Page 7 of Violent Little Thing

“I’m not doing that either,” she immediately dismissed. “Start driving. You’re being dramatic.”

But was I?

I pulled out onto the street and felt like I was in a spaceship.

All the lines looked wrong, and my brain felt sluggish, making my reaction time suffer.

“Lauri…”

She ignored me and started to play music on the radio, which only exacerbated the issue. “Stop. Just drive. It’s not that far, anyway.”

I shouldn’t have.

I should’ve pulled over at the first signs of something wrong.

But I didn’t.

And I’d regret it for the rest of my life.

Four years and six months later

“…verdict overturned.”

Auto Brewery Syndrome.

I’d never in my life heard of it before, but it explained so many things.

The specialists and the experts had all shared that it was something I couldn’t control.

My body turned carbohydrates into alcohol.

There was more complexity to the affliction, but in essence, my body got drunk off of excess carbohydrates.

Too many, and I risked getting drunk.

Too many, and I was “drunk” without being drunk.

A hard lesson that I’d learned after I got in a wreck and killed my wife and unborn child.

I was numb.

My lawyers had done their job.

They’d gotten me out of this hellhole.

But that didn’t bring my life back.

That didn’t change the fact that I’d killed the only person that loved me.

The gavel slammed, and all of a sudden I found myself standing outside the courthouse, a free man.

Cameras flashed in my face.

People screamed from the barricades.

But my lawyer was there, guiding me out of there like a toddler unsure where to go.

I got into the car and slammed the door of the black SUV, surprised to find myself not alone in the back seat.