The Accord of Storms

My feet hurt, I smelled like a deep fryer, and the coffee burns on my forearm stung. I sat in the driver’s seat of my sky-blue 1990 Honda Accord, staring at the little mountain restaurant I’d never return to. I slammed the car door, and I screamed.

The restaurant I worked at had just laid me off. It was 2010, and Canada was still struggling to recover from the Great Recession. I was broke, and though I’d been accepted into university, my mother made it clear she would kick me out at the end of the summer—whether or not I had saved enough for tuition. Worse yet, I didn’t qualify for student loans due to her income bracket. I had another part-time job, but it wouldn’t be enough to save for the cost of fall tuition alone.

I sat in the parking lot until sunset, hands shaking, wondering why bad things kept happening to me. The chef came outside and emptied the kitchen’s garbage can into the green, stinking dumpster. He avoided my eyes, reminding me that I was alone in the world. I felt a panic attack coming—my breathing grew tight and short, and my heart raced and broke simultaneously.

It must have been an hour before I finally calmed down, put one foot on the car’s clutch and the other on the break, turned the keys, and reversed out of the parking lot.

The journey to my waitressing job was about forty minutes through a remote section of mountains, or about thirty minutes if I sped. I turned down the town’s main road and headed for the exit to the highway. The sky was beautiful, with blue, pink, and violet hues clashing against the darkening mountains. The mountains caressed covered the rising moon. There were no clouds, and it was scorching hot, even for the summer. My old car didn’t have air conditioning, so I rolled down the windows, letting the warm air slap my sweaty face.

As I burned down the empty roads, I turned on the car’s sound system, which was connected to a CD player my dad had installed in the nineties. Unlike most of my friends, my car didn’t have an AUX port to connect my iPod, but I didn’t mind. My favorite Lady Gaga CD—the Fame Monster—started blasting, and my sobs turned into song as I began my journey home. The highway was dangerous, especially at night, but I was nineteen, and the only thing that frightened me then was the crippling loneliness that frequented my young mind.

The highway wound between towering mountains, and while some called it claustrophobic, I always felt like the stone goliaths were embracing me as I drove. This was before forest fires had turned the scenery into dead lands of black ash and skeletal remains of trees. Back then, everything was still green, and the serene drive calmed me after being yelled at by tourists all day.

The measly fifty dollars in tip money I’d made that night sat in the cupholder of my Accord. Most of it would go to gas. I loved that car, but it drank up fuel like I mainlined coffee. Its engine revved in protest as I climbed the hill towards the highway exit, and the tires squealed as I peeled around the curve onto the single-lane, twisty road. My parents had bought the Accord the same year I was born, and I felt like it had grown up with me. It had a standard transmission, but that made me feel cool, like I could do something most people couldn’t.

The car was the last relic of my dead family. Five years earlier, my parents had gotten divorced, and my dad had abandoned my sister and me. That left us with my mom. I would later learn she had undiagnosed borderline personality disorder. To her, I was the “bad” kid, no matter how hard I tried not to be. I was “bad” when I was a baby because I cried more than my sister did. I was “bad” when I was a toddler because I didn’t “consider her feelings.” And at nineteen, the latest “heartless” thing I’d done was politely decline to call her new boyfriend “dad.”

I was rotten in my mom’s eyes, but at least she let me have the car. As I shifted into fifth gear, picking up speed, I recalled why she’d been generous. You’ve got until the end of summer to move out. Use the car to work and then give it back when you leave. Your sister will need it for her graduation year.

The Accord revved up to ninety kilometers per hour, and the wind lashed my face and whipped my long hair into my eyes. I leaned down and rolled up the window manually, keeping one hand on the wheel and my eyes semi-fixed on the darkening road. I cranked up the music louder. As the sun sank behind the mountains, the scattered emerald pines transformed into shadows, and the beige, dusty ground blended into the night. There were no other drivers on the highway.

I hummed along to Lady Gaga, tapping my fingers on the wheel, then bit my lip. Losing this waitressing job—what if I couldn’t go to university? No one else was hiring. None of my friends had work. I was lucky to have two jobs, but it still wasn’t enough. Now, I was down to one.

