Sometimes people are able to save themselves when everything is stacked against them.
Take a moment to get to know Amber. We think you’ll like her.
Take a moment to get to know Amber. We think you’ll like her.
Amber Learns to Drive by Rose Lee-Delgado
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It was freezing, so Mickey left the car running for Amber
while he went in to make a buy. She wouldn’t have come with him tonight if she
hadn’t been hungry. No school today, so after Mickey and her mom left that
morning she was stuck in the apartment all day with nothing to eat but some
stale crackers she found.
When they finally came home, they headed for their bedroom
and shut the door. After Mickey came out, Amber went in to ask her mom about
dinner, but couldn’t wake her up. She told Mickey she was starved, and he said
okay, he’d take her for a burger and fries, but first they had to stop so he
could buy some meth.
*
Mickey brought her along when he made a buy a few weeks ago,
saying he wanted company, but later he drove out and parked by the lake and
started touching her. She said he shouldn’t, but he kept on and then he
unzipped his pants and said to suck it. She said she didn’t want to, but he
said she’s getting all grown up and sucking a man’s dick is something grownup
girls do. Besides, think about all he’s done for her and her mom, like paying
the rent and buying things like those sneakers Amber’s wearing. If she’d just
try it this once, they could go for ice cream.
He said not to tell because people wouldn’t understand, and
if she told, someone from the state might come and take her away, or maybe
they’d make him move out. Then she and her mom would be on the street because
her mom couldn’t pay the rent. That’s if anyone believed her, he said.
That night in bed she kept thinking about how she almost
threw up, and why did he say something about next time, if she only had to try
it this once?
When Mickey left the next morning she told her mom Mickey
was bothering her and she didn’t want to be alone with him. She hoped her mom would
just say she’d tell Mickey to leave her alone, but her mom gave her a dirty look and said she didn’t want to
hear that kind of shit because she already had enough going on, and anyway,
Mickey was taking care of them so Amber better not cause trouble. Besides,
Amber was thirteen now or had she forgotten, and maybe it was time she handled
a few things on her own. If Mickey’s bothering her, what’s wrong with telling
him to stop?
Amber tried keeping away from Mickey, but when her mom went
in another room he’d touch her and whisper things, like how hot she was. She
didn’t want to cause trouble so she’d just move away and maybe say don’t. Then
he’d pretend his feelings were hurt, and pretty soon he’d do it again, like it
was a game.
She thought about running, but she didn’t have any money,
and besides, where would she go? She had a dad somewhere, but she hadn’t seen
him for years and didn’t know where he lived.
*
Amber wished she hadn’t come with Mickey tonight even if she
was starved. She knew Mickey would drive out to the lake again, and she
wondered what would happen if she ran this time, but then she started looking
at these two big Harleys right in front of Mickey’s car, still sitting where
they were when Mickey pulled up and parked. They were close to each other, up
against the curb.
Even if they weren’t bikers, she thought they’d get real mad
if they found their Harleys all smashed up because Mickey’s car ran over them.
Would they blame Mickey, or would they blame some girl Mickey says was in his
car but who isn’t there now? Mickey, she
thought. It was his car, and he was the one who left it running. If they got
mad enough, they might hurt him so bad he wouldn’t feel like doing anything to
her tonight, maybe not for a long time.
There was a thick row of bushes across the street, and she
thought she could run and hide behind them before anyone came out when they
heard the crash. She’d have to walk home later, and she wouldn’t get the burger
and fries, but that’s okay. She had school tomorrow, and they’d give her
breakfast.
She felt scared, but this was her chance, so she slid over
behind the steering wheel and made sure the door was unlocked so she could get
out fast. Then she released the handbrake, the way Mickey did, and then she
reached with her foot and pushed the gas pedal all the way down. The motor got
so loud it made her even more scared and she almost stopped, but more than
anything in the world she needed Mickey to leave her alone, so she held the
steering wheel tight and kept pushing the gas pedal all the way down and looked
over at the house to make sure they weren’t coming and then she moved the shift
lever to drive, the way Mickey did.
*
It was too cold just to walk, so Amber began running again,
slower this time. For a while she kept thinking about Mickey running down the
street, those two big guys chasing him and yelling stuff, saying they were
going to kill him. She wondered if he got away, and then she started getting
scared, like what if they really did kill him?
But then she remembered driving Mickey’s car and making it
crash into the Harleys, and that’s what she thought about the rest of the way
home. That, and how good it felt to handle something on her own, like her mom
said she should.
