Some things aren't true until you say them...

04.06.2008 - 1:38 p.m.

Last night my husband shows up at our friends� house too, after his shift. He hands me his keys as we leave; his keys to my car. I settle down in that familiar seat, my feet remembering the pedals as I systematically return the seat, the rear view, the side mirrors to where they belong.

He pulls the truck to the other curb for a three-point, but I gun my baby through a tight u-turn, revving towards the stop at the end of my friends� community. Guns n� Roses is playing, making the radio the only setting that had remained in its proper place. The volume�s at nine. I turn it up to seventeen.

I want to be responsible, I do. I didn�t want to get pulled over again. But, well. I loved my last car for what it stood for. This one, I love for itself, for the way I feel the grip on the pavement change as I shift gears, for the steering that is an extension of myself, for the way my voice fills the tiny, streamlined interior. For what it does to me.

The night is dark, quiet (except for me), and starting to drizzle just enough for the windshield to show how fast I�m going. I don�t care. I could be on Mars, so long as I had this car and a radio. I sing the words, the guitars, harmonies, I sing away this last month. I leave the budgeting troubles smeared under a skid mark at a T-stop. I show Axl how it�s done.

Swee-ee-eet CHIIEEII-I-I-EE-ILD OF MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII iiiiiIIIINE!

I walk into my house calm and sated, for the first time in weeks.

-stonebridge

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