I turned another winding corner, ignoring the warning sign to slow down. The car shook, but I hardly felt it as a familiar misery possessed me. My dad had supported me in going to university. If things had been different, he would have helped me cover the cost of tuition. A sharp, hollow feeling spread from my hands deep into my core. I had no skills other than waitressing. My mother had made it clear I had to fend for myself. And my dad was gone.

I was alone.

I took another sharp corner and came to a straight stretch of highway. It was short, single-lane section, passing a few lakes on each side. As if responding to my thoughts, the sky filled with black clouds. It was so sudden I did a double-take through the windshield. The stars had vanished, along with the moon. There were no streetlights anywhere on that remote mountain highway, so I turned on my high beams. The reflective yellow double-line flashed back at me.

Then it started—a downpour like I’d never experienced. As it did, one of my favorite Gaga songs came on. Baby likes to dance in the dark because when he’s looking, she falls apart. I laughed. What a crazy coincidence that was. 

Except it wasn’t funny. The rain hammered down in a monsoon. It was so thick I couldn’t see more than two feet in front of my car, even with my windshield wipers on full blast and my high beams flaring. I slowed down, afraid to jam on my brakes and hydroplane, then screamed as I almost drove off the road into a lake.

I braked in time, gasping for air. I was deep in the mountains at this point. And there were no other cars.

I’m alone.

I pulled my car over to the side of the road. I hummed manically to the music. I checked my phone. No service. I tried calling 911 out of desperation, but it wouldn’t go through. The rain gushed from the sky. I waited fifteen minutes for it to stop, but all that happened was the roads flooded.

A chilling thought struck me. If I couldn’t see more than three feet before me, neither could anyone else. I put on my hazards.

The rain kept dumping. It was like being under a waterfall. Ten minutes passed—another ten. I turned off the music, afraid my battery would die. Water, half a foot deep, streamed past my car. I worried about being swept into the nearby lake, which was swelling onto the pavement.

I swallowed the thick lump in my throat. Growing up, my parents and teachers had warned me about this sudden, inclement mountain weather. It famously killed thousands of drivers on Canadian highways, and here I was, high in the mountains, stuck in it.

I looked out the window at the flooding road. I hesitated, putting my foot on the clutch and brake, then placed my sweaty fingers on the keys still in the ignition.

I was going to die if I sat here. I was going to die if I tried driving home. I was dead either way, wasn’t I? Maybe I should drive?

I still couldn’t see more than three feet in front of my car.

Well, if I was going to die, I decided I wanted it to be while driving. I started the car and crawled back onto the road like a wounded warrior. I couldn’t have been going faster than fifteen kilometers per hour. My neck strained from leaning forward, and my knuckles were white as I clenched the wheel. I dared to let go to put Lady Gaga back on, albeit quieter this time. I sang along nervously, trying not to let panic envelop me. Sweat dripped from my face, soaking my grease-stained shirt, but I kept driving.

The rain didn’t get better. If anything, it got worse. My car struggled to stay on the road. I felt the wheel jerk as the tires barely maintained their grip. Thunder clapped, and I winced.

This was it. I was going to die like how I’d been living for the last five years—alone and afraid, and there was nothing I could do to help myself.

I turned up the music and sang, voice trembling. Through it all, I thought about how I had truly and utterly tried my hardest, only to fail. I was trying so fucking hard, and why was it that no matter how hard I worked, shit like this just kept happening? Now I was going to die with nothing to show for it except fifty-some dollars in my cupholder and a massive burn on my arm.

Then I saw something. Taillights! And I’m not talking about off in the distance. They were less than a car length ahead of me before I spotted them, because that’s how damn heavy the rain was.

I slowed down and flicked off my high beams. The car ahead of me pumped the brakes, flashing their lights. Once, then twice.

“What?!” I shouted, confused and afraid. Not that they could hear me.

The driver flashed them again. It occurred to me that they needed me to keep my high beams on. It was giving them added visibility to navigate the treacherous storm. I flicked my beams back on.

I don’t remember the make or model of the car in front of me, nor the color. All I remember is their taillights. They became my guiding pole. We crawled together for twenty minutes, just the two of us navigating the deadly storm. I wish I could remember more about them.

