20,000 Star Rating

It was just a small black notebook, which he always carried around as a journal. “Looks like it’s gonna be another slow afternoon,” he wrote, as he sat in his car on Fourth Avenue waiting for his next rideshare client.

Suddenly, the back door opened and a man with disheveled hair entered abruptly.

“I need to get somewhere!” he said with fear in his voice. “Quickly! I’ll pay you more money, just hurry!”

Startled, the driver studied the man in his rearview mirror before answering; sweat was running down the man’s temples and it was clear he was disturbed by something.

“Sure. I can push things a bit,” the driver said cautiously, “but I’m not gonna break the law so you can get there faster.”

“Here’s the address,” said the man, shoving a small piece of paper to the driver.

The driver looked at the paper and nodded. “I know where this is. No problem.”

“It’s very important that I get there as soon as possible. So, anything you can do . . .” he said, his voice breaking off into a moan of anxiety.

The driver shifted the car into gear and started moving.

“If you don’t mind my saying, sir, you don’t look well. Is something wrong?”

The man turned to look out the window, and the driver saw his eyes full of anguish. What could be troubling him so badly? “You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to, of course.”

After a long moment, the man answered: “It’s my fiancée . . .” he choked out as tears entered his eyes.

“Oh—I hope it’s not too serious. Is it this urgent?”

“Please! Will you just get me there as soon as possible?” the man cried. “I need to get there before it’s too late! Just focus on driving, will you?”

“I’m sorry,” said the driver, turning off the radio as it seemed inappropriate right now. He noticed he was speeding.

They sat there for a few moments without saying anything.

“You know, sir, if it’s really an emergency, I might be willing to break the law.”

“It’s an emergency!” the man said, desperately.

“What kind?”

The man looked out the window again, his face still tortured. After a long pause, which felt like minutes, he finally answered: “My fiancée . . . is going to kill herself.”

“What?” cried the driver, in disbelief. He clutched his hands more tightly around the steering wheel. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my god, why didn’t you say so?” He slammed his foot down on the pedal in order to get through a red light. “What’s going on? How do you know this is going to happen?”

The man buried his face in his hands. “I’m such an idiot! I’m such an arrogant idiot!” he moaned as his words came through sobs. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

“I remember a detour. That should save us a few minutes,” said the driver, trying to inject hope into the situation.

“It all started last Spring,” the man said, wiping tears from his eyes. “We were so happy. Everything was wonderful. My life had been pretty bleak before we met, but once we started seeing each other, my world became so much brighter.” He sat up, regaining himself somewhat. “But she started behaving differently. She became withdrawn, and secretive. She would get unexpected phone calls and not tell me what they were about when I asked. She started having to go out for appointments or errands when she never did before. I even caught her in a lie a few times, knowing she couldn’t have been where she said she’d been.”

The driver watched the man in his mirror every few moments, shifting his eyes between him and the road. He took a quick look at his speedometer, thinking to himself that he would definitely have his license revoked if he was pulled over right now.

“There was a part of me that started to suspect the worst. I became afraid and angry—and confused. Confused because deep down I felt that it was impossible for her to be seeing someone else. She’s not that kind of person. We were too in love up to that point. But she wouldn’t even let me use her phone, or her computer, when she had been more than willing to before this started. She was hiding something,” he said, nodding sadly, and pulled a letter out of his pocket.

“It was like this for several months. This torture of not knowing, of suspecting the worst yet feeling that she couldn’t possibly be seeing someone else, that it was inhuman of me to even question that about her.” His head sagged. “And then, this morning, I found this on the kitchen table.” He held up the letter, as tears fell down his face. “Why didn’t she tell me?” he said with despair. “If I had only known, we could have shared it together.”

“What does it say?” asked the driver. He looked and saw the man sitting there motionless, his head still sagging, and a wave of pity came over him.

Finally, after a few minutes, the man began unfolding the letter and said: “I’ll read it to you.”

Dear James,

I know I have been acting strangely these past months—and I know how it has hurt you.

I’m so sorry, my darling.

The reason I didn’t tell you what was happening was not because I don’t love you anymore. I love you more than I ever have.

I’ve only ever wanted to be a light in your life. I love you too much to do anything that would make your world darker. But it seems that I am going to end up doing that anyway, despite what I want.

