The summer before you left for college, we spent most of our evenings driving around town. You’d always play Toby Keith music, the country ballads we listened to as children, and we let it blast through the dusty speakers of your maroon station wagon. The windows were rolled down, and the fluffy summer air tainted with moisture caressed our skin. Somehow, we always found ourselves driving down that one long street that met the horizon and reflected the lavender sunset through the silhouettes of trees. Mom constantly yelled at us for wasting our money on Dunkin iced coffee and gas, but to us, it was all we saved up for. The evenings where we could drop everything and get lost in the forest’s hidden paths and race down River Road meant everything to us, or at least to me, because it gave me a sense of adventure, a feeling of infinity, and the power to freeze time. In a few months you’d be halfway across the country and I’d be a junior in high school, and if it were up to me, I’d rather stay in the car with you, driving to nowhere in particular.
Then you met him. My evenings with you turned into your evenings with him, wearing his university sweatshirt and letting him sit shotgun while I sat stupidly in the backseat, watching the gray rainclouds block the view of the sky. Instead of our childhood country music, he streamed the songs from some indie rock band through your radio; I could practically see the dust leap off of the speakers as the electric guitar boomed within the first second. Your station wagon smelled of cheap cologne and steak, unlike the usual earthy aroma it had. There were some nights where I’d stay home eating popcorn and watching videos while you’d be off learning how to smoke a pipe, making out with your boyfriend in the front seat, and wasting gas. They were the kind of nights that we used to own ourselves, the ones that we could transform into the shape of eternity. However, they belonged to he and you now.
But the evenings grew shorter and the air became numb. He broke up with you one late August night, and I could hear the crying and the screaming from outside my bedroom door. The breakup peaked when he revved his truck’s engine and sped out of our driveway, nearly crashing into our mailbox, and you melted onto the pavement in tears. Mom and Dad weren’t home, so it was just me. I carefully walked outside in my pajamas, holding your car keys and your folded green sweatshirt with the college you’d be attending in a week stitched on the front. That night, we got into your red station wagon and drove. We didn’t have a set destination; all we did was drive into the starless night, patching up our infinity before it was too late.