My exit approaches. I wait until the last minute to signal and switch lanes, and then leave the expressway, spinning down the exit ramp, slowing. This other car does the same. I watch this other car in growing dismay, my eyes more on the rearview mirror than on the street in front of me, so that I drift from the edge of the road and onto the rumble strips, making noise. Startled, I jerk the car back into place, my hands shaking on the steering wheel.
Just off the expressway, I merge onto a four-lane highway. I signal again and move into the left lane. I watch in my rearview mirror, as three cars back, this other car copies me, pulling behind a pickup truck.
The cars in front of me slow to a stop. I don’t know where I find the nerve. I think it has something to do with all the cars and how I don’t think anyone would do anything to hurt me with so many witnesses watching on.
At a red light, I slip the car into Park. I open the door and step out. It’s a knee-jerk reaction. I don’t think. I just do. I’m out of the car before I can stop myself, stepping onto the pavement. The air around me is overwhelmingly loud with traffic. The noise and the cool air come as a shock to my system, as the hem of my skirt lifts in the wind. I push it down.
I leave the car door open. While other drivers watch on in disbelief, I walk unthinking along the side of the road to where this other car also waits for the light to turn green.
I don’t have to see the driver’s face to know who it is. As I get close, I recognize the car. I should have known. Still, I feel practically queasy as his face comes into view, though it’s a side view only because he’s looking down at something and I think that it’s probably his phone in his hands or on his lap. He doesn’t see what I’ve done, that I’m standing just outside his car watching him.
I walk forward. I thump on the window with the heel of my hand. He jumps and looks sharply up, my shadow falling over him. His face changes, turning staggered. He laughs to hide his guilt and shock.
The light behind me must turn green because traffic in the right lane starts to move forward though the left lane can’t because my car is in the way. It starts with one car honking and then soon, the air reverberates with the sound of car horns.
Ryan looks ahead at the green light. He looks in the other lane, at the moving cars. He lowers his window. “What are you doing, Nina?” he asks, as if I’m the one in the wrong. He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“What am I doing? What areyoudoing?” I ask back.
“You’re blocking traffic, Nina,” he says, the voice of reason, as if I don’t already know that I’m blocking traffic.
“Come on, lady,” someone screams out a car window at me.
“Are you following me, Ryan?” Ryan says no. He tries telling me some bullshit story about how he was just on his way home and how it’s a coincidence that we’ve run into each other like this. “You’re lying,” I practically shout. “I’ve been watching you in my rearview mirror for miles. You’re following me. Why are you following me? Why are you lying to me?”
Ryan gives in. His posture changes and he says, “I was worried about you, Nina. I didn’t like leaving you at that place all alone. I wanted to make sure you got home okay.” This means Ryan pulled out of the parking lot and went and hid somewhere, watching, waiting, until I left too.
“I told you I would text you when I got home.”
He shrugs. “You can’t be mad at me for worrying about you. I just want to be a good friend, Nina.”
“Then leave me alone,” I say. “If you want to be a good friend, then stop following me.”
I move backward and away from him. “Wait, Nina, stop,” he says. I say nothing and I don’t stop. I turn and jog back toward my car, sliding in the open door. Cars in the left lane are signaling and moving into the right lane to get around me. Some just go but others blast their horn as they pass. The cars directly behind me leave, too, so that soon Ryan’s is in my rearview mirror, though there is a gap between us two cars long.
I wait him out. I watch in my rearview mirror for a long time until he finally switches lanes and goes around me. I follow his taillights with my eyes until he gets swallowed up in traffic. Only then do I drive.
I’m still shaking when I get home. I pull into the garage when I get there. It’s after six now and I still have to pack a bag, take care of the cat and drive back to my mother’s house tonight. The sun has just dipped beneath the horizon and the sky is a fiery orange. I close the garage door, waiting to get out of the car until it’s shut and I know for certain I’m safe and alone, and then I do my own search of the vehicle, shocked by what I find.
“Can we talk about last night?” Ryan asks the next morning. He’s standing on the curb as usual, as if this is any other day, which of course it’s not. “I tried calling you.”
I know that he called. I saw him call, four times between the hours of seven and ten. He was persistent. I let them all go to voice mail, because I didn’t want to talk to him last night. Besides, my mind was somewhere else, on what I found in Jake’s car. I listened to the messages later, to the increasing agitation in Ryan’s voice with each subsequent call when he couldn’t get a hold of me.
“I’d rather not. Can we just pretend it didn’t happen?” I ask, sidestepping and walking away from him.
The day crawls by. I need to speak to Lily, but I need to do so in private and so I wait until the end of the day, after everyone has left, to go to her classroom. I find Lily sitting at her desk when I come in. I hang back for a minute, watching through the open door. Lily is bent over a pile of papers, grading them. Her long hair falls into her face, so that I can’t get a good look at it or her eyes. I feel an overwhelming anger inside of me, though it’s not just that. It’s also sadness and disbelief. I keep it back. I try so hard to keep the emotion at bay. I’ve been such a good friend to Lily over the years. I always thought I was a good judge of character, but becoming her friend was an obvious lapse in judgment. I know that now. She isn’t the person she pretends to be.
I rap my knuckles on the open door and she looks up from her papers. “Hey. Nina.” She smiles as she says it, but it’s the kind of smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Hi, Lily,” I say, coming in. “Is this a bad time?”
Lily says no. She says that she could use a break and is grateful for the interruption.
“How are you feeling?” I ask. The last time I talked to Lily was days ago when she had car trouble and Christian came to rescue her.
“Okay. Not great, but I can’t complain. I’ve been meaning to come see you, to see if there has been any news on Jake. I’m sorry,” she says, “that I haven’t been a better friend. This morning sickness sucks. But that’s no excuse.”
“No, it’s fine,” I say, waving her off. “I’ve heard morning sickness is the worst.”