True Story: Twisted Metal

Being young felt like movement. Not noise, motion. Late nights with keys in our hands, windows down, engines talking back. We liked driving. Not just speed, but the feel of it. how the road answered you when you paid attention. Cars were conversation. What you drove mattered. Who could take a corner clean. How it sounded when you pushed it. We learned roads the way other people learn songs, every curve, every stretch where you could open up and let the world blur for a second. We drifted in empty college parking lots, space wide enough to believe we understood control. We raced sometimes not recklessly, not to impress just testing ourselves against the night. And every time before that one, we made it home. We told ourselves we were careful. And most nights, we were. Then one drive ended differently. He was going fast. Too fast for the road, too fast for the moment to forgive. The tires lost grip. The car crossed the line. A truck came the other way. There was no room to correct it, no second chance in the distance between them. Head-on. Metal collapsing, momentum erased the drive ending all at once. I lost a friend. His parents lost a future... graduations that won’t happen, a chair that stays empty, a son who should’ve grown older before any of us. People say the rest of us were lucky. That nobody else got hurt. But driving doesn’t feel the same now. I hear engines differently. I respect the road in a way youth never teaches. Growing up didn’t come with time. It came with impact. And every mile since carries the weight of knowing how fast something you love... ...can take everything with it.