My love—it hurts so much to tell you this—earlier this year, I learned that I have a degenerative condition that will eventually make me completely disabled and in need of constant care. I won’t tell you the details since it doesn’t change anything.

Because I love you, because I don’t want you to think of pain when you think of me, but only of the happiness we shared together, it breaks my heart to say that I have to leave you—and that I have to leave this world.

With all of my love,

Tara

His sobbing had became more violent as he neared the end of the letter so that he was barely able to pronounce the last words.

The driver was also crying—but had a look of fierce determination in his eyes. He was now driving through back-alleys, through red lights, on shoulders. If a single millisecond could save this woman’s life, he was going to make damn sure he got there on time.

“Oh my god,” said the driver. “I am so, so sorry.” He started down another back-alley. “Wait,” he said, a thought occurring to him, “she didn’t tell you where she’s going to be. Why do you think she’ll be at the location you gave me?”

“After I finished reading the letter,” the man said, his voice sounding possessed, “and after I regained myself, I broke into her computer. I knew she was hiding something on it. Once I got in, I started going through her files, her emails, her search history—anything that would give me a clue.”

The driver turned the steering wheel abruptly to avoid hitting a cyclist.

“She had been searching for lookout points this past week,” he said, shaking his head. “That’s just like her. She would want to end it in the most dramatic fashion.”

The driver straightened himself up, understanding what the man meant.

“This was always her favorite spot. And the last thing she searched for was how to get there.” He looked at the driver in the mirror. “I know that’s where she went.”

“I see,” said the driver, nodding. “Do you think you’ll be able to stop her?”

The man closed his eyes.

“I also found an email that she received, this morning, from her doctor.” His face became pale. “She left before seeing it.”

The driver shot him an alarmed look.

“All this time, she had been going for tests, for treatments, apparently without showing any improvement. Her doctors had thought the disease was degenerative.”

“Don’t tell me . . .” the driver whispered.

“They made a mistake,” the man said, starting to tremble. “After re-examining her case, they found that they had missed something, that she has a completely different condition, something quite benign—and that she’s going to be okay! Maybe some minor impairments, but nothing like what they had previously thought!”

The two of them were now staring wide-eyed at each other in the mirror.

“Do you hear what I’m saying?” the man cried. “She is about to end her life because of a mix-up! Because of some silly little misunderstanding! Because of nothing!” He began sobbing again.

Anyone looking at the car speeding down the road at that point would have thought the person driving it was half-maniac, half-racecar driver. They were about to show up at their destination any second now.

“Oh god,” said the driver, his heart pounding. “Oh my god!”

As they pulled up to the location, both men jumped out of the car and began frantically looking around in every direction.

Within a few seconds, the driver spotted a woman in a black dress in the distance near the edge of a cliff. “There!” he pointed. The man saw the figure, as his face became seized with wild emotion, and ran desperately toward her.

As the driver stood beside the car, watching, he saw the man reach his fiancée and fall down on his knees, crying something to her. He saw her initial, dismayed reaction, then, a moment later, her hand rush to her mouth in shock, before she also started crying and then falling to her knees—and then, with both of them collapsed on the ground, each embracing the other.

The driver stood watching them, incredulously, tears entering his eyes, and let out an enormous sigh of relief. He looked slowly up at the sky, then out at the surroundings, as he thought to himself how beautiful it all was and how wonderful it was to be alive.

He remained there a while longer, still unable to believe that this had all happened within the space of twenty minutes. Finally, he shook his head one last time and got back in his car to head back toward the city.

It was only a couple hours later, sitting at the same spot back on Fourth Avenue, that the notification came on his phone: “James has left you a tip!”

The driver chuckled, tapping on the notification. But when the next screen appeared, his reaction turned into shock.

James has left you a tip of: $20,000.00.

He sat there staring at the screen in disbelief. After several minutes, he finally looked down at the message that was left with the tip:

Consider this a small payment on a debt which I can never fully repay. She told me that had we been there a minute later, she would have already jumped. You saved my fiancée’s life, and mine as well.

The driver laughed triumphantly, unable to believe that only two hours ago he was sitting in this same spot, thinking it was going to be another slow afternoon. He pulled out his small black notebook, once more, and started to write: “Today was an interesting day. . ."