The car came to a screeching halt. Silence. Finally, it dawned on me what just happened.

"Jake."

"Huh?" His hands were still gripping the wheel, knuckles white.

"Jake. This is mom's new car."

"What?" He looked at me.

"This. Is. Mom's. New. Car. And we just smashed it into a building!" He stared at me, horror beginning to come over his face.

"Oh, shit."

That's when we both tried to get out the car with our seatbelts on. We ran to the front, finding the damage. In truth, it probably wasn't that bad compared to the circumstances. The fresh, shiny red paint had been peeled off the front end, scratches and dents surrounding it. Still, it was too much to play off as something Mom did and forgot happened. She would have remembered this.

"We're dead. We're dead. She's gonna kill us. This is the end. Goodbye world!"

Jake just stood there, limp, staring at what he had done.

"I'll see you when we're both in our nineties, Jake. It was fun while it lasted, but I think it's time to bury it. Along with our bodies, if we're lucky."

"No," he said. "No. She can't kill us, if she never had reason to. If she never saw this."

"What are you suggesting we do, push it into the lake? This is pretty obvious, Jake!" He rolled his eyes.

"No. Remember that sander dad has in the shed?" I eyed him. "We could sand it down and repaint it. We have paint in there, too. It might not be the same shade red, but in hindsight, I don't think it could get worse."

"I don't know. What if it does?"

"It's the only option we have, Addie. Would you rather be buried alive?" I shuddered, and looked at the time on my phone.

"It's three o'clock. Mom's shift ends at five."

………..

There was only one other time I had anxiety this bad, and it was when Dad let Jake use the table saw (he was nine.) And to be honest, this experience right now was in the lead of more anxiety. We had found the sander, and Jake had sanded down the edges of the paint where it was rough, and a couple of scratches. By the time he was done, it was past four. At least I could see my reflection in the bare, silver part now.

He put me in charge of paint. By "put me in charge," I mean he left me to fend for myself while he went inside and cleaned the house before Mom got home. That was probably the worst decision he ever made.

All we had besides spray paint, was a bright, neon pink color we used for my room when I was five. So ghetto car number one, with black splotches of spray paint on the front, or ghetto car number two, with hot pink lines instead. In the end, since I was fourteen, I decided to save myself the grief and just paint the whole car pink.

I hoped, against and beyond anything that has ever existed, that Mom would lose her intelligence at least briefly, so I could convince her it had looked like this from the beginning.

I was halfway through when Jake shot out the back door.

"Addie!" He stopped. "What are you doing?! Mom's pulling in the driveway! You were only supposed to do the front!"

"What?!" I looked at my phone. "She's not supposed to be here for another fifteen minutes!" He looked at me.

"Did you really think you could finish the whole thing in an hour?" He asked.

"Well, that was the plan!" Jake shook his head at me.

"Whatever. It doesn't matter, she's here! The keys should be in the driver's seat. Take the car somewhere to hide it."

"First of all, I can't drive. I'm fourteen. Second of all, I didn't know the keys were inside."

"Addie."

"And I may or may not have locked the doors,” I said. He groaned, pushing his hands through his hair.

"Of course you did. Keep her distracted, I'll fix this."

"How?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"I don't know, I'll figure something out, just go!"

*(A/N: I ran out of the word count to finish, but hopefully it will be continued later)