This one was pulled from an unfinished manuscript.
Upon merging onto the interstate, I was dropped into familiarity by the faceless servants of my amygdala. The moment presented itself unabashedly, reminding me of weekend pivot points: the Saturday sunset anticipating Sunday depression. Here I was nestled in Felix’s car, his cracked, shiny leather, feeling twelve, fifteen, and 21 years old in a single moment. A barrage of memories fired at me. I sensed myself floating, although strapped in my seatbelt. My skin stuck to the seat, my sweat gluing both together, as the late afternoon sun knew how to bake my forearms through peeling tinted windows. The self-loathing emerged, I yielded to its presence. Sensations grazed my awareness so fast that I couldn’t distinguish euphoria from heartache.
One would presume another would be inoculated nicely into their small town over the years – those incremental doses doing the job – but for me, it still made me miserable. I had to modify how I did things in my own space, knowing I had to share it again. Rearrange my values, maybe abandon some in the interim, and exchange some for others. Then, quickly realizing, I knew this was another moment, caught in the undertow of emotions, a current swallowing me up, disorienting me. I couldn’t tell if logic or intuition should save me from beneath the rip current. But suddenly, I floated to the surface at record speeds and reoriented to reality, or a distorted one. I came face-to-face with the untouched wonder of the mind that I had no business understanding.
I was unafraid then, coveting to stand out as elevated spirits overcompensated for lower unresolved ones. I was like the wind at twenty-one; now, I fear densely occupied spaces and making a peep in a quiet crowd. Everything terrifies me. I couldn’t even pluck up the courage to buy a toothbrush at the local drugstore market.
I had sent Felix to the nearest drug store to pick me up some Junior Mints and a pregnancy test.