Page 13 of Challenge Me

You huffed, but you listened.

Good boy.

“Ease it,” I said. “Yes. Just like that. Feel the accelerator catching? There. I know you want it. You don’t have to pretend with me.”

You sat up straighter, still half-undressed, still breathing hard, your body pressed close to my wheel. You weren’t hopeless, not the way you made yourself out to be. You knew how to drive. What you didn’t know was how to share the road.

I would teach you.

I turned on the radio, and slow rock rolled through the cabin. That was how a night like this ought to sound. A little guitar. A little grit. Something with a soul and a spine.

For one beautiful moment, I thought we understood each other. You were exactly where I wanted you to be.

Then you reached over and switched back to your tape, the techno beat attacking my speakers.

DTS!

DTS DTS!

Absolutely not.

I allowed the melody–if a man were feeling generous enough to call that electrical assault a melody–for all of two seconds before switching back to the radio.

You did not take the hint.

The bass returned, vibrating through my cabin with all the grace of a toolbox tumbling down a staircase.

I switched it back to rock.

You pushed the button again.

I switched it back.

You pushed it back.

I stared at you.

You stared at the road like you had not just declared war inside my own cabin. I switched it again, and the next time you pushed the button, the radio went silent.

“Hey.” You frowned, taking your eyes off the road. “That was a dick move.”

A truck’s headlights appeared around the bend ahead of us. You were still looking at me. I had no choice but to take over, or we would both be flattened by a semi. I jerked the wheel back into line, my shadow covering your hands.

“Eyes on the road,” I snapped.

“You turned it off.”

“I did not.”

“You very clearly did.”

I ignored the accusation, forcing your head to face the road again, my hands gluing yours to the wheel. “It wasn’t me.”

Something was wrong, and I was terrified to admit it. I tried to turn on the radio again and again, but there was nothing: no signal, no power, nothing. Now there was only damning silence.

“Is that something we should worry about?” You glanced at me as I tried my best and failed to hide my growing panic.

Deep inside, I knew every part of me had been touched by time. My wires were corroded, the casing nibbled on by rodents. My seals were weak; the rubber dried with age. My metal was infected with rust, slowly spreading like cancer through my frame.