Every morning for the past month I awoke with the same breathless nightmare. That somehow I’d gotten the day wrong and slept through my alarm on the day of my boards.

But it never happened, and today? Today I awoke before my alarm, jerking out of a half-sleep and sitting straight up in my bed with a smile of anticipation.

It was today. 

It was today!

And I was ready. 

I flew down the stairs, the silent house a kind of blessing to my racing heart. I’d barely slept last night. When my breathing had finally slowed enough to let sleep creep in around the edges of my consciousness, my brain had taken over and started drilling me on questions. I dreamed half-formed dreams where I paged through my review books, the words dancing around on the pages, the sentences changing before I reached the end, and then jerked awake to check my phone alarm one more time. 

I knew I must have fallen completely asleep at some point, because there had been a whole thing where it was Gabe King who was administering the exam, but then I snapped awake again before he took his shirt off to reveal that roadmap of scars. 

I felt a flush, then shoved it from my mind. The last thing I could afford to be thinking about today was Gabe King. 

I poured a cup of cold coffee left by my parents in the carafe and stuck it into the microwave. The seconds ticked down. My stomach roiled. I’d been prepping for this for four years and it was finally here. The misting rain hung in dreamlike curtains over the morning, adding to the sense that this wasn’t exactly real. It hardly seemed possible that something I’d been looking forward to for so long was finally about to come true. My life was quiet and ordinary enough that there wasn’t much I could say that about. I’d spent all those years crushing on Jonah and for what? He never noticed me. But he had put me in Gabe’s line of sight. 

The thought made me smile as I leaned against the stove and stared out the window. Gabe was up there in the King house, but I wasn’t going to be seeing him today and for some reason that made me feel a tinge of melancholy. I wondered if it would be weird to go right over there after the boards were over. He’d probably want to hear how it all went. He didn’t seem to mind talking to me, no matter how awkward I got. In fact, he seemed to actually enjoy himself, which meant that I enjoyed it too. I leaned in further, looking up the hill to the King house. His bedroom was on the north-facing side, which meant I couldn’t see it, but that didn’t stop me from craning my neck to maybe catch a glimpse of him hobbling past a window, hopefully wearing his boots like a good boy...

When the microwave beeped, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I grimaced as I pulled the hot mug out, feeling slightly ridiculous. Like the microwave had caught me and was disappointed by my daydreaming on today of all days. 

I pushed all thoughts of Gabe from my brain and resolutely marched out the door. In all the mental rehearsals I had for this day, the sun had always been shining out full-strength and warm with encouragement. Instead it was another gray day of rain. It was the ninth straight day of rain and there was some talk about dangerous levels in the creek.

But that wasn’t my concern right now. I got into The Grim Reaper and took a deep breath. “You and me today, kid,” I said with a chuckle, and reached out to give the dashboard a fond pat.  

Then I turned the key.

He coughed and then sputtered into silence. 

I licked my lips. A faint tremor ghosted through my hands, and then I took a deep breath and laughed. “Oh, we’re gonna be like that, are we?” I leaned back and cracked my knuckles. “Okay kid, you asked for it.”

I turned the key.

He coughed. 

Sputtered.

Then the engine caught and he roared to life. “Ha!” I crowed, smacking the steering wheel with the flat of my palm. “That’s what I’m talking about!” I threw him into reverse and hit the gas.

He died.

For a moment he rolled silently until he ran out of momentum and ground to a halt, dead in the water.

Irritated, I threw on the E-brake and blew out an explosive sigh. The ghost of a tremor was back again, but if I gripped the steering wheel hard enough I didn’t have to feel it. I took another deep breath and looked at the dash, gazing at it like I could somehow peer into my car’s evil soul. “What the hell, Grim?” I asked him. “What is it? What did I do?”

There was no reply, of course, and thank heavens because then I’d know I really was cracking up. I sat for a moment, considering my next move. The engine was flooded, I could tell. I waited. The minutes ticked by and I tried to remind myself that I had plenty of time. I only needed fifteen minutes to get there. Add in another fifteen to find parking, walk in to the building, and take my seat and I was still a good twenty minutes early. I looked at the clock on my cell phone and breathed out and in as slowly as I could, trying to let my breath be the only thing I was concerned about. Forced meditation is still meditation, right?

After seven minutes I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Okay, fucker,” I told Grim. “Time to stop jerking me around like this.”

I breathed a silent prayer and started the engine.

He coughed. 

I swore and turned the key again.

The engine caught. Quickly, without taking time to showboat, I threw him into reverse again, and we rolled down the driveway together. “Yeah,” I murmured quietly so he wouldn’t hear me. I needed to get out onto the road immediately and hit the gas before he could sputter out again. I slowed at the end of the driveway to hastily check over my shoulder before pulling out onto my normally quiet country road. 

There, up on the hill, a delivery truck was starting to trundle its way down.

I rolled to a stop and threw Grim into neutral, revving the accelerator to keep him from stalling again. “Come on,” I begged the truck. It was too close for me to pull out now and the bridge was narrow enough that I wouldn’t be able to squeeze past. 

“Come on!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

The truck blew by, rocking Grim like a baby in the cradle. 

“Great,” I said, baring my teeth in a determined smile. I backed out quickly and then threw Grim into drive before he got any bright ideas. I pressed the accelerator and started up the slight hill the truck had just come down. Five miles an hour. Ten miles an hour. The Kings’ house slid slowly past me on my left.

Grim coughed again. 

I scowled at the dash, shooting him a death glare that I hoped would scare him straight. He’d never done that while I was actually driving before. Only when I was starting up. “Settle down, Grim,” I murmured. Fifteen miles an hour. 

The whole car bucked like a horse in a rodeo. “What the—” I cried, throwing up my hands. Grim was jerking like a rocking horse. “Oh! No. No no no no no.” One by one, every indicator on the dashboard was lighting up, like the streetlights in town winking on one after another at dusk. “No no no no no.”

The engine fell silent and I slowly rolled backwards down the hill. Grim gave one last shudder. 

And died for the last time.