Right or Left

The sequins of my dress cast shards of light across the corvette like a shining beacon. My chest tightened, lips dried and my eyes flashed to the rear view mirror. As if the police weren’t enough. The flashing red and blue now fought for control of the road with the bullet riddled cars of the mob. I pressed my hand to my chest, reminding myself that this was the plan. This was always the plan.

It wasn’t the devil on my shoulder that made me do it, but the conspiring angel on my right.

One heist, one life changing chance. One life ending chance.

Cars that first looked like matchbox toys had quickly become the size of tonka trucks. Soon they would dwarf us. We needed a little more time. A little more luck.

The suitcase in the backseat threw money out the window like a virgin at a strip club. A trail of breadcrumbs leading the starved right to the feast. My man stepped on the gas. His tattooed arm a tense line to the wheel. Blue scrawled knuckles white around the leather.

The car bucked and the photo pinned to the dashboard fluttered in the wind. My heart. One photo with her father’s watery eyes and my curly hair. We both reached for it at the same time. Our fingertips touching over the smooth surface.

She was one thing we did right in a life of left.

Our hands held there for one eternal moment as we came up to the fork in the road.

To our left capture, to our right a cliff.

Angel or devil. Left or right.

He laced his fingers through mine and pressed his lips to the pulse at my wrist.

He was giving me a choice. A chance to back out, retreat. Survive.

I squeezed his fingers and the decision was made.

Taking back his hand he wrenched the wheel right.

The desert wind, warm and red cut across the car clutching ones and flinging them to the chasing cars like confetti. But that’s all they were. Ones. The car was empty. Nothing but a life of bad choices and an empty suitcase. They would never find out where the real stash was, never find the millions, the diamonds, the art. It was all kept safe with my heart. A million miles and oceans away.

Safe now. Forever safe.

We were the distraction. The misdirection. The bait. And they had fallen for it.

One last heist. Life changing for her. She would be set for the rest of her long time on this godforsaken planet.

All we had to do was die. Fair trade.

I took the picture from the dash and pressed it to my lips.

One last kiss. Tearing it up I let her fly from my fingers. Let whatever god looked over this desert take her away. Keep her hidden.

I met his watercolour eyes across the consol. It was enough. Ride or die. Ride and die. One and the same. We were in it to the end.

His lips mouthed I love you, but the wind snatched away his words before they could reach me.

But I felt it.

He told me he loved me with the roar of the engine. Showed he understood with his sure hand shifting the gears. And as he threw his head back and laughed, he sung out how much he loved our daughter.

I told him I loved him by twining my fingers through his. Showed him I understood by throwing more bank notes to anger the hounds behind us. And I joined him laughing.

I was his, he was mine and she was ours. For this short, short time. It was enough.

We sped through the warning sign. Old dry wood splintering over the hood of the car and then we were flying. The depth of the cavern spread below us. But all I saw was him.

My one right thing in a life filled with left.

Then we fell.