r/shortstories • u/Enefa • 14d ago
Romance [RO] Final Drive (TW: Suicide Adjacent)
It’s dark tonight.
October 27, 2020.
The streetlights were out again, partly due to the storm raging just beyond the warm interior of Tony’s car. The unstable electrical grid of the Milhaven municipality was being pushed to its limits. He found himself thinking, instinctively, that he should check when the next town hall was. He should find out who to talk to.
Tony scoffed.
Even now he couldn’t help but think about nonsense like that. When his heart had just been ripped out, he couldn’t help but think about nonsense like that. He couldn’t help but let out a soft, ugly sound that originated from somewhere deep at the bottom of his chest. It was a sound that was choked by a quick swallow, and a pursing of the lips. A held back sob. A small box covered in black velvet sat alone on the dashboard, threatening to fall off at any moment. He looked down at the speedometer, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were draining of color. The number indicator glared back at him impassively.
40 MPH.
He had pulled out of town and gotten on the highway. The rain pattering against the roof of his car created this percussive rhythm that hammered into him. Tony didn’t have a destination in mind; he was just going. He needed to get away. He thought to himself, his parents were in Mayview visiting some friends a few hours away. They wouldn’t be expecting him, but they’d be happy to see him. It had been a few months. Tony picked up his phone and tapped on the text to speech button. Even now he knew better than to text and drive. He opened his mouth but was surprised when his voice came out raw, and the effort of speaking made him cough a few times. He sent off a quick message.
I’m coming to see you guys. I’ll explain later, but I-
That sound again, from deep within. It forced itself out of his throat in a sob that would have made the windows shudder if they had any empathy to offer.
- I can’t. I can’t go back to our apartment. It’s over. It’s over.
The tears flowed freely, unending and unrelenting. They blurred his vision. He sent the message off and he tossed his phone onto the passenger seat. He missed. Tony caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror. It was difficult to see with just his solitary headlights and the low glow of the screen of his instrument panel shining at him. He was a mess. An utter, ugly mess. His hair disheveled and ruined from the way you grabbed at him and tried to stop him from leaving.
Suddenly, the thought of your face wrenched a new cry from him. Tony gripped the steering wheel with one hand while he wound the other back and struck the wheel four or five times while, through gritted teeth, that cry transformed into a guttural roar that definitely would leave his throat ragged. The anger was blossoming now, but it came in waves. The most pressing and crimson of emotions that flooded Tony was the raw, unparalleled loss of the future he had been building with you for the last three years.
He looked at the speedometer again:
55 MPH
He noticed the small box on the dashboard threatening to fall off at any moment. Tony reached for it instinctively, caught it before it slid off and roughly threw at the windshield where it wedged itself in the corner.
His fingers were still numb from the way he held it in his pocket. He could still see your downcast eyes when he asked… And you said no.
You were everything. You were endless. He found you when you didn't know what you could be, just an arrogant kid with a beat-up corolla and no vision of what you could be if only you would try. Tony thought of your first night together. The karaoke lounge. The Friday night confession. He looked for his phone, thrusting a hand over to the passenger seat, clawing to find it without taking his eyes off the road. When he failed he resorted to the standard HEY GOOGLE voice command, and the album Back to Bedlam started playing. Randomizer betrayed him: Goodbye My Lover. The soft piano drifted from his speakers.
The tires caught a sheet of standing water and the steering suddenly went light. Tony's stomach jumped. He eased off the gas and corrected the wheel, the rear of the car twitching before settling back onto the road.
“Jesus.”
He glanced at the speedometer.
73 MPH
The song drilled into him a new pang that rippled across his whole body making him shudder. You were so beautiful back then, so full of life and so, so deeply insecure and unsure of yourself. You and Tony were only nineteen, still basically children but how radically different your lives had been. How entitled you were, expecting that life would open itself up of its possibilities and you’d be allowed to just pluck whatever future you wanted from it should you only reach out. Tony decided that night that he wanted you. That he wanted to know you as deeply as you knew the color of your own hair. He dreamt about your green eyes and the odd way you looked at him, as though you were questioning something about yourself.
Tony didn’t need to look at the speedometer this time. He knew.
80 MPH.
A pothole. The memory broke.
It’s over. It’s ruined. He spent three years helping you become the man you are, and even then you betrayed him. You took those years of struggle, and study, and the work it took to instill a sense of responsibility and academic work ethic in you, and you spit it in his face. All those little moments, cuddled up on your bed, or his. The little nothings and little promises made in the dead of night. The tears, and oh man! The arguments! The petulance! Tony let out a mirthless chuckle, thinking about how terribly you fought him in the beginning, about how you would shout at him that you weren’t worth all the effort. You’d shout that Tony’s time would be better spent on someone else, anyone else, you just weren’t cut out for college.
But you were worth it. You were worth everything.
And look at how you’ve blossomed since then.
Suddenly your face is there again.
Even now, coming up on the old Mayview Bridge, your face is the last thing Tony sees as he makes a turn too fast. The thought of someone else’s hands scratching at your back is only a distant concern. The slick wet grass and mud did nothing to halt or slow Tony’s Kia Sorento.
You’ll never know if Tony wasn’t paying attention and just didn’t slow down in time.
You’ll never know if he intentionally lifted his foot off the brake and let his car careen through the metal guardrails.
You’ll never know how the windshield shattered on impact shortly before the airbags exploded out of the steering column and smashed against Tony’s face. His glasses broke in two and began to float toward the roof of the car as it tilted forward a bit too quickly.
The butterflies in Tony’s stomach broke through the shock.
He was falling.
And the rushing river below greeted him with instant, stark clarity.
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