You Brighten Up the World.

I remember how it was so completely late, and how I had white knuckles from gripping the steering wheel so fucking hard. And how streetlights and headlights all of the sudden were throwing glares at me; I had to squint my eyes just to see the road ahead of me. To be honest, I was a little scared to be driving right then, right when there were so many people out and I couldn’t even see the double yellow line I had to stay behind.

Somebody was honking their horn. I didn’t need that right then, or the rain for that matter; it was coming down in sheets, and I had my wipers on the highest speed they would allow. I suppose that it would have just been easier to pick her up in the morning, to wait until the rain had let up and I could see properly.

But neither of us wanted to wait. She was too sick of everything to just wait it out until morning, and I didn’t blame her for it. In fact, if I had my proper wits about me and if I was thinking straight, I probably would have turned the car around and drove back to my one-bedroom apartment for a good night’s rest before heading over to Anna’s.

I couldn’t do that to myself, though, and that was the thing I’d always hated about me: whenever Anna wanted something, I had to give it to her. I wanted to give her whatever she asked from me, and I wanted to give it to her as soon as I possibly could. It doesn’t help when she asks things of me while I can hear her crying in the background. It doesn’t help when I can hear how she tries to hide it, and how there’s this inaudible crack in the back of her throat that breaks my heart.

So when she called, I basically stumbled over my feet trying to get out the door to come and get her. And maybe it’s a crime, loving someone so much that you’ve got to do everything for them, but I couldn’t help it. I was over all of the pretenses being in love with her had scribbled all over it. I was just through.

It was when I turned down her street that I realized what I was actually doing: You’re saving her, John. And as corny as that sounded, I really thought that I had done something right this time. Finally. I felt like such a fuck-up a lot of the time, so being there for Anna this one time gave me something to feel good about.

I pulled into her driveway. There weren’t any lights on in her house that I could tell, but I knew she was up and awake. Her bedroom window was locked tight. I didn’t know what to think about that because it was usually open.

Some movement came from the porch and I noticed then that she had been sitting outside, waiting for me to get there. My chest tightened, like someone had just pinched it in seventy different places.

Anna opened the car door without saying a word and closed it with a loud slam. She had a bag in her lap. From the looks of it, she’d be spending the night more than just once. I had no objections, of course, it just saddened me a little bit to think that things had gotten that bad. Maybe there had been a part of me that thought she might not be crying when I came to pick her up, or that she would be smiling like she usually was. And then I could tell her that she would be alright to go back inside, reassuring her that things weren’t quite as bad as she made them out to be.

But when I saw her shaking.

It hit me that I was such an insensitive prick for not doing anything about it sooner.

I gripped the clutch and put it into first gear, pulling out of the driveway slowly before taking off down the road. I didn’t want to say anything to her to make things worse, so I just didn’t say anything at all. I just drove, trying not to think about Anna and how fucked up her life was all of the sudden.

Sticking my hand out the window, I let the breeze roll over my fingertips. The streetlights had never seemed brighter.

My house was a few miles away, but it never seemed like we lived that far away. That night, though, it seemed like my house was worlds away from hers. It felt like I was driving home from a trip that was more like 3,000 miles, not just three. And I had to keep myself from taking her hand and holding it, or refraining from putting a hand on her knee to show her that I knew everything would be okay.

But I wasn’t sure if it would all be okay. All that I could do was just be there.

I wondered if that was enough.