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“Why are we even talking about this?” I ask, completely confused by what he’s trying to prove.
Leaning back in his seat with one hand laid haphazardly over the top of the steering wheel, he rolls the back of his head over his seat to look at me.
“Because of what I said to you in the shop. You hide. In everything you do. In how you dress, by always staying in some safe bubble. You’re afraid. And you need to stop worrying so much.”
He’s not wrong, and I hate that he sees that about me. But regardless of whether he knows it or not, I still refuse to admit it.
“Let me ask you this… Why do you drive the car you own? What made you want to buy it?”
What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Shane is insanely confusing.
“Because it gets good gas mileage.”
He snorts at that and mutters, “I knew it.”
“And because it had excellent safety ratings.”
Pointing at me, he responds, “And there it is. Right there. Your worry about safety is in everything you do. I don’t have to research one thing about you to know it. And it’s about damn time you stop running from your own shadow so you can start living a little.”
For fuck’s sake. Now he’s acting like some guru or life coach who’s going to solve all my problems with some secret ancient teaching.
“Okay. So how about you let me go, and I can be a little less afraid? Seems like a good first step.”
Chuckling, he turns his attention to the front and shifts the car in gear.
“How about I show you instead?”
“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
The car lurches forward, the ride smoothing out as he pulls through the shop’s parking lot and merges into traffic.
He doesn’t answer my question as we make our way through the city, the streetlights streaming down to move over our skin as we pass. After crossing over a few bridges and making random turns here and there until I have no idea where we are, I lose my patience.
“What exactly are you showing me?”
Just as I ask the question, Shane takes a sharp turn onto a road that runs straight for what looks like miles. There are fewer streetlights illuminating the path than there were in the city, and only two lanes running in opposite directions.
The car’s engine rumbles as he slows to a crawl, just long enough to look over at me and give his warning.
“You may want to hold on tight, Brinley. This is about to be one hell of a ride.”
With that, he slams on the gas, the car roaring to life and a scream tearing from my throat when we race off into the night.
Shane
Do you know what it means to be free?
I’m not talking about the ability to simply make your own choices as to the typical things in life. Your choice in who you date or don’t date, whether you go to college or trade school or none at all, where you work or where you live.
That’s typical. Average. Boring.
It’s a cheap facsimile of freedom that we’re afforded as human beings in this bitch of a world. And not everybody, even in that, has the same choices.
Really, the limits of freedom all over this planet are too numerous and different to discuss, so let’s use where I live as an example.
For the most part, people believe they are free to move about and make choices. Even that is debatable given different aspects of who they are, but again, not the point.
The point is… We’re never truly free. Not always.
