Dear Ana,
It happened on December 4h, 2010.
I was getting ready to go tutor one of my students when my mom came into my room and told me that my brother was going to be driving me instead of her.
“Mama, please,” I begged, desperation leaking through my voice and coiling around every single word that slipped through my lips. “Can’t you just drive me?”
I was standing by the front door, my eyes frantically flickering around to make sure that Mikhail wasn’t in earshot.
“Maya, stop being dramatic,” she demanded. “I told you I’m helping out with the parent’s night at school, and I can’t just cancel on them because you and your brother won’t stop bickering. I need them to know they can count on me so they’ll call me in more often.”
Her words sent an intense blaze of fear straight through me.
“Honey, siblings fight. It doesn’t need to be a big deal. One day, when you’re older, you guys will start to get along. No one will ever be there for you like your brother will, Maya.”
She was right. No one would ever be there for me like my brother would.
I walked slowly to his car, not knowing whether to sit in the passenger seat or in the back. He did seem quieter that day, but oddly enough that only made me feel more anxious. It wasn’t a serene calm he was exuding, Ana . . . it was an eerie calm. An unnatural calm. I couldn’t stop wondering what he was thinking about in that manic head of his, and how long it would take until he snapped out of his trance. Most importantly though, was I going to be a causality in one of his outbursts again?
I reached his car and decided to just act normal and sit in the passenger seat. My body didn’t seem to get the memo because my hand was trembling as I grabbed the door handle. He never looked at me while I was getting in, he just kept staring straight ahead, his face expressionless.
That still wasn’t enough to ease my nerves. Every inch of my existence was hyper-aware of the danger sitting only a few inches away from me, and it was on high alert. My brain was sending me warning signals left and right, telling me to get out, go, RUN! I slowly inched closer to the door to create more space between us, glancing at him from the corner of my eye to make sure he wasn’t paying attention and wouldn’t notice what I was doing. He didn’t. Or if he did, he didn’t make it seem like it. He continued to stare at the road in front of him as he drove at exactly the speed limit. One hand was loosely wrapped around the wheel and the other hand was resting on the clutch between us. The same hand that had dug deep into my arm until it touched bone. The same fingers that had squeezed my throat so tightly I saw black, and so firmly that his handprint was engraved into my skin for weeks.
I closed my eyes as I fought a losing battle with the hysteria threatening to take over my body. I tried to focus on my breathing instead of on the war raging in my brain . . . exhale for three seconds and inhale for three seconds . . .
“We’re here,” he said.
My eyes snapped open and I jumped at the sound of his voice.
“Um, thanks,” I muttered awkwardly and quickly got out of the car. I was expecting him to rush off to go to . . . wherever it was that he went in his spare time, but I could still hear his engine rumbling behind me. Almost like he was waiting for me to go inside. Almost like he wanted to make sure that they were home, and that I would be okay before he left.
I was so confused, Ana. My brain simply couldn’t comprehend the almost ordinary interaction I had with Mikhail. My mom’s words were echoing in my ear and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was right and I was just being dramatic. But how could she possibly know that when she was never there? I was the one who felt his wrath. I was the one who heard his verbal stabs. He was just trying to manipulate me. He knew that he had his sharp talons sunk deep into my mind, and he was just trying to drag me around like his own personal puppet.
But it didn’t matter, Ana, because that seed of doubt in my brain had already started to grow stems of hope. God, I was such a fucking idiot. I actually started to wonder if he was trying to have a fresh start with me. It had only been three years since my disastrous twelfth birthday, and my deep hatred for Mikhail hadn’t quite settled into my bones yet. I wasn’t clueless, Ana. Even as a kid, I was aware that Mikhail and I’s relationship was unmistakably different from the way I’d seen other siblings interact with each other and . . . I was jealous. I wanted what they had. I wanted a brother, Ana, and if this was his way of trying to turn a new leaf with me then my heart was willing to accept it. My heart was willing to forgive him.
“Hey Maya, come on in,” Taryn’s mom greeted as she opened the door. I smiled at her in response and took a step inside. Before I could stop myself, I glanced back at Mikhail and saw him looking in my direction. I was about to turn away and walk through the door but before I did, I saw him smile.
He fucking smiled at me, Ana, and those stems of hope blossomed into flowers. I was so excited and preoccupied with Mikhail and I’s newly found relationship that I didn’t pay attention to the time.
I didn’t realize I was late.
“Perfect Taryn!” I congratulated after marking his practice quiz. “Do you have any more questions?”
“No, I think I got it now. Thanks, Maya.”
“Of course buddy.” I ruffled his hair. “I’ll see you next week.”
I packed up my things and headed downstairs, meeting his mom at the front door.
