The Drive | 12 May 2022
“You are sadly mistaken if you think I’m getting into that car with you!” said Melinda with as much confidence as she could muster.
BNR Response
Mario rolled down the driver’s window and smiled through a pretend pout, “Awww c’mon baby, you know I didn’t mean it.”
“If you didn’t mean it then why did you say it?” Melinda said, wiping away tears.
“I was just kidding!” Mario laughed, uncomfortable with this vulnerability, “Oh, c’mon, are you crying?” His shoulders slumped and he shook his head, looking away from her and turning to face the point break.
The tears came steadily now, a buildup of years of this toxic dynamic. She couldn’t catch her breath. The saline in the tightness of her throat tasted like chlorine. The thing is, she had nowhere else to go. Physically, she had a place to go, maybe: she could throw the keys at him, grab her bag, walk back up the PCH a few miles, and use her credit card to charge a room. But emotionally, spiritually, vibrationally: anywhere she would go would be haunted by Mario. She loved him, the fucker. Goddamn it.
“I know you think crying is blackmail, but could you at least,” she choked on her tears, a bubble forming in her neck making it hard to breathe and speak, “could you at least not get angry when I get sad?”
Mario refused to look at her, so she approached the sedan and opened the door. She stood there for a minute, twisting between having her hands on the hot roof of the Honda and turning back around to gaze out at Kings Mountain. She scoured that hillside looking everywhere for the answer. Finally, after what felt like forever, she tucked her head down to see if he had turned towards her, what his face was doing. He was on his phone. Her chest seized inside her as if warning her the consequences of this choice. It felt like a breaking point. And so, she turned to face the road, bent her neck and slunk back into the sun-warmed leather seat. Without a word, she turned the engine over, put the car in gear, and they continued their drive southward.
After some time, Melinda remembered her excitement for their trip. She had planned this journey home for months: the beaches, the burritos, the Redwoods. She flipped the radio on and sang along with abandon to the alternative hits she remembered from the 90s. She prattled on happily, the nostalgia of the music and her hometown coursing through her, bringing her life. Cautious driver that she was, she rarely diverted her eyes from the road, but Mario gave her enough active listening queues that she was undeterred. Eddie Vedder had narrated her adolescence and, once again, his poetry filled her with belonging and loneliness all at once, “Can you see them? Oh, on the porch, yeah but they don’t wave…” She sang along, almost brought to tears again at the headiness of it all. She had been fighting to get things right for so many years. She hated how he treated her and yet couldn’t find the break. She couldn’t see a path forward. She felt trapped. It would be devastating to leave and yet she was a tortured woman. “I said, I don’t know whether I’m the boxer or the bag, oh yeah…”
In a moment of clarity and a desire for intimacy, Melinda inhaled sharply and spoke to Mario via the steering wheel. It was easier to say hard things when she wasn’t looking at him, “You know? I’m so happy we’re here. I’ve wanted this for so, so long. I’ve been longing to show you this little restaurant down here where we used to stop on family trips on the way to Monterey. It’s called Davenport…?” In a flash, she could feel all her needs: for him to look over at her, nod, acknowledge her, see her. She broke her eyes from the road and looked over at Mario. He was dazed, somewhere else. “Mario!?” she said loudly, and he jerked alert, turning to look at her, his face questioning and irritated. An earbud tumbled from his right ear and his thumb was quick to pause his phone. He had been listening to a podcast the whole ride.