The Rear View

The desert is watching. The moment I lift my new vape to my mouth, a gust of hot wind flings my hair into the chapstick on my lip like a gentle slap in the face. I know I should stop. I’ve tried. I’m always so close to getting away, too. I buy gas, go inside to buy a drink, tell myself I’m not getting anything else, and there they are behind the counter, strategically arranged so they’re impossible to ignore. Every vape is going to be my last, and then it isn’t.

It’s just me and my car out here in the red glow of the gas station lights, which glint off the oil spots in the parking lot and what’s left of my Honda Civic’s paint. The distant sky is desaturating from blue to black, the mountains silhouetted against the weak half-light. And that’s all there is. Sky and mountains.

I take another drag. I needed a break, or I was going to fall asleep at the wheel. Wouldn’t be the first time. My car is covered in battle scars from fifteen years of use, five of them mine. The dent in the front bumper annoys me the most. It’s like walking around with a chipped tooth. You can’t see it, but everyone else can. Everything else could be perfect and they’re all focused on the one damn thing that isn’t.

“Hey.” The voice comes from my left. I start. I thought I was alone. No other cars are parked against the building. “Never thought I’d see you again, Amy.” A man, about my age, with pale skin and dark eyes. I don’t recognize him. How does he know my name?

“Hey,” I say, trying to smile. “I don’t—have we met?”

“Amy, come on.” He opens his arms, palms turned skyward. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know me.”

“I don’t,” I say through a breath of nervous laughter. “I just have one of those faces.” It’s true—everyone I meet tells me I look like someone they know, or a celebrity, but they can never put a name to my doppelgänger.

“Amy Little,” the stranger says with a smile. His teeth are gorgeous and white, the teeth of someone who has their life together. Stupidly, that makes me let my guard down a little. God, I’m shallow. “Come on, Amy. It’s me. Michael. You changed my life. I can’t believe you don’t remember. Crazy that we’re meeting out here again. Where are you going?”

“Home. To California.”

“Really?” He comes a little closer. “What part? I’m from California too.”

“South Bay,” I say slowly.

“Yeah, but like, what city? Torrance? You look like a Torrance gal. Or maybe Newport Beach. I’m from Barstow. You’d better believe I was happy to get the hell out of there. We met in St. Louis, remember?”

“St. Louis?” My heart drops into my stomach. “No. I’ve never been to St. Louis.”

“Amy.” He laughs. “Why are you lying to me?”

“I’ve never been to St. Louis,” I say again, tears in my eyes. I slip the vape into my pocket and throw myself into the driver’s seat. Michael climbs into the back before I can even get the car started, which takes a few tries these days. The back doors don’t lock anymore, either. It seems like he knew that.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, blinking at me in the rear view mirror. “We’re going the same way. You can just drop me off in Barstow and I’ll never bother you again. Please, Amy. It’s no coincidence that we met out here. I believe the universe brings people together when they need it, and I really needed it. I have no way to get home. Can’t you help me?”

“I don’t know you,” I say.

“I can’t believe you don’t remember me. Michael. From St. Louis.”

“Please get out of my car.”

“I need to go home too, Amy.” Michael looks out the window. “You could call the police.”

It’s like he’s daring me. My hands tremble around the steering wheel.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, barely above a whisper. “I just want to see my family one last time. Please.”

“Fine,” I say. “But you’d better get out in Barstow.”

“I will. I promise. It’s only three hours.”

My friends would call me stupid. They’d tell me what they would have done in my place. How brave they would have been. How they would have told the strange man who knows my name to get the fuck out of the car and beaten him to a pulp. But like the doormat I am, I leave the parking lot of a middle-of-the-desert gas station with Michael in the back seat.

Nothing but white and yellow lines and speed limit signs on the nocturnal 15. This road has a different personality in the daytime. At night, it’s hypnotic, a never-ending illusion, a place outside of time. We pass an abandoned construction site. Michael says nothing. He only stares straight ahead. My eyes are heavy, the kind of heavy that makes you afraid to blink.

Two hours pass, and he says, “Amy, you’re the worst driver I’ve ever met.”

My eyes meet his. “What?”

“You realize you’re operating a three thousand pound piece of metal, don’t you? You should take this more seriously. Get off your phone. You could kill someone.”

“I’m not on my—“ I glance down at my hand. My phone is open to the text thread with my boyfriend, or maybe he’s my ex-boyfriend. Who the hell knows. I left DC in such a hurry. “What the fuck?”

“Watch the road,” Michael says. His warning gives me a split second to react to a pedestrian in the middle of the road. It’s not enough time, not at eighty miles per hour. I yank the wheel to one side. The tires screech and the motion throws me into the door. Metal crunches. There’s glass in my hair. The car comes to rest on its roof. Its headlights still illuminate the road behind. White and yellow lines and a crumpled heap of what used to be a person. It looks just like St. Louis.

I glance in the rear view mirror. Michael’s gone. The blackness creeps in.

***

“Amy?” Someone shines a light into my eyes. “Can you hear me?”

I manage a weak “Yes.” The light can’t be heavenly—I don’t belong there. Police officer, maybe. “Is he okay?”

“Who? Do you have a passenger?”

“Michael. He was over there on the road,” I slur.

“No, Amy. It’s just us.”

One of my pupils must be blown, because the trooper never really does come into focus. Behind him, over the upside down mountains, dawn is breaking.