I get onto the highway, and the city fades behind me. Forty, then fifty minutes away from home, and I finally decide to turn around, getting off at the next exit—a city I hadn’t even heard of before. The streets are so damn confusing in the suburbs; nothing leads to where you think it will. I quickly find myself twisting and turning down the same silent, residential roads with quiet houses and big lawns. I finally pull over on an empty street and take the keys out of the ignition.
I turn the headlights off and wait. I don’t know what for. An answer would be nice. A way somehow to stop thinking and dreaming and remembering how things used to be, how I was happy then, how we were happy then and didn’t even know it. A way to stop feeling guilty about working so goddamn much, and about not touching her – being afraid to touch her, afraid even to talk to her – when I’m doing this for her. So we can afford that two bedroom apartment. So she can use the spare room as a studio. So she can paint her stupid paintings I love but don’t understand. So she wouldn’t have to work in the living room of our old place. So when I would try to watch TV, she wouldn’t shut her eyes, shake her head, and wave her hands, saying, “ I need my creative space!” and kick me out.
And this car, this fucking car I wanted so badly, with Marie in the passenger’s seat, laughing and singing like she used to and the music loud and us grabbing each other’s thighs. The sun would be shining.
Marie didn’t even want a car. She rides a bike.
I can’t feel my fingers wrapped around the steering wheel. Warm them up, I think, but don’t do it. I could cup my hands and put them to my mouth and breathe into them, and the warmth would spread, and I’d rub them together and put them in my pockets or maybe between my legs so they’d stay warm. But I don’t. Maybe this is how Marie stands the cold: by still being cold but just not doing anything about it.
Then I see her in the mirror. Walking down the side of the block where I’m parked, carrying bags, groceries maybe. I almost laugh at what she’s wearing in this weather: a blue sundress appropriate for sweltering heat, a black bomber jacket that’s too big for her, probably her boyfriend’s, and giant, black, DJ headphones. The dress sways around her knees as she waddles in flip-flops. I roll down the window as she passes.
“Hey,” I say, and wave my hand to get her attention. The girl looks at me, startled but pretty and blond, and puts the bags in one hand on the sidewalk to remove her headphones.
“Can I help you?” she says and purses her lips. She’s young, eighteen at most.
“I was just going to ask you the same thing,” I say. “Need a hand?”
“Oh, no. Thanks.” Her face softens. “I just have a few blocks to go.”
“Let me help. It’s freezing.” I begin to get out of the car.
“Really,” she says, putting her headphones back on. “I’m fine.” She picks up her groceries and starts down the block. I sit back and slam the car door shut, rolling up the window. Her legs, her thighs, her hips are thin, and she has no ass. Or she has a little girl’s ass. Her ponytail bobs as she steps into the street, crossing under the single streetlight illuminating the quiet intersection. Suddenly, something gives and a bag splits, sending canned soup and bottles of juice rolling across the asphalt. She stops, putting down the rest of her bags to pick up the groceries.
I put the car into drive and pull into the street, leaving the headlights off. She’s at the end of the block, trying to fit the food into the remaining bags, shoving spare cans into her jacket pockets. I press on the accelerator, lightly first then harder. Her little blue crouched frame comes closer and closer, not looking up, listening to her music and hurrying to get out of the cold. When she’s close, too close, I turn my brights on, and she looks up.
I have never hit a deer before, so I don’t know what they look like in headlights. But I know what she looks like in headlights.
There is no sound, only the sensation of hard meeting harder, and the softer flesh and bone giving way. A thump-thump as the front tires and then the back roll over something substantial. I break and shut off my headlights. In my rearview mirror, groceries are scattered in the street. There is a bunch of something leafy-green, maybe parsley, and apples roll to either curb. A milk carton has cracked and mixes with something dirty, seeping from the crumpled blue and blond heap in the middle of it all. The milk turns sick pink before draining into the gutter. I turn my headlights back on and continue driving.
