The Fear that had Driven Me

The happiest day every teenager dreams of, when you walk out to find the gift in which a key is needed to start also seems like a key to your heart, that day I got my first car turned what was supposed to be my happiest memory into one of my worst. If you got a chance to know me, you would know I’m in more clubs than you can count on your fingers. Whether I make it to every overlapping event in a different story, but I am usually very busy through the ins and outs. My parents are extremely hard working, but similarly occupied individuals. I like to think they are the best car salesmen you can find in the whole beach! As you could have imagine, busy parents and a busy schedule only left one solution: Uber. Since 8th grade, I ubered to travel volleyball practices, to my friends’ houses, to my parent’s work, anywhere I needed to go, my parents covered with Uber. This hopefully puts into place how much of a relief getting a car was on the household!

On April 22nd, 2018, I was laying on my boyfriend’s shoulder in the back of an Uber on our way to meet my parents back at home from a Virginia Wesleyan volleyball tournament. On April 22nd, 2018, I spent my last ride in an Uber because that day, I discovered a light blue Toyota Highlander sitting in my driveway with a red sparkly bow across the hood, the kind that only true car salesman have access to obviously. My meeting with Hobie, my newly gifted car, came certainly as a surprise considering I had gotten my new license just over a few weeks ago.

On July 15th, 2018 my boyfriend and I travelled to First Landing State Park to hike up our year anniversary and despite a couple ameature driving mistakes like remembering you cannot turn on left like you can on red, Hobie and I were off to a pretty good start. Just hours into the sun falling is when the ride got bumpy, figuratively. My parents asked Caleb and I to meet them at dinner, Il Giorgione by the oceanfront and although you haven’t met my parents yet, every weekend thing with them is a little more fun with alcohol involved apparently. My dad is quite the social, fly-high butterfly with a few drinks, but my mom however; too small for her indulgence, proves to be what you can refer to as a light weight. What you haven’t been told upfront yet is that Hobie wasn’t really a gift, Hobie was a double sided sword to sweep the hairs upon my throat. If an A in school was followed by a minus symbol, Hobie was held just high enough where he seems just in my reach, but to the height it is taunting to jump for. If a dog bowl was caught without water or crumbs were scoped out in the living room, Hobie hung just above my head. This drunken talk at dinner after followed  by multiple incidents of the same discussion grew demeaning and with more alcohol intake, the less impact hints and generous questions have to yield the tears. So, I left dinner crying. Caleb joined me in my car as we pulled out with my parents close behind in the big black Titan truck, lifted to where the windshield, holding gazing eyes, was cropped out of the visual my rear view mirror provided. I didn’t care to look back anyways. Angry and screaming in frustration, I wanted to escape the traumatic dinner party, I wanted to get far away honestly, as far as I could. Look left, look right, lift foot off brake and start moving forward, and BOOM. We didn’t get very far, and neither did the car which just swiped across the front of my license plate. With an abrupt metal-scraping echo filled the air, and tears welding my eyes, blinding me to see clearly, everything briefly froze.

I ran out to desperately cry to my father right behind me, asking if he saw what had happened. Chaos and alcohol are ineffective alone, but together they fuel the greatest fire, and my mother is living proof. “I have to go,” my dad said bluntly, “you can handle this.” I press my fingers down to the rolling up glass with all my might, scared out of my mind. We could not afford a DUI and that was ultimately the principle to be known; more so, we could not afford any domestic violence charges with eyebrows raising as my dad wrestles and pulls my bawling and screaming mother into the car. My dad leaves her. Great. With the multiplied crowd, I don’t think I have to worry about being the first to call the police at this point, the pointing fingers have gotten it covered.

I collapse into Caleb’s chest, soaking his shirt with my panicked tears. Although no where cared to evaluate the small dent across the middle of my bumper at the time, the hazed, but ear throbbing sound and the jerk of the car in shock seemed to consume all conscious thought. I exhale broken up syllables of apologies into Caleb’s chest between gasps of air and sucking up snot, frozen in the crashing moment, but my mom was more interested in moving forward, literally. In my manic meltdown, I feel my hair ripping out of my scalp with angry yanking as Caleb’s arms pull me in harder, closer in efforts to protect me. The top lacey layer of my ridiculously elegant dress tears with a sharp sound and fingers grip onto the small openings which outline flower silhouettes on top of the solid white underlayer of my dress. You may assume watching my mother being violently pushed into a cop car in a distressed mess would make me wish it all went differently, wish I was never there with them.