“I’m sorry you had to stay longer than usual,” she apologized as I slipped on my shoes. “I put a little extra in there this time.”
“Oh you didn’t have to do that,” I said, taking the envelope from her. “Thank you, I appreciate it.”
“No thank you. You’re really helping Taryn out, Maya. I’ll see you next week.”
“See you.” I waved and headed outside, smiling on my way to Mikhail’s car that was idling next to the curb. I peeked inside the envelope and opened the door, overjoyed with what I saw––
“Why the fuck are you late?!” Mikhail screamed from the driver’s seat, causing my heart to nearly jump out of my chest. I quickly grabbed the handle to close the door so Taryn’s mom wouldn’t hear him, but the car lurched forward before it could even click into place.
“I go out of my way to drive you somewhere, and you don’t even have the decency or respect to be on time?!” he yelled, his loud voice reverberating against every corner of the small car’s interior. I flinched away from him and pressed my body tightly against the door.
“Answer me!” he shouted, and before I could see it coming his fist reached out and slammed into the side of my face. The car swerved to the side of the road as Mikhail momentarily lost control, and the cars around us started beeping at the disruption we were causing. He quickly put both hands back on the wheel and drove straight again. Straight and fast. Too fast to be legal.
My fingers lightly touched my injured cheek and a sob cracked through my lips. He continued to speed and weave in between the cars ahead of us in our lane, my pain seeming to fuel his anger even further.
“Stop crying. Don’t make it seem like I’m the bad guy, Maya, you brought this on yourself! Whatever happens now is your fault!”
A cold sense of terror started to creep up on me at his vile words. I knew something was going to happen. My gut was screaming at me earlier, warning me with waves of unease that I should not step inside his car. But I ignored it, and for what? Because my mom told me too? She was completely oblivious to the incidents happening right under her nose! How could I be so quick and naïve to fall for his perfectly engineered manipulation? I was a fucking fool, Ana. I felt that flower of hope die and another harrowing sob burst through my lips at the heartbreak.
“I said stop crying,” he snapped, pressing his foot harder against the gas pedal. The cars and trees whizzed by us quickly through the window, blurring together until I could no longer tell them apart.
“Slow down,” I said quietly, my tears spilling into my open mouth. I saw him smile in my peripheral vision and the car surged forward even more rapidly.
“Please!” I begged louder. “You were right, okay? I was wrong. I shouldn’t have come out late, just please slow down. Please, Mikhail, please . . .” My voice cracked and veered off into nothingness as I continued to mouth the words silently.
My poor attempt to console him was useless. I clutched my seat tightly as he continued to zoom forward. I looked around wildly, trying to find some way out, and my eyes paused on the door handle beside me where the latch was still unlocked.
I weighed the odds for a moment. Jumping out of cars only looked smooth in movies, and I highly doubted I could walk away unscathed. On the other hand, Mikhail was going to wrap us around a tree like a car pretzel at any minute if I didn’t do something.
“I’m not stopping,” he muttered to himself. “I’m just trying to make you better. This is what you deserve.”
I touched the door with shaky fingers, but paused . . .
“Why do you hate me?” I asked, and his mumbling stopped. I glanced at him when he didn’t respond, but he was still staring straight ahead.
“Can’t you hear me? Can’t you see me? Look at me!” I was screaming now but he didn’t even flinch. “Tell me what I did to make you hate me!”
Maybe if I had just waited for a second longer he would have given me an answer. Maybe I didn’t give him a chance to answer because I didn’t really want to know what it was. Either way, it didn’t matter because I heard the car’s engine spur even faster and I knew I needed to get the hell out of his car.
So I pulled the handle and jumped.
I was right––jumping out of a moving car was only smooth in movies. The car was speeding so fast that I landed at least a meter away from the place where I jumped. My arm hit the ground first, scraping harshly against the pavement and twisting at an odd angle. I looked down and saw a flash of white poking through the penetrable skin in the center of my elbow. Bile bubbled up in my stomach at the gruesome sight.
I heard a loud screech of a car slamming its brakes and I whipped my head toward the noise. Mikhail had stopped in the middle of the road without giving the cars around him any signal, causing them to start beeping and swerving obnoxiously.
The stench of blood sent another wave of nausea over me, but I had to keep moving before he could catch me. I had to get away. I took a step into the road, not paying attention when I heard a loud horn. I turned around, and to my horror, there was a black pickup truck heading straight for me.
I lost my glasses when I jumped so my vision was fuzzy, but I was positive about what I was seeing, Ana. I knew I had to move, but I was frozen in place, so I just stood there and watched as the driver pressed on the brakes and veered to the side, right over a patch of ice. The truck continued hurtling toward me like I was a magnet and the laws of physics were too strong to keep it away from me––
And then everything went black.
