The first thing I noticed about Reese was that she hit me with her car.

It had been my fault. Oddly enough, I’d been thinking about my upcoming birthday and that I wanted to learn how to drive before I blew out thirty candles on my cake. Reese was making a right turn on a one-way street, so she had only been looking to her left. I was the dumbass with no helmet biking the wrong way on the wrong side of the road, making myself a hood-splatter surprise. Luckily, she was turning from a dead stop so she hadn’t been going fast.

She screamed and jumped out of her little blue Toyota. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”

“I’m okay,” I said, pushing myself up from her hood.

She held out her hands, as if wanting to stop me but afraid to touch me. “Don’t move. Something might be broken.”

I honestly didn’t feel anything. I didn’t even realize I was shaking until I stood up.

“I’m really okay,” I said.

“Are you sure? Do you need an ambulance?”

“No, no, I’m fine,” I said.

I lifted my bike by the handle. Tires looked good. Frame looked good. Had it even happened?

“Don’t go right away,” she said. “Let’s sit a minute.”

My legs were trembling. We sat on the sidewalk, our feet in the street.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I’m worried about you,” she said. “You might be in shock..”

Maybe I was because it wasn’t until then that I took a good look at her. That’s when I noticed the second thing about her. She was gorgeous.

Longish, brownish hair. Blueish-grayish eyes. Arms that looked like they had done a lot of pushups and a sweet face that seemed to say, “I would never run you over on purpose.”

“I’m Reese,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“Do you really want to know or are you making sure my brain still works?”

“What’s your name, what year is it, and who is the president of the United States?”

“Gina,” I said. “2021. Big Freeida.”

She smiled. “Close enough. You live around here?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Not too far.” She crossed her arms. “I was just on my way to drop some stuff off to my ex.”

“You’re having a worse day than me.”

“You just got hit by a car.”

“Yeah, but I was on my way to the lake. When you leave here you have to go to your ex’s.”

“She won’t be there,” Reese said.

“Still sucks, though.”

Reese nodded. “I should take you to the doctor just in case.”

“Look,” I said, taking a few steps. “I’m fine. Don’t feel bad, I shouldn’t have been on this side of the road. I was about to cross over, in fact.”

“Are you the kind of person who insists that she’s fine when she’s not?” Reese asked.

“Yes. But in this case, I really am. Watch.”

I pulled up the bike and straddled it, gripped the handlebars, sat up tall, eyes straight ahead….and fell over.

I only have a couple of memories of the trip to the hospital. They were both of Reese telling me to keep my eyes open and me telling her I was fine.

Turns out I had a mild concussion. I got a stern lecture from the ER doctor about wearing a helmet and Reese paid my bill. She’d stayed with me the whole time, through an X-ray and a CT scan, and called my parents to tell them what happened. Then she dropped me and my bike off at home.

I lived in the left side of a double in a neighborhood that I’d been meaning to move out of for a long time. It wasn’t a dangerous one, it was just crawling with college kids and I had graduated eight years before.

We pulled up on the curb.

“Your mom said she can come stay with you tonight,” Reese said. “She’ll be here soon.”

“Is she babysitting me in case I fall over?”

“Well. You did fall over once right after you said you were fine.”

“True. Are you going to drop off your ex’s stuff now?”

“No. She’ll be home by now. With her girlfriend.”

“Oh.”

“It’s kind of why we broke up, so I wasn’t looking forward to going over there, anyway.”

“So I gave you a perfect excuse not to go by riding down the wrong side of the road. You’re welcome.”

“Thanks.”

“Thanks for staying with me,” I said. “You didn’t have to.”

“Whatever. I ran you over. Let me know if there’s anything I can do. Like if you need a ride somewhere.”

            I thought about my birthday wish.

            “I don’t know how to drive,” I said.

            “For real? You never learned?”

            “I’ve tried before but when I get behind the wheel I feel…out of control. It’s so different from a bike. I don’t even know if I want a car. I just want to be able to drive because I’m scared of it. Would you teach me?”

            “You want me, the person who hit you, to give you a driving lesson?”

            “You haven’t hit anybody since we left the hospital. Do you think you’re a bad driver?”

            “No. Until today I’ve felt pretty competent.”

            “Because something happened that was out of your control,” I told her. “That’s what scares me about driving. The car’s too big, the speed’s too fast. But something crazy happened to you today and you’re okay.”

            “That’s true. When is your birthday?”

            “June.”

            “That gives you two months. Want to see how you feel in about a month?”

            “A month?”

            “The doctor said it’s going to take at least two weeks to heal. I had a concussion playing rugby once. It took me a lot longer than two weeks to stop being dizzy.”

            “So you’ll teach me?” I asked.

About a Month Later

I buckled my seatbelt, gripped the steering wheel, and stared out into the parking lot of the abandoned strip mall.

            Reese, waited a full minute before saying, “You turn the key next.”

            “I know,” I said.

            “You all right?”

            “Yeah, yeah, fine.”

            “Because we don’t have to do this today if you don’t want to.”

