Flat Tire (Response to WWP #1)

[Wendi S. Harrington]

[caption id="attachment_94" align="alignleft" width="247"] Your main character is speeding down the highway when the front driver’s side tire blows out.[/caption]

Elizabeth pressed harder on the pedal. It had been nearly three months since she made the drive to Shady Point, but now that she was on the road, she felt an urgency to see Cody now. Right now. How had she waited this long to visit her husband? The hot stench of guilt clutched at her nostrils.

She heard a loud pop as the steering wheel jerked from her grasp, lurching the car toward an oncoming truck and trailer. Even as she yanked the wheel to the right and felt the car lurch from the pavement, she could hear Travis recounting the horrific crash that killed his parents when he was a little boy. A cloud of dust and grass filled the car, swirling around her as she felt the car spinning two, three, four full turns before it came to a dead stop in the field.

She felt numb, unable to feel her legs and arms as she remembered the way each scar on his body felt beneath her fingertips. Imagining again, what it must have felt like to be seven years old, strapped into the backseat of a burning car, with the realization that your parents were dead and couldn’t help you.

“Ma’am, you alright? Are you hurt?” A middle-aged man in boots and overalls had pulled her door open and was leaning into the car, inches from her face. He unsnapped her seatbelt and pulled her arm, guiding her out of the car. “Tire blew. You got a spare?”

Elizabeth couldn’t speak. She was still picturing the wreck, the fight he said his parents were having, the way his dad grabbed the steering wheel, and the way the headlights had blinded Travis but the sounds had never faded. The way he said his mama screamed as the metal crushed in on her. The way the heat licked at him, devouring his clothes and biting into his skin. Leaving him branded, physically, emotionally, forever.

“Rim looks okay, ma’am.”

Elizabeth realized the driver of the truck and trailer had pulled off the road to check on her. He was rising to his feet after kneeling down to inspect the tattered mess that had been her front driver-side tire. She tried to respond to him, but her mouth was full of cotton. She locked eyes with him, forcing herself to come out of the past.

“Scared me too, ma’am. Thought for sure, we was both goners. Good Lord lookin’ out for us today, I tell ya. I called this in to dispatch. Should be someone coming along any minute now that can help ya with that tire. You need me to stay with you till they get here?”

She managed to shake her head. She tried to smile and was certain that had been a failure.

“Well, there they are now.” The man smiled at her. “That’s good. I was worried about leaving you here. You look like you’re in shock or something.”

A squad car drove up, pulled over on the grass, and as an officer got out of the car, the man went over to speak to him, blocking Elizabeth’s view. The man put his hand on the officer’s shoulder, looked back at Elizabeth, tipped his hat, and then headed back to his pickup.

Brandon Reynolds stood at the squad car and waited until the man had pulled his truck and trailer safely back onto the road. Then, he walked over to Elizabeth, lifting a hand over his eyes to shield the sun. She studied him as he approached. Cody’s best friend since middle school, Brandon had promised to watch out for and protect Elizabeth when Cody was deployed to Iraq. The grave expression on his face, as he surveyed the remnants of rubber still attached to her wheel, told her all she had suspected. This could have been very, very bad.

“Well, where were you headed?” He looked at her, holding her eyes with a knowing. She offered him a thin smile, looking past him to the tree line in the distance. In the beginning, the promise had been that time would ease the hurt. But nothing had.

“To see Cody?” he asked her softly. Something in his voice- the tone, or an inflection- seemed to convey that he wanted to hold, comfort, and protect her the way he had promised.

She bit her lower lip, eyes brimming with tears. Words caught in her throat. She nodded. She held her breath, waiting. She knew he wished she would stop running to Cody. Wished she would quit opening old wounds and living through the hurt again and again. Wished she would let Cody go and get on with her life. Wished she would let him help her with that. But she couldn’t.

“Want me to take you?”

She shook her head, digging for the words. “I need to talk to him. . . alone.” She kept her eyes on the tree line in the distance. From her peripheral vision, she could see him watching her. Finally, he turned toward the car, clearing his throat.

“You’re gonna need another tire. Can’t put a donut on that. Got one?” She shook her head. “Well, Dad’s got one at his shop. You wanna ride back into town with me to get it, stay here with your car, or I can drop you off at the cemetery and come back for you when I get the car fixed. No rush. Talk as long as you want.”

Elizabeth fastened the seatbelt in the front seat of Brandon’s squad car as he radioed dispatch to explain he was fixing a flat and then taking his lunch and would call back when he was back on the clock. He turned the key on, smiling at Elizabeth. “Heard ya’ll had some good church last night.”

The image of Travis loomed before her. Eyes closed in prayer, hands raised in worship, tears sliding down his face. The gray patches at his temples, the lines at the corners of his eyes, scars tucked in behind his ears, hiding the reconstruction, trailing down his neck to disappear beneath his collar. But she knew. She knew the extent of the scars. The damage that was done.

“Hey.” Brandon’s voice was soft, kind. He placed his hand lightly over hers for a moment. “Sorry. I won’t make small talk. You can have this time with Cody.” A gentle squeeze and then he lifted his hand. He looked over his other shoulder, pulling the car onto the road, and heading toward the shattered pieces of a future she would never share with her husband. Maybe she should tell him about Travis. He was a cop after all. And dedicated to her safety.

But she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

 

Excerpt from OUT OF THE DARKNESS

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