After some time, another car behind me crept up, and their high beams shone in my vehicle like the light of God itself. I pushed my rearview mirror to the side so their headlights wouldn’t blind me, laughing like a half-mad captain navigating a dangerous typhoon. Except I wasn’t the captain. The person ahead of me was.

The car in front caught up to another vehicle that was also winding at a snail’s pace. Eventually, after fifteen more minutes of crawling, we found more partners, becoming a long line of safety. The road shifted to double lanes, but we stayed single file—no more than a car’s length apart. Not once did the rain lessen.

The double-lane was a good sign, though. It was only a few more kilometers until we began descending from the mountains, and I hoped that it meant we would soon be in the safer, lower areas of the highway where the weather was more predictable.

We began our descent, waves of water pouring treacherously down the highway, and meandered through the mountain pass like a glowing worm. I thought about how I was going to tell my family that I almost died, and I remember expecting them to be worried about me after I failed to come from work on time. I hoped they’d hug me.

Deep down, I knew they wouldn’t. I hate to say it, but I was right. They told me to be quiet as soon I tried to tell them what had happened.

When our convoy reached the bottom of the pass, the rain lessened, but only slightly. It was difficult to see, but not like it had been. Regardless, none of us left the safety of our line. We sped up, but just barely. We had to be at least ten strong at that point.

The convoy reached the turnoff to a separate, busier highway with six lanes instead of only one. Now, I was only a ten-minute drive from home. The rain was still bad, but I could see at least ten feet in front of me. I cranked my music so it was blaring.

Getting onto the new highway involved a dangerous turn on a good day. You had to come to a complete stop, then gun it into the six-lane road, praying you could match the speed of the oncoming cars before they smashed you to bits.

One by one, each car left our convoy, until it was just the original car in front of me left. I wanted to get home so bad. I just wanted out of the storm. I just wanted to be safe. Mostly, I didn't want to be alone.

I watched the car that had saved me from damnation turn gingerly onto the main highway. My heart raced. My mouth grew dry. I couldn’t make the rest of the trip alone.

Panicking, I took the turn onto the highway without looking. I was like one of the California Quail that live in the region. They run in single-file lines into the road as your car passes, rather than after, making a mad dash out of fear, and usually, at least one of them gets hit.

I rushed onto the highway, engine roaring, desperate to follow my partner. They pulled away, and I lost sight of them in the rain. But I spotted them—they were just ahead! I put my foot on the gas, and the Accord’s old engine screamed.

Their taillights grew brighter. Then they were so bright I could barely see. That was good, right?

I realized too late that my savior wasn't moving away but coming towards me. The lights became blinding. I heard a honk no driver ever wants to hear. It was the honk of a massive semi-truck.

I had turned into the wrong lane. I was about to collide head-on into a semi.

I screamed from the bottom of my chest as it sped towards me, honking, and I swerved into the correct lane at the last second. I felt my tires slip, and I kept screaming, sure I would slide off the mountain and into the lake below.

Somehow, I regained control of the car inches from the cliff. The honk faded as the semi tore down the highway in the opposite direction, its passing speed causing my car to shake. The driver of the semi kept honking long after they passed me. I’d scared them worse than they had scared me.

I was really shaking now. I’d almost died again. I opened the car door, leaned over without taking my seatbelt off, and puked on the side of the road. The icy rain soaked my hair in seconds.

I shut the door. I turned off the music and bawled because, as far as I was concerned, I’d just challenged death to a battle and nearly lost.

But I’d survived. I had goddamn-well survived.

My savior, the car I’d followed—they were long gone. The rain stopped. Cars whizzed past me, shaking my vehicle as they did. The moon poked through the fading clouds.

I started my car. I’d almost died twice that night. And yet, I started the car, put my foot on the gas, and kept driving. I’d found help through that storm, but chasing help wasn’t what I'd needed. As I entered town, I realized that I had to have the courage to stand alone, too.

I wiped my face, mouth, and nose. Sitting up straighter, I felt confident for the first time that whatever lay ahead, I could conquer it—just as I had conquered that storm.