The Headlights That Match My Turns
a car's been behind me since the gas station. i took the loop nobody drives through. it took the loop too.
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there's a car behind me that's been behind me since the gas station on route 9. i noticed because i almost never see anyone out here this late, twenty past two, the road home usually just mine and the deer.
i told myself coincidence. somebody heading the same way. so i took the long way on purpose — the loop through that subdivision they started and never finished, the one nobody has a reason to drive through. headlights stayed back there. not close. just holding the same distance, like there's a rope between us.
i did the thing where you slow way down, give them every reason to pass. they slowed too. i sped up; the gap stayed exactly the gap. i can't make out anything but the lights. they sit high. a truck, maybe.
my street is a left, then a right, then home. i'm two minutes out. and i just realized i don't want to make the turns, because then they'll know the house. so i'm driving past my own road instead. third time around the block now, headlights still back there, and i'm trying to work out where you're supposed to go at 2am when you can't go home.
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