Dust

| 10 |

It's overturned.

I grab the side of the wheel until my knuckles turn white, and if leather could bleed I'm sure it would. I haven't rotated the key of this old Ford in over a year but Stella begged me for a lift, and we're all expected to cater to her every whim.

I'm sure even the spiders that built their cement webs in the side mirrors can smell my fear and rush to find a form of safe ground somewhere else.

"I should've crashed the car the night I drove alone." The verse plays in my inner ear on loop for what seems like forever.

I start slowing down on the yellow signal and feel Stella's teeth sink into her bottom lip to stop herself from chewing me out. Always one for self-restraint when we're not alone; soul mates don't snap over how cautious the other drives.

Again, I fight to find the right metaphor to explain why I hate sitting in the driver's seat, but I know she doesn't really care at all. In Stella's defence I can't see myself being honest about this either; whether because I've grown accustomed to avoiding truth or because my silence is now so familiar in these one-way conversations.

She reaches her fingers, turning the synth-pop beat to an insane volume to match the rhythm. Hands tapping in sync on the dashboard, hair flowing around her face. How can she still look ethereal in the middle of this chaos? It's over a hundred degrees, salty breeze from the ocean basking in her skin, Stella is still the centre of everything. I am the dead fish following the stream of the river, a straggler that stands for nothing and waits outside while she does her shopping.

Excitement is bubbling as she describes the clothes for her dinner date and the number she got as she was leaving the place. I fight to reach her arm through the fog and make it obvious that I'm listening, I'm still here. If I could just have a chance to get a word in, tell her I missed her still. That's the issue of having someone for so long, you forgive it all, even when it's not your fault.

The ghost song within my head goes on. "Escape from all I know". And now there's not much left to say.