Driving

Metres and metres of tarmac shot under the tires as we cruised down country roads. With my big brother driving and our two best friends in the backseat, life couldn't be better. Everything that had troubled me in the last week was left behind us. Windows rolled down, I found myself singing along to the blaring radio, something I hadn’t had it in me to do for a while.

“Would you shut it! God, you were much quieter when you were miserable!” I heard my brother yell over the rushing wind. I stuck my tongue out at him and slapped his leg in mock punishment.

“You shut it. I’m feeling great and you aren’t gonna stop me!” I sang even louder.

Laughter erupted from the backseat and I turned around to grin. She had her leg draped affectionately over his lap and I smiled to myself. I was glad they had found each other. They were both so happy.

The engine revved and I turned back around. It was now so dark that the only road we could see was that illuminated by the headlights but my brother was a reasonably experienced driver. I felt safe. I felt happy. Exploring the roads at this time of night with nowhere to be and no commitments to break us up was such a relief, so unbelievably freeing. Finally, I had nothing else to think about. I just had this and us and the bushes and drystone walls blurring either side of the little car we crammed ourselves into.

I was still in my work uniform, my cap perched on my head. I whipped it off and took out my hairnet, freeing my long, dull brown locks out into the slipstream if the car. Who cared if it matted? Who cared if I’d have to spend hours untangling it later on? Now, the wind lifting the roots felt amazing against my scalp and I closed my eyes, appreciating the feeling of it.

Then my brother jerked the car, laughing as I fell back inside.

We laughed a lot that evening. All four of us did. I did especially. More than I could remember for years.

There we were, only friends because of our employment. Even the one I called my brother wasn’t my real brother. I met him at work just like the other two. I had no brothers or sisters. He had adopted himself as my replacement sibling. He had all the benefits of an older brother, without the downside of having to share a house or a bathroom with him or putting up with him all the time. He was so protective over me that he was giving me a lift home now, despite living 20 minutes away from our workplace in the opposite direction to my house, just so I didn’t have to face my fears of being alone in a taxi at night.

Now, all plans of going straight home were temporarily cancelled. Our two friends in the back had joined us and the night was too young not to carpool for a short while. I’d certainly never been this free before. We had no destination other than forward and we ended up in all sorts of corners of the county that I had never been to before because I’d had no reason. We sang songs I hadn’t heard for years because I just never listened to music anymore. We had conversations that we would probably have never had anywhere else. We had fun (something which seems to be becoming more and more foreign as we grow up).

It was an amazing night.

I remember wishing I’d met these people earlier. I wished I’d grown up with these people - these exact three people. And I wished we had done things like this more. I hoped that we would do it again. And again. And again. Maybe even pull an all-nighter. Maybe that was the cure for my constant isolation - to spend time with the only people on the earth who didn’t make me feel more isolated in company than when I was alone. They could be the key to my recovery. They could be the ingredient which heals me, shows me that life isn’t a single lane track. There is room for people to walk alongside you as you go about it. It doesn’t have to be just me.

I look to my right and take in the sight of my brother. He has very quickly become the most important person in my life. He’s gotten me through petty teen dramas galore: friends betrayals, rapidly increasing workloads and my first real experience with heartbreak when my world truly fell apart over unrequited love. He had been my rock through it all like a true brother and I loved him more than even he could be aware of. I was his little sister and I felt so safe with him, as though nothing could ever hurt me.

I glanced behind me at her. God, she was and is one of the most brilliant people to walk into my life. No one could make me laugh quite like her but her humour was so obscure, many people we let in on the joke just couldn’t laugh at all which made us laugh even harder. She was beautiful and talented and so very queer and easily my closest girlfriend. And her boyfriend, also a good friend of mine, sitting beside her, smiling down at her like he was taking in his entire world made me smile in the same way. Because they were both my world. Everyone in that car made up my world. I had other people in my life which made it meaningful: my few friends at school, the unrequited love who was still one of the most important people in my life, my amazing family. But these people were and are the features in the landscape which made it truly beautiful. The land and the sky itself, the necessary pieces to make me work, were sat in the car with me now.

I couldn’t imagine a life without them all.