"Could you find a way to let me down slowly? A little sympathy, I hope you can show me. If you wanna go then I'll be so lonely, if you're leavin' baby let me down slowly."
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The ten-minute drive to the coffee shop downtown now feels like a drive across the fucking state.
With Atlas sitting beside me, it's harder to concentrate on the road ahead of me. Now that I think about it, it's actually dangerous to have him in the car with me. My hands that are tightly gripping the steering wheel are shaking uncontrollably, and I pray that Atlas doesn't notice.
The awkward silence since the minute we stepped out of the house has made me want to roll down my window and jump to my death.
"Eyes on the road," Atlas speaks up, his voice carrying me out of my thoughts. My hands tighten even more around the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white. "I know how to fucking drive," I grit out, squinting my eyes at the road. "Your mom wants me here so you don't kill us," he deadpans, blankly staring at the street ahead. "Apparently you have a history with car accidents."
I try my best not to roll my eyes while I'm driving. "Don't listen to any of the crap my mom says about me," I sigh, fed up with my mom. "Half of the shit that comes out of her mouth is fictitious."
He just hums in response, staying silent as I make a turn into the driveway of the small cafe.
I've been coming here since I was twelve years old when I would bike my way across the small town of Kill Devil Hills. Whenever my mom and I got into a fight I would pedal extra fast, mostly because I didn't want any pedestrians around me to see the tears that were streaming down my face and the mascara smudged under my eyes.
Every time I think about this cafe, I think about all the times my mom would make me feel worthless. Like I was wasting her time.
The arguments started like any other normal mother and daughter's, small and quick. Then they got bigger, over more serious topics. Then they started about Amora, about how I wasn't enough like her, and how much I needed to work on that. She would belittle me, and compare me to her firstborn. When I was younger I just assumed that it was because Amora was older and more mature, but years later when nothing changed, I realized it was because she was the favorite child. The arguments turned to yelling, which quickly ended with me running out of the house and biking to this cafe.
And nobody chased after me.
Nobody apologized.
So then I blamed it on myself. Like any other young teenager would. And to this day, part of me still blames myself. I wasn't born right. Mentally I was fine because I know I'm smart. I got into fucking Princeton.
