Work Me Up

But his hand comes to rest over mine on the gear shift, and he adds in a quiet voice, “You don’t have to. It’s up to you.”

And suddenly, I want to. “Let’s do it,” I say.

“That’s my girl,” he murmurs, and the words send a warm rush all the way from my scalp down to my toes. I don’t need to glance over at the driver’s seat to know that he’s smiling right now, gazing at me with the look he always wears whenever I do something he approves of.

It makes me happy to know I’m impressing him. But more than that, it makes me happy just to be able to do this. This normal, human adult thing that I’d forgotten how to do for so long. I honestly never thought I’d be able to drive a car again. Or even sit in one without having a borderline panic attack every time.

But as I turn onto the mostly empty stretch of highway that surrounds Antonio’s garage, I feel completely comfortable. More than that. I feel excited.

A rush of adrenaline hits my veins as I ease the car up to 25, and then 30. The speed limit out here is around 50. It takes me a while to build up to that, but when I finally do, a huge grin breaks out on my face.

“You’re doing it,” Antonio cheers, as I let out a little whoop of happiness.

I don’t drive far. I take the next turn up the road from the garage, into the little gas station where I sprinted to call an Uber, back what feels like a million years ago when I was freaking out. When I still wanted to hide who I was and the depths of my pain and heartache from Antonio. Hell, from the entire world.

I was ashamed of what I thought of as a weakness — my fear and trauma after watching my brother taken from me so violently. I thought I could never be normal again, so I should hide that part of me as deeply as possible.

But in fact, what I was doing was ignoring the wound, rather than treating it. Because I never let it get any air, never let anyone see my pain or offer to help me with it, I was never able to just accept that what had happened, had happened. It was horrible, and the worst day of my whole life, but it’s in the past now. I can’t change anything. I can’t go back in time and rewrite history. I have to just move forward, as wholly and completely as I can.

Like Daniel would have wanted, I remind myself, and for a split second, as we turn back onto the highway and I push the gas pedal down, getting up to a higher and higher speed, I swear I can hear my brother’s laughter, echoing out from my memory. As if he’s encouraging me too. Happy for me, now that I’m finally allowing myself to be happy again.

By the time we pull back into the parking lot of the garage, there are fresh tears on my face. Happy ones, mingled with sad ones. And I’m smiling, but I’m crying too, and laughing, and every emotion in between.

I barely wait until I have the car in park before I reach across the gear shift and leap into Antonio’s arms.

“You did it,” he keeps repeating, over and over again, and he catches me when I practically fall into his lap, putting his arms around my waist, pulling me against him until his lips collide with mine.

I laugh into the kiss, and break away, beaming at him. “We did it,” I insist, but he shakes his head.

“That was all you. I’m so damn proud of you.”

I kiss him again, hard this time. “I couldn’t have done it without you,” I protest, when we break apart once more, catching our breath. “Antonio… I love you.”

The words just spill out. I don’t mean to say them, not yet. I realize that it’s crazy to feel that way already. After all, we’ve only known one another for a couple of weeks at this point. The first week, we spent half of it arguing and then hooking up and then fighting again, both of us so sure we knew who the other one was, even though neither of us really understood each other yet.

But over the last week, ever since we finally talked about the accident and my brother, about everything that happened to me and why and how I still take it out on people around me now… Ever since then, I’ve felt like I’m starting to fall for Antonio. It was a slow slide at first, but now, after today, it feels like I’m being thrown head over heels into this, off a cliff, straight into all the feelings I never thought I’d allow myself to feel.