, but
Michelle York applied the brakes when she saw the approaching tree, which is what she was taught to do in driver’s ed. when the driver loses control of the vehicle, which was accompanied by the lesson to steer into the skid, which she thought she would remember since she was a good student, who at sixteen was already thinking about which college she would attend, which is how she occupied most of her junior year of high school, when her mom discovered her husband’s affair, which had been going on for a couple of years, which explains his absence when Michelle competed in the chess tournament, where she placed a close third, after which Carl told her that he always thought she was cute, which made Michelle’s cheeks hot, which made her have to readjust her suddenly steamed glasses, which she had started wearing in the third grade, when her father drove her to the optometrist, where the two sat in the waiting room in familiar silence while waiting for the eye glass prescription, which her parents realized was necessary, when she complained about not being able to read the blackboard, which drove her usual grades down to the class average, which she didn’t realize at the time, which she realized later after getting the glasses, which rode along with her high grades, which drove the other students to call her York the Dork, a name which stuck with her into her teen years, which is when she would stand in front of her mirror at night, where she worried were too big for the rest of her face, which then drove her to worry if Carl had noticed her during chess club, where Michelle had beaten him ten games out of ten, which was her record, the news of which caused her mom and dad to applaud her, which she thought sounded artificial, a word which she feared colleges would use to describe her, which is why she steered her thoughts towards writing possible college entrance essays, which she mentally assembled during class, which sometimes crossed the median into her life after school, which ignited her determination to multitask, which is why she thought she was a good student, which is what she thought during a lesson in driver’s ed., which is when she learned to steer into the curve, the truth of which Michelle admitted to her mom, which then drove her mom to say that Michelle needed to live in the present, another lesson which slammed into her thoughts when she lost control of the vehicle, which is when she saw the approaching tree out of the driver’s side window, but she had no way of knowing if it would be enough.
Bennett Durkan is a graduate of Stephen F. Austin, where he earned a master's in English. His poetry has appeared in Psaltery & Lyre, The Red River Review, and FIVE2ONE Magazine. He also won The Piney Dark fiction contest for 2013.