Page 39 of Spicy Ever After
That look she’s now giving me.
The look she’d given a doomed feral pig she had to put out of its misery.
And it hits me.
I am the doomed feral pig.
Chapter Six
HATTIE
I can drive.
I’ve had my driver’s license since I was eighteen. It only took me two tries to pass the field test.
I don’t love to drive.
I might love it if there weren’t any other cars on the road, doing random and unpredictable things.
Like switching lanes without signaling.
Or braking and turning right without signaling.
Or passing on the right.
Or speeding up when the light turns yellow.
Or speeding in general.
Because when one car speeds, it inevitably threads through other cars who are observing the speed limit. And this usually leads to passing on the right.
Which is wrong.
And someone who’s speeding, weaving through traffic, passing on the right, only has to encounter another someone braking and turning without signaling and?—
WHAM!
Traffic rules are simple. They make sense. Just like sewing patterns. If you notch curves where the pattern says to notch curves, and understitch where it tells you to understitch and top stitch where it tells you to top stitch, you end up with a perfectly turned out collar. Simple.
If everyone just drove the speed limit, passed on the left, signaled when they were turning or changing lanes, and observed the traffic lights, we’d all get where we were going in a predictable amount of time with no accidents. No one’s car being totaled. No one needing to go to the hospital.
And then I would love driving.
“Mmmm….mmmm….mmmm….mmmm.”
I’m gripping the steering wheel of my dad’s Sahara.
If I have to drive, the Jeep’s height, windows, and general boxiness make me feel… equipped.
“Mmmm….mmmm….mmmm….mmmm.”
Even though I know where I’m going, and even though Waze says the two-point-four-mile drive will only take six minutes, I start the navigation.
Dad parked the Jeep in the circle drive for me, so I don’t even have to reverse out of the garage—which I don’t love. Even though I’ve told myself it’s just like backstitching. But I don’t believe myself because when I backstitch, I still see the needle and what it’s doing.
Driving in reverse means relying on mirrors and the back-up camera and looking over my left and right shoulders while moving backwards. It's very disorienting.
But no reversing today.
