"Ezra, you should get a driver’s license," my ex-girlfriend would tell me every morning, right before picking her up on my beat-up scooter. It’ll open doors for you. Save us from these embarrassments.

  Every. Single. Morning. The same lecture. Like a mantra designed to erode my self-esteem along with my nonexistent bank account.

  Getting the damn license took me an entire year. A whole damn year split between thermodynamics classes I didn’t understand and shifts serving coffee to people who insulted me without even realizing it. Twelve months of saving up, practicing turns in empty parking lots in the rain, memorizing traffic signs that seemed designed to confuse me.

  All for that promise: more doors opened, fewer embarrassments.

  You should’ve bought a convertible, she told me weeks after the little pink plastic card became mine. She said it with that casual lightness she used to stab my pride, looking down at the fruit of my labor—my ’83 Chevette. Restored. Or at least, resurrected.

  A block of banana-yellow metal with a black stripe splitting it in two. Pure class, I’d tell myself, trying to convince myself I hadn’t been scammed… and sometimes, I almost believed it. Until I turned the key and it coughed and rattled like a possessed washing machine every time I pushed it past fifty.

  I tried to explain it to her—the beauty of a classic, the sweat I’d poured into it, the financial reality of a student surviving on instant noodles and misdirected hope.

  I failed. Over and over. I couldn’t make her understand that my little Chevvie was enough. That I was enough.

  Turns out, I wasn’t. At least, not for her.

  In the end, no doors opened for me—except the Chevvie’s, and even that one sometimes got stuck—and the embarrassments didn’t disappear. They multiplied. Grew more sophisticated. More intense.

  Clara ended up leaving me for a guy with a brand-new BMW, one of those that purred with promises of expensive dinners and weekend getaways. She left me with a shattered heart, an empty wallet, and a hunk of metal on wheels that now felt like the perfect emblem of my failure.

  A rolling coffin, waiting for its moment.

  A moment that came sooner than I expected.

  “Can’t this piece of shit go any faster?” The woman beside me spoke in a voice tight as a wire about to snap. No hysteria, just sharp urgency.

  Turns out, my Chevette wasn’t good enough for kidnappers, either.

  The streets were mostly empty. The midday sun glinted off the gun barrel pressed dangerously close to my temple.

  “Nope.” My voice sounded calm. Resigned. Like I was discussing the weather. “It’s a classic. Prioritizes style over speed.”

  The girl raised the gun. Cold metal brushed my hair. The smell of gunpowder and her cheap perfume—a sickly-sweet chemical mix—filled the car. I didn’t know anything about guns, except what I was learning right then: how annoying and terrifying it was to have one pointed at you.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “You’d better speed up.”

  “If you wanted speed, I don’t know why you picked my Chevvie for a kidnapping—OW!”

  The blow came from behind—a sharp punch to the back of my seat that nearly slammed me into the steering wheel. Pain shot down my spine. I caught a glimpse of my other unwanted passenger in the rearview mirror.

  His face was a mask of dried blood. His eyes, red, locked onto the road. His fury seemed directed at me, at the car, at the universe itself.

  “Speed up or die, kid,” he growled. “Now.”

  I floored it. The engine whined in protest, barely nudging the speedometer needle. The Chevette shuddered like it was about to fall apart—rust, grease, and broken dreams.

  A black van appeared out of nowhere. Maybe it had been tailing us the whole time, but the gun in my face had been distracting. Now, it was impossible to ignore. It was closing in fast.

  The Chevvie groaned as I pushed it past its mechanical dignity. The steering wheel trembled in my hands. I knew we were out of our league.

  “Faster!”

  “Told you. It’s a Chevette, not the Millennium Falcon.” I laughed nervously. “Were you expecting a hyperdrive button under the ashtray?”

  Another hit, this time to the back of my neck.

  “Shut up and drive,” he snarled. “Turn here. Left! NOW!”

  I obeyed. The wheel felt arthritic. The tires screeched as we veered into a narrow side street, lined with dark buildings and overflowing dumpsters. For a second, the van disappeared. A hopeful illusion. I could still hear its engine roaring, getting closer.

  I glanced at the girl. To my surprise, she looked about my age, but her attitude carried a rehearsed violence. The gun definitely helped sell the image—made her seem older, deadlier.

  Hers was the kind of face that didn’t inspire tenderness, but something else. Hard. Cold. And yet, she was smiling. Not a friendly or nervous smile, but a twisted, reckless one—like all of this, the chase, the gun, the risk of death—was fun to her.

  Her eyes were blue, but not the serene or poetic kind. Sharp. Bright, like blades under sunlight. There was no rage in them. There was play. A dangerous thrill, like she was daring the world to make its next move.

  And there was something hypnotic about her. Like she was inviting you to jump off a cliff just to see if you’d scream on the way down.

  The van reappeared and accelerated.

  “Shit!” I felt the impact. The Chevvie shook like a wet dog but held together, even as every part of it screamed.

  Doors opened, she’d told me. And oh, they did. The door to an early, ridiculous death behind the wheel of my worst financial decision.

  The alley dead-ended at a brick wall. No way out.

  The Chevette coughed one last time, and the engine died. Silence. Just our ragged breathing.

  I should’ve put on chase music, I thought. Stupid, yeah. But my brain clung to any distraction.

  Then I remembered the radio didn’t work.

  The girl looked at me. The gun was still steady, but her eyes weren’t urgent anymore. Just decided.

  “Don’t move,” she ordered, then threw the door open.

  She jumped out, sprinting toward the van.

  The Chevette’s door slammed shut behind her with a metallic clang. I stayed frozen.

  Four men piled out of the van and opened fire. Bullets ricocheted off the walls, screaming in echoes.

  The Chevette trembled under my hands. Scared. Just like me.

  “Get down!” the bloodied guy shouted from the back.

  The windshield exploded. Glass everywhere. A rain of shards glittering under the sun. Some dug into my skin like tiny daggers.

  “Well, ‘kid,’” he whispered. “Looks like your style ends here.”

  Damn. Maybe I should’ve bought the convertible.