Paraplegic (COMPLETED)

Chapter 3

Mother is sitting on the couch in the theater room with her laptop; one leg is tucked underneath her, while the other is propped up on the coffee table. She tells me to have a great day, which has basically been her go-to sentence since my first day of school, and I proceed to the garage, stopping by the kitchen as I pass by to grab the car keys off the wall rack.

The garage door shudders and hums as it rolls up. I squint just a little as the light bursts into the dark room. It's a three car garage, but we only own two vehicles. Father drives a silver Porsche, which is what he takes to work, and mother drives the Benz. The Benz was father's car initially, but upon landing his current job at the firm, he bought the Porsche as a present to himself. He said he wanted to make his image appear more professional, but I know it was simply because he's wanted a sports car all his life. Since the time that I've had my license, the Benz has slowly gone from being mother's vehicle to mine. The only time she drives anymore is when she makes the weekly grocery run.

The engine roars to life as I turn the key. I make a conscious effort to slowly back out of the driveway, turning my head in each direction to make sure there aren't any other cars passing by. Father will ground me till I'm thirty if I scratch this thing, or worse, wreck it entirely.

The neighborhood is just waking up. Most of our neighbors are elderly, so they're early risers; mainly because they go to sleep at like six every evening. I could never go to bed that early; it would be a crime. The night is just getting started by that point.

Mr. Driscoll, our next-door neighbor, who is a retired orthodontist of thirty-five years, waves to me as I drive by. I lightly honk the horn in greeting. He turns back to his car and loads a set of Callaway clubs into the trunk in preparation for an early round of golf.

Our house rests between the fifteenth and sixteenth hole of Emerald Fairways Golf and Country Club. It's a Tudor-style home: six bedrooms and eight bathrooms with an ellipse-shape swimming pool. The problem with the suburbs, in my opinion, is that every house within the community looks identical to one another. Each lawn is kept manicured and greener than a stalk of celery, while every driveway is paved with multicolor stone pavers, and each mailbox is enclosed within a brick structure with the resident's surname hanging from a laminated sign. If it were up to me, I would grab a bucket of paint full of every color imaginable and slap it over the exterior of each house. At least that would give the neighborhood a unique appearance.

Stardust High is an approximate four miles from our house. Calculating an extra five minutes for the reduced speed school zone, I should be there ten minutes before class begins, and with any luck, pull into the parking lot at the same time as Xander. But as I make my way down the last street, I see that it's backed up bumper-to-bumper with school buses, which is weird. It's never this backed up.

After several minutes of standstill traffic, the car behind me grows impatient. The driver holds their fist to the horn, blaring it for as long as they dare. I shift my gaze to the rearview mirror and see a boy about my age driving the car. It looks like a beamer; all black and shiny. He revs the engine, which propels the car forward, then breaks abruptly; inches away from rear-ending me. He does this two more times before jerking out into the opposing lane to pass me. I'm forced to a halt, my tires squealing and skidding on the asphalt in order to give the boy enough room to slide inside the slim space between me and the next car.

I shove an angered fist to the horn. "You selfish jerk!" I know he can't hear me, but it feels therapeutic to release such an outburst, even if it doesn't change the outcome. The boy does the same maneuver to the driver in front of him and the one after that before cheating his way into the school parking lot. Seeing his success, I'm almost envious I didn't think of using such tactics myself.