            “I haven’t wanted to for fifteen years,” I said. “Tomorrow won’t be different.”

            “You’re gonna be fine,” she assured me. “There’re no cars.”

            “There are no cars,” I said.

            “What do you do first?”

            “Turn the key.” With a twist of my wrist, the car came alive. I shut it off again. “What if I kill us?”

            “How?”

            “What if I run into the building?”

            “It’s not possible”

            “How is it not possible?”

            “Well, for one thing, the car’s not on.”

            “Exactly,” I said. “As long as we stay here, I can do no harm.”

            “If we stay here you won’t learn.”

            “Okay, okay,” I said.

            I fired up the engine.

            “Now just put it in drive-”

            “Got it,” I said, shifting and stepping on the accelerator.

            We launched forward.

            “AAAAAAHHH.”

            I stomped on the brake, tossing us against our seatbelts. I turned the key, shutting the car down.

            “Sorry,” I said.

            “You didn’t let me finish,” Reese said. “I was telling you to shift into drive and coast, then brake. You got to get a feel for the brake first, then the accelerator.”

            “Oh. I’ll, um, I’ll start again.”

            “Put it in park first.”

            “It is in park.”

            “No, you shut it off while it was in drive,” Reese told me. “Don’t ever do that again.”

            “Why?”

            “The car could explode.”

            “Oh God.”

            “I’m kidding! I’m sorry, I know you’re tense. Relax. Let’s try again.”

            I started the car and let it drift. I spent a few minutes drifting and braking. It felt like riding the back of a tiptoeing bear. Any second the beast could take off, careening into everything.

            But after a while I got a feel for the brake. Knowing I could stop helped me move forward without panicking.

            Reese beamed when the lesson was over. She got behind the wheel and said, “You did great. After we do this a couple more times you should be ready for the road.”

            “No no no no no,” I said.

            “Did you just want to know how to drive in empty parking lots?”

            “Maybe. I think I’m good at it.”

            “You’re just nervous. You’ll feel better once you get out there.” She rested her hands on the steering wheel and stared out the windshield. “You want to go get a burger? I’m starving.”

            We went to Sonic, where a waitress skated up to the car balancing a tray of burgers and fries.

            “How does she do that?” I asked, watching her glide away.

            Reese shoved a fry in her mouth. “Practice. You never skated?”

            “Not while holding dinner.”

            She held out her palm and set her foil-wrapped burger upon it, like her hand was a tray. “I think I could pull this off.”

            “Ha! You’re sitting still.”

            “One step at a time,” she said. “Today I’m sitting. Tomorrow I’ll practice running across the room with it.”

            “Please let me be there for that.”

She pulled apart the foil. “Thanks for dinner, by the way.”

            “You’re teaching me to drive,” I said. “It’s the least I can do.”

            “Lacy called me last night,” Reese said.

            In the past month that I’d been talking to Reese I’d found out a lot about Lacy, her ex-girlfriend. I never said anything because Reese still had hard feelings about getting jilted, but they never could have worked out. For one thing, it hadn’t been the first time Lacy had cheated on her. It was just the first time she’d cheated and left. Second – Lacy and Reese? They sounded like a detective show that only lasts one season.

            “What’d she want?” I asked.

            “To go to dinner.”

            “I thought she had somebody to eat with.”

            “They broke up.”

            “Oh. So what’s she want now?”

            “She says she wants to apologize,” Reese said.

            “Great. That’s what email is for.”

            Reese took a bite of her hamburger and smiled as she chewed. “You don’t want me to go to dinner with her?”

            “No. She treated you awful. Do you want to go?”

            “I want to hear what she has to say.”

            “Do you want to get back together with her?”

            “I don’t know. Sometimes I think I do. There are wonderful things about her. When we first started going out I thought she might be the one.”

            “I’ve had a couple of ‘ones,’” I said.

            “You don’t believe you’re meant for one person?”

            “That’s not what I mean. I just mean that I’ve thought my one person was a couple of people.”

            “Ah.”

            “I don’t think Lacy is your person,” I said.

            “You haven’t even met her.”

            “I don’t need to. The right girl for you would treat you better than that.”

            “Everybody makes mistakes,” she said.

            “Some are more preventable than others.”

            We ate and talked about other things. Roller waiters and waitresses skated around us, dodging each other, to deliver trays of food held aloft in perfect balance. 

About a Week After Mastering the Parking Lot

I put the car in park. We were at the stop sign at the end of my block. It wasn’t a busy intersection, but to put the car in drive and move forward meant that I would merge into thirty-five mile an hour traffic.

“To be a good driver, you have to assert yourself on the road,” Reese said. “You can’t constantly think about crashing into something. Drive like you’re the best thing God planted behind the wheel. But be alert because people are crazy.”

“So don’t think about bad things happening but remember that bad things can happen,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“Oh God.”

“You’ll be fine. Would I be in the passenger seat if I thought you were a terrible driver?”

“I guess not.”

“All right then. After that car passes you can go.”

An SUV zipped past. I remembered what Reese said about being assertive. I turned onto the main street and kicked the speed up to thirty-five exactly.

