based on a true story

She couldn’t breathe. She grabbed her keys and sprinted to the garage, pausing only for a minute to swallow a Xanax. She sat behind the wheel and turned the key and LEFT. The music is “Doris Day” by Jack’s Mannequin, and the mood is volatile but uncategorized. She wasn't angry or depressed or anything recognizable to the naked eye. It was a pang in her lonely, lost little self. Like a cigarette craving, only much, much worse, and seemingly irrevocable. Incurable, insatiable. A hollow emptiness that made it difficult for even the best actress to fake a smile. The left rearview mirror was smashed. She had accidentally hit it on the garage door a few days ago. She had immediately started cursing and then had punched her father in the neck. But that was then, and (she supposed) irrelevant to the current situation.
Driving her car was what her therapist called a “coping skill.” For Erin, it was the closest thing to exhilaration. There was a freedom in it, a sort of connection to the ancient heavenly machinery of the night. It was foggy and rainy and she loved it. She said a silent thank you for the crazy torrents of rain and the inability to see past fifty feet. She was going 60 mph, and her insides, her outsides, all of her was alive. She felt bigger. She felt like she could do a back flip, despite not having the necessary athletic skills. She wished she could go faster, but she didn’t want to get a ticket. Jack’s Mannequin was at the stereo’s highest volume: “Don’t go, don’t go so FAR AWAY,”
You don’t have to go.