Page 1 of False Start
PROLOGUE
NIA
Sitting in my car, fingers clutching the leather of the steering wheel, I curse myself repeatedly. I still can’t muster enough spine to do the one thing I drove to this town for.
I gave up immediately, chickened out the minute I walked through the doors of that skating rink and made a full U-turn back to my car, where I now sit, drenched in my own humiliation.
Switching on the ignition, I fight the incoming cycle of rumination the only way I can—by calling my mother. Every negative thought I can conjure about myself is on full blast, so I mess with the volume knob and the heat, as if it somehow helps. Winter in the Midwest is in fury, the roads packed with weeks of nonstop snow that have now turned to ice.
A loud honk pulls me out of my trance just in time to swerve out of the way of an incoming semi-truck.
“Crap!” I yell, taking my foot off the gas once I feel the ice under my tires steal the car from my control.
The bridge is too slippery; I spin once and then a second time before my brain tells my body to cooperate.
The brakes.
My thigh musters the shaky strength to lift my foot over the pedal and slam down on the third spin, my vision nearly black from adrenaline and my throat hoarse from screaming. The car keeps sliding, not stopping until the front makes contact with a tree.
The side of my head smacks against the glass with a crack just as the airbag explodes in my face, sending me back into the headrest violently. My teeth are the last to rattle, the sound of them clashing against each other more unnerving than the prolonged honk of my horn.
My head rings from the inside out, pain reminiscent of a sharp ax splitting my skull in half. The car alarm brays, beckoning for my attention, forcing my eyes open to find the tree has settled halfway through the hood.
“Antônia, are you driving? Antônia? I can’t believe you’d be so reckless as to…” My mother’s voice fades away over the Bluetooth as the ringing pierces deeper into my brain.
It’s just like my mother to chastise me at a time like this.
1
NIA
SIX WEEKS LATER
At this point, the ritual is deeply ingrained into me like muscle memory. A habit. A word I’ve spent my entire life trying to cultivate, to embody in the healthiest way possible but have never formed a positive connotation with.
Habit.
Brushing teeth is a habit formostpeople. For me, it’s a painful task filled with more executive function than I can muster at eight in the morning, and even less around ten at night. Running in the mornings, drinking a daily cup of coffee, hell, even logging into an app once a week to learn a language can count as a habit.
But those aren’t the ones I can form or conquer.
No. Not me.
Shaking my head, I press into the white lid of the plastic orange bottle, open the container, and give in to the admission with a heavy exhale. Here I am, in fullhabitmode.
Because habit sounds cleaner than addiction, a wordI’m having a hard time accepting, even though I’m well aware it’s more chemical than psychological.
For now.
It’s the nature of who I am. Get in an accident, get hurt in some way shape or form—even if unintentionally—then take the pills. Eventually, the pain stops, but the pills still come.
And I, sogoodat thebadhabits, always continue to take them.
The clock radio in my beat-up Chevy doesn’t work anymore, not since the crash. I flash the screen on my phone—nearly six in the evening, just in time for my ‘coffee.’
I chortle at the thought, opening my glovebox and pulling out a CD case that dates back to the 2000s. Miley Cyrus’ debut album. I smile to myself, remembering how I’d bought it sarcastically but ended up loving nearly every goddamn song. StarScreamer had to ride with Feral-Streep to practice for three whole months because I refused to play anything else in my car until I had memorized every single lyric.
And now that CDs are relics of the past, it’s my favorite prop.