“You did it!” Reese said. “Woohoo!”

There was a car in front of me and in the next lane. I was in TRAFFIC.

“You can go a little faster,” she said. “People go about forty-five down this street.”

“But the speed limit’s thirty-five.”

“If other cars around you are going a little bit faster it’s okay to go five miles over.”

I increased my speed to exactly forty.

“How is it that you’re so much more reckless on a bicycle?” Reese asked.

“I was riding my bike in the street when I was ten. I was immortal at ten. If I’d learned to drive a car back then I’d have been unstoppable.”

“Are you having fun at all right now?” she asked, really wanting to know. “Or do you just feel scared?”

I grinned and kept my eyes on the road, even though I wanted to look over at her. “Both.”

Being on the road wasn’t that bad. People around me were pretty much following the rules, and after years of bumming rides it was empowering to be the driver.

“You should start studying for your driver’s license,” she said.

“You think I’m ready?” I asked.

“You will be soon.”

“You want to still hang out with me after I get my license?”

“Um YEAH,” she said. “I didn’t think that was a question.”

“Cool. Come watch a movie with me tonight,” I said.

She laughed. “Is that an order?”

“My driving instructor said I needed to be more assertive.”

“I want to, but I can’t,” she said. “I’m having dinner with Lacy.”

I looked away from the road. “Like a date?”

“No. I want to hear what she has to say.”

“Is this a closure thing? Or are you still thinking about getting back together with her?”

“I just need to hear why it happened.”

“Where am I going, by the way?” I asked.

“Oh, sorry,” she said. “Take the next right.”

I cruised around for a half an hour. It was hard to concentrate. I didn’t at all like the idea of her seeing Lacy. Just the thought of them at the same table made me grip the steering wheel so tight it was hard to turn. I thought of Reese driving to the restaurant alone and nervous, and then driving away upset. Or worse – driving to Lacy’s place and staying the night.

I pulled into my driveway and turned off the car.

“You drove like a pro,” Reese said, squeezing my hand.

“Like an old lady pro?” I asked.

“A little,” she said. “You just need time. You’ll feel more confident eventually. How do you feel right now?”

“Pretty good. Hey,” I said, not sure about the offer I was about to make. “Can I drive you tonight?”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“So you’re not alone.”

That made her smile, but not happily.

“No,” she said. “What would you do, just stay in the car for two hours?”

“I’ll bring a book.”

“Gina,” she said. “Why don’t you really want me to see her?”

Though the car sat perfectly still, I gripped the wheel. “I like you.”

“You like me?”

“You’re beautiful and sweet and funny,” I told her. “Lacy’s an idiot.”

“You’re sweet,” she said. “I kind of like you too.”

“You do? Kind of?”

“Kind of a lot, yeah. But that thing you said about closure. I didn’t get that. I want hear her out. And I want to say some things.”

I nodded.

“You being there in the parking lot would be confusing,” she said.

We got out of the car. I wrapped my arms around her. She laid her head on my chest. The sweetest girl.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I do love her. We were together for two years and wasn’t all bad.”

“Who knows,” I said. “Maybe getting back together is the right thing to do, maybe it’ll turn out just as bad. It’s not like people have never cheated on each other before and stayed together. I think it just depends on what you want.” I squeezed her tighter. “I’ll be here. Even if it turns out you made a wrong turn.”

Later That Afternoon

I went for a long bike ride. Reese was meeting Lacy for 6:00 and as much as I tried not to think about it, as many times as I reminded myself that there was no point in thinking about it because Reese wasn’t my girlfriend and whatever she decided to do was out of my control, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I tried. After the bike ride, I cleaned the kitchen, I paid some bills, and I switched on my PS4 to beat up people in a video game. Finally, a little bit after 7:00 I decided to go to bed. It was the only way I knew how to switch off my brain. It worked as well as any time a person tries to sleep when they have something on their mind.

I thought about pouring shots of vodka, but I’d tried that sort of thing before when I had a heartache and found that I only got sadder and made regrettable phone calls.

I grabbed my new helmet rolled my bike to the door. If I was too awake to sleep then I would wear out my body until it cried for rest.

I opened the door and found Reese, poised to knock. She wore a dark blue summer dress and diamond earrings.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hey,” I said, not quite believing that she was really there. Like I’d manifested her on my porch. “I thought you were with Lacy.”

“I was going to, but while I was getting ready I just got angrier and angrier. If I saw her at the restaurant, I wouldn’t be able to yell at her like I wanted to, so I called her instead.”

“Did you get to tell her everything you wanted to say?” I asked.

“Yeah. I want to tell you about it, but now I’m hungry. You want to get a burger?”

“Sure. Hop on my handlebars, I’ll give you a ride.”

She stepped through the doorway and kissed me. I dropped my helmet and pulled her against me. Her dress and her hair were so soft.

“You want to drive us?” she asked.

“I told you I’d be your chauffer tonight. Some time you’ll have to come biking with me. Driving’s okay, but I think I prefer my bike.”

“I don’t know how to ride a bike,” she said.

“You WHAT?”