My eyes are glued to the steering wheel, as if I worried it would disappear if I looked away. My hands ball up in my sleeves, soaking them in sweat. I know I’m supposed to breathe slowly, but no amount of air is enough to satisfy my aching lungs. These are not butterflies in my stomach, these are rabid dogs, biting and clawing at my insides.

Do I have to go? I don’t, right? I can stay? I can stay still forever?

I’m too young. I’m too small. I’m not enough, yet. I’ll be ready later, just not yet. Not yet.

Images crash into my mind. Images of broken glass and blood. They crash into me like waves.

Or cars.

My cheeks are hot but my hands are cold. My mother has been calling my name, but I cannot hear her voice beneath the fractured sound of my own.

Sometimes people ask me when I am going to start driving, like everyone else my age.

I simply say, “I don’t care for it yet.”