Driven

 It was a truck. Just a pickup truck. But it might as well have been a plane. A rocket ship. 

After all, it could take him anywhere. He had turned the key in the ignition, and felt the thrum of the engine through his hand on the wheel. Through the soles of his feet, down to his soul itself. The next part of his life had begun. 

It had been a jubilant moment, as he’d stood in the driveway at the man’s house trying to stifle his excitement, handing over the thick envelope of cash after performing a solemn evaluation of the vehicle. Kicking the tires; taking a look under the hood as if he knew what any of it was. He didn’t know now, but he would. Car Repair for Dummies was stacked on his desk at home on top of Basic Car Repair for Beginners. Everyone started somewhere. 

The paint job wasn’t as glossy as he’d imagined from the classified ad, but it was the cumulated effort of hours and hours at work, standing under the fluorescent lights of the grocery store and daydreaming as he stocked shelves. Of early summer mornings when he rose with the sun to get a jump on mowing lawns as the rising sun tanned his arms. 

And now it was his. All his. He’d carefully budgeted the insurance, the amount of gas he could afford to put in it every week, planning it out carefully in the margins of his math notebook as Mr. Simmons droned away. His father had followed him home in it, and it was about the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, sitting there in the driveway under the tree where his tire swing had hung years ago. 

He’d washed it first, covering it with a fine blanket of suds before catching rainbows in the mist from the sprayer as he rinsed it off. He’d dug into the rag box in the garage and wiped the water droplets from the clear coat, appreciating the way the metallic blue glinted in the midday sun. He’d dragged his mother’s old vacuum cleaner out of the house, and ridded the vehicle of all the stray dust and detritus he could find, and pilfered the spray cleaner from under the sink to polish the interior until it gleamed. He’d tucked his folder of CDs into the little cubby under the radio, the Dashboard, the Yellowcard. The Newfound Glory, and the Twin Forks, and sat behind the wheel for a moment as the cicadas chorused overhead, and imagined. 

The bench seat stretched out invitingly next to him, and he imagined what she would look like sitting there. Her soft brown hair blowing out the open window, the golden strands catching the sunlight as he drove. He imagined how she’d kick her bare feet up on the dashboard, how she’d reach over to crank up the volume on her favorite songs. The other day they’d crossed paths in the hallway between classes, and her green eyes had met his. She had wrinkled up her nose when she had answered his shy grin with a playful smile of her own, and he could feel himself falling. 

He would have to speak to her, of course. More than the small handful of words he could string together when met with the intoxicating scent of her salt air perfume, more than the monosyllabic responses that his brain would willingly produce when his gaze met with the shape of her mouth. 

He imagined picking her up at her house, watching her slide up into the seat and thinking of something funny to say, her crystal laughter filling the air as he walked around to slide behind the wheel. He’d take her to the old drive-in and hope that she’d inch closer to him across the bench seat as the setting sun cooled the summer air. He wondered what her fingers would feel like laced between his, if he could muster the courage to lean in while they lingered on her doorstep. If she’d lean back into him. What her lips would taste like.

It all felt possible now. He glanced over at the passenger side and imagined a corsage perched on the seat in a clear plastic clamshell. They’d slide into a booth at the diner and eat pancakes in their prom finery before heading out into the night. 

It all felt possible, and he rubbed the jagged edge of the key contemplatively with his thumb. She’d ride along with him. He would drive.