Escape

It’s dusk. The sky is an oil slick seeping down into the horizon, scraps of twilight catching in the bare bones of trees. Everything has taken on a bruised sheen.

Elliot sees it all. Their headphones curl dormant around their neck as they press their nose to their bedroom window, breathing in the coolness of the glass. Restless. That’s what they are. Too restless for any noise that’s not their own, and so restless they could fall asleep already. Anything not to be where they are.

But at seventeen, they do not have to be. With a sudden movement Elliot’s long legs launch them from the bed and down the stairs, two at a time. With the friendly weight of the car keys settled in their pocket, they shout something to their mother’s work-worn shape and bound into the garage.

The Tesla would have been nice, but they don’t need nice. They need out. They fold their lanky limbs into the storm-gray Acura and feel a surprising pang of gladness that they did, for its soft familiarity. They start the engine and flip through channels on the radio until they hit the news, soft NPR voices shrinking the urgent and the unbearable to just the right size. They turn around and speed down the long driveway, faster than they should, they know, they know, but they have cracked the window open and can smell a trace of too-early sweet summer rain, feel the glow of the wounded sky, and are quite certain that nothing on earth could stop them.

Elliot drives. Later, they’ll think of a destination, some candy or coffee that they needed so desperately. But this, this is what they need. Their heated seat against their back, the evening breeze through their copper hair, the feel of motion deep in their chest. The world rushes by, trees and houses, and they take none of it with them. The whole earth is spinning, they can see it now, with inexpressible speed, and Elliot is moving faster than all of it.

They taste freedom, like sugar and salt, and feel something inside them unfurl, some wild thing they didn’t know had been wedged between their ribs. They drive, outrunning every heavy thing, alone except for NPR and speed-mangled birdsong.

They drive, and they half-believe that they will never be still again.

by A.J.