There's a fine line, if any at all, between love and addiction. People may think they're in love, but in reality, it is just their guilty pleasure. I've gotten caught up in it a time or two. I had to go through the same punishment twice, because I didn't learn my lesson the first time. Now I wish I had been more careful.
My wife and I have been having problems for years. We agreed to stay together until our children were grown, but last month she gave me the papers. My heart sank and my throat became very dry. I wasn't ready for a divorce. I couldn't imagine being without Grace after spending eighteen years of my life with her. I'll never forget the day we met, it would be hard for anyone to forget such a memory we made that day.
I was sixteen years old, with a brand new Chevelle. I saw myself as the king of the world, tearing up every back road and racing from red light to red light. I never found a cop that could catch me in that thing. I'll never forget the sound of that car after we put the new 421 small block in it (dad blew the motor on the way home from the car lot.) The first time he let me drive it, I met some friends out on the bridge for a straight, four lane, one-mile race.
I jumped the gun on the first run, but cops were already buzzing, so we waited until the next day to have a fair race. I knew I could smoke them, but I wanted to prove it. It came time for us to race again, and I wasn't giving them any slack. We waited for the last traffic light before the bridge to turn red, then got ready. I stalled my engine around 3000 RPMs, maybe revved it higher than that a few times.
The light finally changed to green, and we both left like rockets. He began to pull away from me, but I could not let him win. I dropped the gears and put it to the floor. I was slowly gaining on him, but that wasn't enough. I had a shiny blue bottle tucked away carefully in my trunk that I never told anyone about. I thought hard about using it because the end of the bridge was coming near, but I had to win.
At the end of that mile stretch was another intersection. The light on the side leaving the bridge is usually red. In my luck, it was green when I topped the hill, so I came to a conclusion that I could use my bottle of NOS in this race. I flipped the toggle switch and held on to the wheel. I've never been so fast in my life at that point. I looked at the speedometer, which was climbing past 140, and became terrified, but I still had to beat Cody.
The light turned red when I was about to cross the intersection, but I was going too fast to slow down. I thought that maybe I could make it through without colliding with anyone; unfortunately, I did.
I don't remember much about what happened at the scene of the accident. I do remember waking up in the hospital, starving. I got up to go find some food in the cafeteria. As a teenage boy, my priorities were to eat first, then ask questions about what happened.
It must have been late at night because the cafeteria and the gift shop were both closed. This was just great because I didn't have money for the vending machines. I looked around to ensure that I wouldn't get caught stealing from it. I didn't see anyone, so I worked my arm up into the machine.
As soon as I knocked a bag of chips down, I heard a quiet voice say, "That's not right." I didn't look around for who said it because I thought it was only in my head. I grabbed my chips and turned around to walk away, but was frightened when I saw a girl, around my age, standing there. She repeated her words again.
I tried to explain that I didn't have money and my parents weren't around. I told her that I had been in a car accident earlier that day and haven't eaten.
She laughed and said, "I doubt the wreck you were in was as bad as mine."
"How bad was yours?" I asked.
She looked me in the eye and said, "Some stupid idiot decided to race his car across Birmingham bridge, and he hit us."
"Us?" I asked
"Yeah, me and my parents, we're all alright though. I haven't heard anything about the other guy."
I knew who hit her and exactly how he was doing. I couldn't tell her that I was the guy, though. She was very pretty, even with her scars from the accident. I said, "Oh," still wondering what to do or say, I just asked her what her name was.
"Grace Miracle," she replied, "and my mother and father are Sarah and Isaac."
Well then I knew the names of all three people who were in the car that I hit. I wanted to tell her so much that I was sorry, but that wasn't the time for it. I got her phone number and returned to my room before the nurse realized I was gone.
Over the next year, Grace and I noticed we had a connection. We met every other weekend to go on a date. I didn't have my Chevelle anymore, just an old, beat up truck. My parents knew about the incident that happened between Grace and I, so they decided to never let me have another car again, only trucks older than 25 years.
I grew trust for my parents and my brother that they wouldn't say anything to Grace, so I invited her over for dinner one night.
