetto while living in the suburbs.

            Of course, I guess he never meant any of that. Or maybe he did. It was really hard to tell with Austin; he’s just so damn sporadic. I just got that sudden urge to kick myself in the proverbial balls for everything related to Austin, and like Pikachu goes with Ash, I immediately felt the urge to drop dead and cry from the pain.

            I wasn’t exactly sad or angry over the fact that we stayed just as friends, but it was more like the idea that I lost the one person that made my world functional. That day I lost him, I lost a huge part of me I never thought I could get back.

            I believed in him; I believed in us. I wish he did too. Just as wide open as I am, he’s always been a closed door, yet somehow, we made it work. I guess that’s why I’m even taking this crazy road trip in the first place: for the days when it worked.