The flip-open ashtray that sat in the center console was always full, even though the crack in the bottom rained ash into the compartment beneath it. The red line on the gas gauge was a little too close to empty at all times, and the man who smiled at me from the driver’s seat never wore his seatbelt. Every tire hit every bump on every dirt rode we ever drove down and the shot-gun seat was so much like a trampoline that I couldn’t have pulled off a straight shot to save my life. Lucky for me he never let me touch the rifle that he kept hidden under jackets on the bench seat in back.

There was the option to take off the roof of his truck, but every time he did it rained so he gave up and left it on. He would always stay in the truck while I got out and danced in the rain. His excuse was that he wanted to stay dry, but he knew that the roof leaked and I knew that he just liked to watch me. We used to lie on the hood of that truck after the rain subsided and stare at the stars. I would rest my head on his shoulder and he never complained when my hair left a wet spot- on his sweatshirt. I used to fit perfectly under his arm; I would stay there for hours and tell him stories about the stars and my theories about time travel and aliens. He was always patient and he never asked too many questions. He liked the perfume I wore and he used to hide his face in my hair to smell it; the place on my neck where he used to rest his lips still tingles when I think of him.

We had a place that we always sat. Sometimes I felt like it was a place just for us, even though everyone else always knew where to go if they needed him or me either one. When the sun was hot in the afternoon we rolled both the windows down and listened to the radio while he chain smoked and I sang along to the songs. He would always pulled me over into his lap and pet my hair. He seemed to love it even though the steering wheel was always in the way and his arm would fall asleep. I never complained when he wasn’t paying attention and ashed his cigarette on my jeans.
Sometimes we just sat and looked at each other. It was never an awkward silence, more like the comfortable silence between two people who don’t need to say I love you out loud in order for the other person to hear it. When I wanted to stay on my side of the truck he would reach out and take my hand. It always made me feel small when he did that; my hand always looked so small compared to his. He had calluses on his palms from years of hard work and he would watch while I ran my fingertips over them and told him how strong he was. All he ever offered in response was a smile.

Every argument we ever had started in that truck. He would pick me up angry sometimes, and I could feel it before I even got in, yet I always got in. He didn’t like the way I talked to other men, and I didn’t like that he didn’t trust me. He would bring up the past and I would scream away our future. He never yelled back at me from his side of the truck, he always waited until we got home. Maybe if he had my place would still be next to him. I begged him once to yell back at me, to shake me, to do anything besides stare at me with his eyes full of pain. He kept a straight face and didn’t say a word, but he still held me when I cried and told him I was sorry. He hated it when I apologized and I was always apologizing for something. I’m still not sure if I made stupid decisions or if he got angry to easily. Either way we were like fire and gasoline, simmering part of the time and explosive the other. In the end though, we always came back for more.

When we were happy he liked to watch me drive his truck. He would poke fun at me and make me blush when I would grind the gears, but he never got mad at me and would help me if I needed it. The steering wheel was big and sat so high that I almost had to stare through it to see out the windshield. That would’ve been fine; I could still reach the pedals. He liked to drive fast down the back roads, and after a while he would get frustrated with me when I drove slow and safe. When he would get bored of just watching me he would reach over and smooth out the lines that appeared on my forehead when I concentrated, and poke me until I turned to give him a kiss. I never once ran off the road.

I still listen to the radio and drive down those back roads. I don’t do it very often because every bump and every turn still feels like him, but sometimes when I miss him and I think I’m going to break down and give him a call I go sit at our spot and roll the windows down. I’ll light a cigarette just to let it burn and watch the smoke roll out the window while I sing along with the radio turned up loud. That’s still where people come to find me, and I still don’t want to talk to them when they get there.

I often sit and wonder if he sits there to when he’s feeling weak, or if he just tries not to think of me at all. I wonder if his wind-shield is still cracked from when he tried to put his fist through it, and if he sits alone in his truck and listens to sad country music with a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of Jack in the other. Most of all I wonder if I’ll ever forget the way it felt when he would pet my hair, and if I’ll ever dance in the rain again. I don’t think I will. It wouldn’t feel right if anyone else was around. Everything is still the same at this place, yet it feels empty. It’ll never be the same without him, the man who let me drive his truck.