The Fast Lane

Chapter 1

Being angry always got me a little excited, which is probably why I had sex with a stranger in a gas station today halfway through my 9 hour drive to Charlotte.  I left Tampa flustered that morning.  The night before my long drive, I had finally accepted that it was summer and forgot about the three classes I just failed during my freshman year of college, the numerous fights I had with Alex after I broke up with him a day before our two-year anniversary, and the tragic and unexpected death of my life-long best friend, Sam. I told myself I was going to forget about everything and start over.  I prayed a lot that night and listened to a lot of music and finally, for the first time that year, got a full nine hours of sleep. I got up and showered, grabbed my suitcase and my bridesmaid dress, and packed up my car.  I breathed in the cool yet humid air of that April Tampa morning and thought, What a great morning for new beginnings.

And all of that came crashing to a violent halt within the following minute. 

I cranked the car and the radio started playing mine and Sam’s best friend song, “Shake It” by Metro Station. (Don’t judge us, we picked it in the 8th grade.) I got an email on my phone from the university saying that, yes, I had in fact FAILED a fourth course.  To top it all off, Alex decided to pull an all-nighter at the bar and was drunkenly texting me right then, accusing me of being a slut and cheating on him with his best friend. 

I’m not usually the kind of person who speeds a whole lot, but I since I was sitting alone in a car for 9 hours, I had a lot of time to think about things that pissed me off.  It started with replaying fights that Alex and I had over skype and texting, then moved to fights I had with my mom when my dad left, then fights I had with my older sister when I started failing classes at school.  My mom was trying so hard to avoid fighting with me that she just let me go free and she never said a negative thing to me anymore. I was mad at her for giving up, but I was more mad at my sister for trying to take the place of my mom.  Once I had gotten mad over all of that, I started to think about stupid things like the government and ignorance of some children these days… really anything to keep myself angry. 

About four hours into the drive, I was desperate for a place to stop and use the bathroom.  My gas tank was near empty and I hadn’t eaten anything since 8 o’clock the night before.  I began to push the pedal a little harder in hopes that soon I would see an exit sign or something that would at least allow me to relieve myself.  Just as I was nearing 95mph, a silver car flew past me.  It was traveling at around 110mph, if I could have guessed. 

Like I said earlier, being mad gets me a little excited.  I saw that silver car zipping in and out of the light traffic around us and suddenly, I was up for a challenge. I stomped on the gas pedal until I was at least keeping the same distance from the silver car, but that wasn’t good enough for me. 

Let’s show this speed demon how to drive.

My small, green Honda forced itself to go 120mph.  The cars I was passing were blurs of color passing my window and falling behind me. My heart was racing in my chest as my eyes remained locked on the silver car that I was catching up to.  I put my blinker on to shift to the left around the silver car, and right when I did, the silver car shifted over and blocked my path.  Swerving back right, I tried to speed up and pass but I was cut off again.  I yelped when I thought the silver car was going to hit my old, green one. 

I finally slowed, and the silver car began to speed up again.  I relaxed for a moment, passed a few cars and waited until it was just the two of us on a long stretch of highway by ourselves for a while.  I noticed that the silver car was going about the same speed as myself at this point.  Once I saw that the right lane was open for a few miles, I slowly and inconspicuously made my way over. I waited a few more minutes, making sure the silver car would stay in the left lane, and then I gunned it. 

Never in my life had I driven so fast.  I was wondering why there were no cops after me.  I had been going at least 100mph for the last 20 miles and was right then traveling at about 150. I flew past the silver car, my heart still racing and my head pounding.  I didn’t slow down; I kept going to make sure this silver car knew that I wasn’t messing around today.  

I began to pass a mint-green beetle bug when suddenly I had a flash-back- 

[[[Sam laughed.  She had this kind of contagious laugh that made people just keep laughing even when nothing was funny.  90% of the time we were laughing, we were laughing at her laugh.  It was just different. 

"Faster!" Thomas yelled from the front seat out the window of Sam’s mint-green beetle bug to Cooper, who was driving his dad’s corvette with me.  We were flying down the dirt roads of his dad’s old farm, racing through puddles and around sharp curves. 

"My car isn’t built for this!" Sam shouted at us from her car and laughed.  Her long, brown hair flew around her face as the wind gushed into the open windows.  I laughed and looked ahead, where the dirt road was suddenly becoming more narrow. Cooper swerved suddenly to avoid a tree that neither of us saw coming.  I was bounced into the roof of the small corvette, hitting my head, but was able to open my eyes just long enough to see that Cooper and I were back on the dirt path. I blinked a couple of times and started to laugh, but stopped when I looked over at Cooper.  Past him through the window, I watched as Sam and Thomas hit a tree on the opposite side of the road, and as Sam, not wearing a seatbelt, flew through the front windshield, hitting the horn as she—]]]

HONK.

I jumped. I looked to my left and saw that the silver car had caught up to me.  Either that, or I slowed down during my flashback.  Either way, the driver was honking at me.  I tried to look into the tinted windows but couldn’t see who my competition had been for the last 45 minutes.  He must have noticed, because he began to roll down the window.