Page 35 of Insta [FAM]

There’s not much that an hour drive and some good old fashioned rock music can’t solve. By the time I’m almost back home I’ve got my head almost straight, and I’ve calmed down a notch or two. Everything is packed back into its neat little boxes where I can ignore it until I’m ready to have a complete emotional breakdown. I don’t have the time for one of those this week. I park my car in the driveway, it’s not too long before I will need to fetch Holly-Anna and Nelly. I sit there until the song is finished, then get out. I have work to get through, I need to pull myself together and just go back to getting on with life. As I open the front door, Lola bolts, her fluffy ass running straight for my neighbor’s flower beds. She’s boing-boinging across the driveway with me running after her. I’m calling her name as if she’d listen and come back — she won’t. I’m not fast enough to catch her, my only hope is that she stops to eat the azaleas or something. The stupid rabbit keeps going right across their lawn and onto the next driveway. As she does, I hear the roar of an engine, and then the squeal of breaks and tires. A motorcycle hits her, and she makes a god awful screech and actually runs back to me. I can see she’s hurt, and I want to yell, and cry, and scream. Lola collapses on my neighbor’s front lawn, and I rush over to her. I collapse on the grass beside her and pick her up. As I do, the man who ran her over is standing over us.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t see the bunny.” I don’t care. I put Lola on my lap and pull out my phone.

“You asshole!” I yell at the murderer who ran over our rabbit. He doesn't answer, just sits his ass down on the lawn and strokes Lola, asking her if she’s okay. “She’s not okay, you ran over her with your mid-life crisis.” I dial Mika’s number. It rings, but he doesn’t answer. “I don’t want to leave a message!” I yell, hang up and dial again. “Answer the fucking phone, Mika,’ I mutter as it rings off again. I know he’ll answer eventually.

“What Dion?” he growls when he finally answers.

“Some idiot with a small dick on a crotch-rocket drove over Lola, I need you.” The guy sitting on the lawn petting my rabbit doesn’t even look offended. He genuinely looks like he might cry over the bunny.

“Shane and Elliot are at the clinic, take her there as fast as you can,” he says, his voice emotionless and dead. “They’ll take care of her.”

“I don’t want Shane or fucking Elliot, Mika, I want you!” I’m emotional, and that mental breakdown is about three minutes away. “You made me get this rabbit, you will fucking save her. I don’t give a fuck what you are doing, go to the clinic. I’m on my way.” I don't know if he will, but Lola needs help, so I’ll have to take her there either way. “You. Asshole. You are going to have to hold the bunny while I drive.” I carefully hand Lola to this stranger who still has a pee-pot helmet on his head.

“Uh, okay,” he says, taking her from me.

“Uh, get in the fucking car!” I yell when he doesn’t immediately follow me. “You better hope that rabbit doesn’t die, or they will never find your body,” I say, pulling a safety belt around the two of them.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, and I can tell he means it. “I wasn’t looking, I just pulled into the driveway. Please forgive me,” he pleads with me.

“If she lives, we will talk about forgiveness. If she dies, you might want to get yourself right with God on the way to the vet.” I run a few red lights, and definitely skip a stop street or six on the way there. Speed limit be damned, this is an emergency.

“Call Amelia!” I yell at my car.

“Calling Amelia, mobile,” it says and connects.

“Dion?” she answers.

“Go fetch the girls, some moron drove over Lola. I’m on my way to the animal clinic.”

“Okay, I’ll get them. Must I tell them?”

“Fuck no! If she dies, they’ll be devastated. Just say I’m busy. Maybe take them for lunch or shopping — anything. I’ll let you know.” I glance over at the bunny shivering in a stranger's lap. “Maybe brace for the worst. She looks like she’s in shock.” She might be a demonic bunny from hell, but she’s cute, and my kids love her. The crash test dummy starts talking to her.

“Who is with you?”

“The cuntnugget who hit her.” I groan out.

“The cuntnugget’s name is Asher,” he says, and the hipster name matches the pisspot on his head perfectly. “And I didn’t hit her on purpose.”

“No one would blame you if you did,” Amelia says, breaking the tension. “She’s the worst rabbit ever.” Now hipster biker-boy is giving me a look. “I will fetch the girls, what about Zach?”

“He has Drivers-Ed. I’ll ask Kerry to get him when she fetches Willow.”

“Okay, let me know what Mika says.” She hangs up before I can say more.

“You can take the helmet off, I have my driver’s license and haven’t killed any humans, or animals yet,” I say, because he looks like a right idiot with that thing on his head inside the car. It dawns on me that I have a stranger in my car, alone, with me. Probably not my finest moment. Also, I haven’t seen him or his crotch-rocket before. Our street isn’t exactly busy, a motorcycle that loud would have been seen and heard — and for sure bitched about in the homeowners group chat. He’s not from here.

“What exactly are you and your motorcycle doing deep in suburbia?” He doesn’t look like the picket fence type at all. “Jillian doesn’t exactly have many visitors. Are you family?” She’s an uptight bitch. In fact, she’d moan about that noise first.

“Ew, no. Jill and I, we have a thing going. She usually comes over to me, but her husband is away on business so I said I’d come over and stay with her.” He spills the tea like it’s nothing. I, on the other hand, am horrified. She has a carrot up her ass, and was so condescending when Derick and I got divorced. Fucking hypocritical bitch. “Wasn’t exactly expecting to run over a rabbit, and meet the neighbors.” I’ll bet you weren’t Asher, the hipster who’s banging my married neighbor. What a tool.

“I’m sure you weren’t,” I say, shaking my head. You never know your neighbors. I almost put money on it, one of them turns out to be an axe murderer. “Do you want to ring Jill, and let her know where you are?” That thought hadn’t crossed his mind, and he quickly pulls out his phone and types away a text.

Then — then, the asshole starts filming my poor rabbit and some sob story he’s narrating! Who does that? Then I remember I do that and close my mouth before I open it. When I put the phone down, I ask, “Instagram?”

He looks at me like I’ve grown another head and says, “God no, it’s for TikTok.” As if Instagram might give him some sort of disease. Okay, hippy boy.

“Hmm, maybe we should try Toktik next time you make me run down the street half-naked, Lola. Seems that’s where the cool kids and murderers are.” Asher nearly kisses the dash as I slam on breaks in the parking lot of the animal clinic. I grab Lola from him and run inside. I don't even know if I shut the car door, but I don’t care if I did.