September 30th, 2018 my mother blatantly moved past the accident, attending to my car in the shop as I drove hers to purchase hallway decorations for homecoming with my friend, Samantha. Streamers, lanyards, we had it all! Blasting music to honor our achievement, I unconsciously cruised the white Tahoe. We cruised through an everyday left turn past the Red Robin on the right, we cruised right under a solid green light in the left turn lane. Green means go. Right? I guess they never taught you in Red Light, Green Light, if you’re on the left sign and Simon calls green, you don’t go. If Simon says green, you yield on the left.

The faint honk grew louder from the right, constant for a quarter mile away. “Ryle!” Sam’s alarming call turns my head to see the close-coming noise hit. The 5,000 pound Tahoe spin as Sam and I fly back into our seats with the hard-hitting change of momentum. Our necks are pressed so close to the seat heads, within a second’s blink, the airbags are deflating just before our eyes. Blood runs down my knees as I lightly pull myself out of the dashboard and once again panicked, the tears welled up, obscuring the scene. Though this time, the tears were not mine, and the blurred scene was not because of the tears. In the hectic aftermath, Sam is quickly waving her hands around for her glasses. With an oddly expressionless face, the smoke running out from under the hood grows dark as fluid drips onto our feet. With all my weight, I throw my shoulder into the door to force it open despite the dented metal exterior. Sam’s fingers slip away from my shaky hand as we sit on the sidewalk. Samantha’s Type 1 Diabetic condition raising risks to demand her to be escorted to the hospital in the ambulance. I continue to sit, empty and awaiting for my parent’s arrival. In the meantime, I switch back and forth from watching the Jaws of Life and firefighters work to cut the doors of the white Audi as the woman inside screams bloody murder, crying to where questions are raised whether or not a baby was in the car, and also replaying the event in my head, wondering where it all go wrong and trying to understand where the hit happened, when, what came first, what did I see, when did I see her on the empty, intersecting boulevard?

I finished my court-mandated driving class last month and the teacher, Mr. Jones, opened up the class like your everyday AA meeting. “My name is Grace and I went 36 in a 25 mph zone.” “Anything you’d like to add, mom?” The teacher wanted to make the class interactive for both the kids and the parents, but you can only make a court-mandated activity so enjoyable. “My name is Brandon and I was pulled over for reckless driving.” My name’s Ryle, and I’ve totalled three cars now. Through every pew, we went through stories that were either to make us feel more comfortable, or for my purpose at least, to measure up my accident seriousness compared to others. I’ve never had to go to a court mandated class before. I did in fact get a leniency stretch because of my pre-occupied schedule: Honor Roll, the EBA, my impressive involvement, clean(ish) driving record, but even cleaner general record. I did actually learn a few things out of the weekend-eating class, believe it or not. Not only did I learn about how many other bad drivers I knew in the room, but I learned about how to handle running your tires off the road, timing tricks to guide your depth perception depending on your changing speed, identifying safety hazards, what to do when your safety bubble is too closely being invaded, etc. “On the road is not the place to be scared.” Mr. Jones emphasized how important it is to be safe and confident when we do get back out there into what seemed like such a far world. A big, scary world of speeding and accidents and scraping metal, head jerking, and unpredictable moves. We discussed the detrimental effects of being fearful on the road and how it simply makes everything ten times worse. I passed the driving test with a high B+, no big surprise there, but Mr. Jones words still haven’t stopped acting like a backseat driver and I can’t seem to pass them. I cannot pass the fear of driving when I travel for what seems like years through the tight Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, I cannot pass the fear of driving when I pull into my neighborhood and hesitate to continue forward when I see a car approaching in front of me and with cars parked on both sides of the street, I slam on the brakes, too terrified to risk the noise of clashing metal, and I cannot pass the fear of driving when I drive out to ODU in Norfolk to visit Caleb and my hands tremble and grip the wheel tightly so my knuckles turn white as I tell myself to maintain speed instead of stopping on the narrow two-way streets. Nevertheless, I am determined to not let the fear of driving drive me so I go through the longest underwater tunnel in the U.S. anyways, I press my foot on the gas and trust I can make it passing by another car on the crowded neighborhood streets, and I continue to venture into the compact, vertically built Norfolk City twice a month because I drive this car and I will not let the fear drive me.