Chasing Cars

Ashley sat silently in the bare room, scared that any noise she made would reverberate back at her, the volume a hundredfold. Her knees were tucked up under her chin, and her arms encircled them as she sat leant against the dividing wall between the lounge and kitchen, the old, off-white paint on the walls contrasting almost painfully with the deep, bottle green colour of her jacket. She twitched and her boot tapped on the floor, causing an empty thud to resonate around the room. Salty tears rolled down her soft cheeks and dripped from her chin, just to land heavily on the wooden floor of the lounge. Each tap of the water on the floorboards caused another tear to fall, the flow becoming faster and less controlled.

We’ll do it all
Everything
On our own

Her soft auburn locks were pulled up into a scruffy ponytail, keeping the contrary strands away from her face while she cried. It felt like her heart had been ripped in two, and she didn’t know what to do, save crying. It took every ounce of willpower in the girl to take her hands away from her legs, swipe away the tears and pull herself to her feet. It couldn’t just end like this. It wouldn’t.

We don’t need
Anything
Or anyone

With strength she didn’t know she possessed, she left the barren apartment and ran to her car, parked haphazardly outside the high-rise block. She clamoured inside and gunned the engine, peeling away far faster than was legal, but she didn’t care. Instead, she drove far faster than was sensible, considering her vision was obscured by the salty tears that refused to stop falling. She scraped through every junction that she could, only stopping for two red lights that were forced upon her, through which she spent the entire wait honking the car’s horn and screaming at the people queued up before her to “hurry the fuck up”.

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

She stopped the car dead in the middle of the street, cut the engine and jumped out, shoving her keys into her pocket and sprinting to the door of the house ahead of her. She knocked hard and fast, wiping her face with her free hand as she waited. No answer.