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Olivia Farruggio '22<br />
Song<br />
Conner Small '21<br />
11:00 PM<br />
We had just fought for the first time. When we<br />
met I would have laughed at such a prospect. I<br />
would have shaken my head and denied that we<br />
could ever disagree. The idea of us in my mind had<br />
been so solid, a steady, heart-driven image of<br />
happiness. Now it seemed we weren’t as perfect for<br />
each other as I had confidently believed. It now<br />
seemed that I would spend the rest of the night<br />
crying, missing the moments that were so calming<br />
when the two of us laughed and lay and talked with<br />
one another for hours and hours on end.<br />
For a few minutes just after our first argument<br />
had ended, I only sat in my car, still in his driveway.<br />
I watched the rain fall along my dark windshield,<br />
listening to each tap of water and imagining all the<br />
other places those bits of matter had been. All the<br />
arguments they must have seen.<br />
Song always loved the rain.<br />
11:30 PM<br />
The drive back to my place started easier than I<br />
had thought. The tears hadn’t shown up yet, and I<br />
was keeping my cool. I was controlling my<br />
breathing, something I was never particularly good<br />
at.<br />
My eyes fixed on the road. The rain was picking<br />
up and my headlights looked like fireworks<br />
reflecting off the wet pavement, spreading waves of<br />
glittering, shimmering light through the downpour<br />
and into the thick patches of trees lining the road.<br />
This tranquil motion of reflection and movement<br />
was what helped me keep calm. If the road had been<br />
empty and dry, leaving one vast stretch of headlight<br />
out in front of me, I might have crashed my car right<br />
there, driving it into a thick trunk that called to me,<br />
urging me to let it take away all my pain, all<br />
recollection of my argument with him.<br />
So I promise, when I say my car crashed, it<br />
wasn’t because I wanted it to. Whether anyone<br />
believes me or not, there was something in the<br />
middle of that road, consuming the rain out of the<br />
sky and up from the pavement like a vacuum. An<br />
evil vacuum.<br />
I slammed on my brakes the moment I saw it, but<br />
it took a second for me to turn the wheel. There was<br />
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