ʟɪɢʜᴛ ꜱᴘᴇᴇᴅ | 𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣 𝙟𝙖𝙚𝙜𝙚𝙧

8. 𝙎𝙇𝙊𝙒 𝘿𝙊𝙒𝙉

008, 𝙎𝙇𝙊𝙒 𝘿𝙊𝙒𝙉

.⋆𐙚 🍒

I DIDN'T LEARN HOW TO DRIVE FROM A PARENT OR SOME CLIPBOARD-HOLDING INSTRUCTOR IN A WALMART PARKING LOT.

No cones. No laminated checklist. No one yelling check your blind spot while I white-knuckled my way into a crooked three-point turn.

I learned on a backroad no one else used, in a borrowed car with bad alignment and a cracked windshield. The kind of road that felt suspended outside of time—nothing but dusk light, overgrown grass, and silence thick enough to keep your secrets.

He was a family friend. Older. Not by much, but enough to matter back then. Just old enough to feel untouchable, like he belonged to some world I hadn't reached yet. One of those boys who always seemed relaxed, like life wasn't pressing on him the same way it pressed on everyone else.

He had a crooked smile and the kind of voice that made everything sound like it was half a joke—even when it wasn't. I think that's why I listened. Why I trusted him with more than just the wheel.

He'd toss me the keys like they weighed nothing. "You're driving," he'd say, like it wasn't even a question.

And I'd get in. Every time.

He taught me how to ease into a turn without jerking the wheel. How to listen to the engine when it asked for more. How to feel the car instead of fighting it.

"Don't overthink it," he told me. "Just let it move."

I didn't realize how much I needed that advice—until after he was gone.

He left without warning. No goodbye. No explanation. Just disappeared from the edge of my life like he'd never really been there in the first place. A blank space where something used to be. Where someone used to be.

Sometimes I wonder if he thinks about those nights. The long drives. The quiet between us. The things we almost said. I wonder if he even remembers my hands on the wheel, knuckles white, heart pounding, pretending I wasn't hoping he'd stay just a little longer.

I haven't driven since.

Not like that.

Not until now.

"Race to Nico's?" Connie called out, way too loud for how empty the parking lot was. His voice bounced off the warehouse walls like it was trying to wake the dead.

I turned just in time to catch him jogging backwards between the three lined-up cars, hands in the air like he'd just been crowned king of the idiots. His hoodie was half-off his head and there were still bits of gravel stuck in his hair from when Sasha tackled him earlier over a pack of Nerds Gummy Clusters.

Sasha immediately perked up like a kid on Christmas morning. "Fuck yes," she said, already climbing into the passenger seat of Jean's Mustang. 

"That's a terrible idea."Armin said immediately, locking the warehouse door behind him with a loud clunk. He didn't even look up, just pocketed the key with the grim resignation of someone who knew exactly how this would end. " Every time we do this someone—" he glanced up, deadpan, locking eyes with Connie, "—nearly ends up wrapped around a pole."

"Okay for the record, that was literally one time," Connie said, clearly offended as he climbed into the back seat of Jean's car. "And the pole came out of fucking nowhere." 

Jean snorted from the drivers seat. "The pole was stationary, Connie." 

"Oh shut up, horse face—you drove over a speed bump last week going like sixty and we were literally flying! I smacked my head on the window so hard I think I lost brain cells."