Of all the gifts my family had given me, though, I think the one I will always cherish the most are the driving lessons. I can’t say the act of driving itself was what I enjoyed, because I didn’t. I was terrified. I felt my breathing grow unsteady. My whole body squirmed in the driver’s seat. The countless futures where I crash and die all popped in and out of my head like fireworks.

There was no worse feeling, I think.

Yet, as bad is it was, it couldn’t compare to the few grains of knowledge being in that little tin can of mine gave me.

I was safe.

I was alone.

And if I chose to, I knew I could keep on driving, and driving, and driving. Off into the sunset. Off into something else. And nobody would have been able to catch me. That part, I already had some idea how to pull off. Fake license plate. Sleeping in the car for the first few years. Maybe getting a backpack and some necessities and living on the street. The prospect was exciting, even if I knew, deep down, I’d probably cave the first few weeks. I was too spoiled. Too fragile.

The night all of it began, I guess I was just caught up in the fantasy. The road was dark. The city empty. The radio crackling. If ghosts weren’t the ones getting through that thing, it would’ve been my thoughts. And my thoughts were having me explore an abandoned building on a rainy night, trying to find a place to sleep. The heating was on, so the freezing temperature of this imaginary abandoned house never reached me. Instead, it gave this odd sense of comfort.

This comfort, possibly for the first time, overwhelmed the anxiety.

My head was clear.

It’s like the road wasn’t even there anymore.

It’s like I wasn’t there anymore.

And I wasn’t.

If I had been, maybe I would’ve seen him.

Maybe I wouldn’t have crashed into him.

Maybe we would’ve never hurt each other way we had.

My mind often wanders to that abandoned house, now residing off in the outskirts of my mind. The only thing I can ever do is try to find shelter from the rain.

I never can, though.

The place feels haunted.