He looks at me with a dumbfounded look, "Why would you settle for less?"
I gasp, "I don't know. It doesn't matter now; he's my boyfriend and we are in love. As you can see."
I watch my father look over to the car, staring at Andreas as he talked to my mother, I know he can feel my dad's eyes on him, from the way the hairs stand up on his neck. Somewhere in this conversation, I feel like there is more to the situation, it can't just be about him thinking Andreas was using me.
"Why did you do it?"
"I told you that-"
"Yes!" I practically scream. "You said it was to protect me, but there has got to be another reason. I want you to tell me."
"Elizabeth-"
"Tell me!"
"I felt guilty about your accident, ok! Is that what you want to hear, Elizabeth. That when you crashed your car, and was on the side of the street scared and then taken to the hospital, I wasn't there! I was in a meeting, my phone was turned off because, at that time, my clients were more important than my daughter!" He puts a hand on his mouth, turning away from me, not wanting me to see his tears.
"Dad, what." The words come out quiet. "There was no way you could have prevented what happened."
"I know that, but you needed me and I wasn't there." He shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know, I felt that if I could prevent you from being hurt by Andreas, I could redeem myself." He looks at me, eyes red at the rim and tears pooling out of his eyes. "You don't know what it was like to watch you, what you went through after the crash. For days you wouldn't leave the house, and when you tried you would freak out. It was almost a year before you would even sit in the car, and when I tried to get you to touch the steering wheel, you would freak out. I remember your screams at night when you would have nightmares, how Bridget would have to sleep over at a friend's house because she couldn't deal with it. I always think, what if you had died? And I'm sitting in a meeting, worried about some other family when mine needed me."
I run over to him, wrapping my arms around his body. Trying to shield him away from those bad memories. Wanting to protect him as he did me. "Dad, no! You were there for me, you sat with me at night on the porch and we would look at the stars. When mom couldn't take it sometimes, you would do your best to wash our clothes or make dinner. All I remember is you being there for me, more than a person has been there for someone. Those hours that you weren't there, we can make up for those. You've got to let that go, dad, it wasn't your fault."
He shakes against me, "And it wasn't your fault that the car crashed, it was an accident that could have happened to the most experienced drivers."
He's right.
For years, I let that car crash hold me back. For too long I have been hiding in the dark, scared of something that I should have gotten over a long time ago. I think about Bridget, and how she was scared to be with Teddy for love, but she overcame that and is happy with him. I think about the love of my life, Andreas, and how he was scared to fall in love again, to give himself to someone, but he faced his fears. He went to Stanford, sat down with Jessie, and talked. He's now cured.
I need to face my fears, and the only way to do that is to get behind the wheel, not to think about the past, not to move backward, but forward. And what better way than to do that with a car.
As I hold my father, I feel around in his maroon coat pocket for his keys, I grab them. Pulling his head from the crook of my neck, I look at him. "Let's move on together, ok?"
"Ok."
I pat his shoulder, "You're sitting in the back with Andreas."
"Why." He sniffled.
"Because I'm driving."
I start walking to the driver's side, my legs shook with anticipation and my heart was beating a million miles per hour. I was going to drive, me, who would have thought? When I open the driver's door, my mother furrows her brows.
"Elizabeth, what in the world are you doing? I- shouldn't your father be driving." She turns around to see him getting in the back, sitting next to Andreas. I see Andreas move to the other side of the car, scared of what's going to happen.
"What does it look like I'm doing, mom. I'm about to drive." I stick the key in the ignition, feeling the engine roaring under me, around me, and in my ears. I cancel out the noise, it makes me think of the accident. One hand comes to the wheel, while the other one puts the car in gear with the stick shift.
I can do this.
I can do this.
I cannot do this.
No, yes! I can do this.
No one in the car talks, they just watch me like I'm a monkey making a phone call. My foot presses on the gas, pulling us back on the road. I moved slowly at first, cars behind me honking, but I didn't care. I was driving, I was moving, I was changing, I was growing.
"Andreas?"
"Yes, baby." He says from behind me.
"I'm driving!"
"Yes, you are." I feel his finger glide down the side of my neck, a small comforting gesture.
"Mom, Dad, do you see me."
I look over to see my mother crying, tears streaming down her face, eyes not looking away from me. It's like she's marking this moment for her memories, one moment she doesn't want to forget. My father rubs her shoulders, quietly sending prayers to God.
For the next 20 minutes, I was met with silence.
Coming up is my dorm. I carefully park the car in the parking lot, right next to a yellow bug. Once I cut off the engine, I immediately get out of the car and fall to the ground, not realizing how scared I was. How in the hell did I do that? Maybe it was adrenaline. I remember my biology teacher telling my class a story. About how this woman who saw her child stuck under a car, used some deep-rooted mom strength and lifted the car, ultimately saving her child.
Maybe this was my "lifting the car" moment.
My mom runs over to my side, pressing her hand to my chest, "Are you alright? Your heart is beating like crazy, are you having a heart attack?"
I laugh, shaking my head, "No, mom I am not having a heart attack. It's just that I'm so filled with happiness and relief and light." She helps me off the ground.
"I will see you two at the game tomorrow," I tell them.
"Ok, then." My father wraps me in a hug, I tighten my arms around him.
"I forgive you, and I forgive myself. I don't want to be mad at you anymore." I whisper in his ear.
He nods his head, "Me either."
My parents leave Andreas and me at the dorm, we go up the elevator to my room. Once the door shuts, I collide my lips with his. I hold onto him like the world was going to end, not wanting to be cut off from my lifeline. He doesn't fight the kiss like he was expecting it.
I let him go.
"What was that for?" He asked cheeks flushed.
"I just wanted to, nothing more." He walks me to the wall, putting one hand on the wall while the other wraps around me. He put his face in my neck, kissing it lightly. My arms wrap around him, smelling his hair and his neck and his ears. I didn't even know ears could have a smell; his smell was good.
"I know that you are mad at your father, for what he said, but I'm not."
"Why not?"
"You don't know this, but I confessed my love for you to him, didn't even see it coming. At that moment, I knew I wanted you, but I knew I couldn't give myself to you. I told you a million times, that those words I said to you will haunt me for the rest of my life. I love you so much, Elizabeth. I feel you may be getting tired of those words."
"I'm not." I kiss his neck.
"I needed that push, Elizabeth. Your father pushed me to face my fears, to not take for granted what was in front of me. And that was you." He rubbed his hands up and down my side, nuzzling his nose against my warm cheek. "This whole time, the light at the end of the tunnel, the fucking sun in my life was you. I saw you, trust me I did, but I didn't want to see you. I'm kind of glad for how things turned out, because out of all of the bullshit, I got you, and damn it you were worth it."
I don't say anything, instead, I just hold him and kiss his brows, his cheek, his chin, his eyes, and his lips, lastly.
Usually, us being this close together would end up with us having sex or him grinding against me, but we both aren't in the mood. We just want to be with each other.
Just the two of us.
Alone in the ether.
✏️✏️✏️✏️
I say goodbye to Andreas later that night, wishing him luck with his game against Stanford. I kiss him all over his face, telling him I loved him over and over again. His teammates just looked at us through the window, making fun of Andreas when he got on the bus, I know that he didn't care though, he loved when I did that.
I told him that I would ride up with Cross and Connie, his maybe girlfriend, but that I would be there.
I'll always be there.