The Girl in My Front Seat
The Girl in My Front Seat
Kat
The girl appeared in my front seat.
Not opened the door.
Not climbed in.
Appeared.
One second, the passenger seat beside me was empty except for my medical textbook, an old receipt, and the iced coffee I had been nursing for six hours.
The next second, she was there.
Barefoot.
Drenched.
Wearing black leather.
Her dark hair stuck to her face in wet strands, but she was not looking at me.
She was staring into the rearview mirror.
At the man in my back seat.
My hands jerked on the wheel.
The car swerved hard to the right, tires hissing over wet asphalt.
“What the—”
My voice cracked.
I hated that.
Not the most important thing, obviously. A girl had just appeared beside me like my sleep-deprived brain had finally snapped in half.
But still.
Embarrassing.
My brain tried to fix the impossible.
Maybe she had been there the whole time.
Maybe I had not noticed her.
Maybe I was exhausted from classes, studying, and driving strangers around at midnight because medical textbooks cost more than some people’s rent.
Maybe the rain, the headlights, and the cracked glow of the dashboard were messing with my eyes.
People did not appear in moving cars.
That was not a thing.
That could not be a thing.
The girl leaned forward, one hand braced against the dashboard.
“I can’t let you leave,” she said.
Her voice shook.
Not weak.
Angry.
Broken.
The man in my back seat went completely still.
Paul Johnson.
That was the name on the app.
Except the man behind me did not feel like a Paul Johnson.
Paul Johnson sounded like someone who wore khakis and answered emails with “per my last message.”
This man looked like trouble had been carved into a body and wrapped in a black coat.
He said nothing.
The girl’s eyes flicked to me.
For one second, I forgot how to breathe.
She was beautiful in a sharp, expensive way. Pale skin. Red mouth. Eyes bright with something too wild to be sadness.
Then she looked back into the mirror.
“Is it because of her?” she asked.
I blinked.
“Excuse me?”
The words came out before I could stop them.
Her gaze snapped to me again.
That was when the air changed.
Not dramatically.
Not like in movies.
There was no thunderclap. No flickering lights. No scary music.
Just pressure.
Around my throat.
My mouth opened.
No air came in.
I grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, trying to keep the car straight as panic punched through my chest.
No.
No, no, no.
This was anxiety.
Shock.
A panic attack.
People had panic attacks. People got chest tightness. People felt like they were choking.
That was normal.
Normal-ish.
But the pressure squeezed tighter.
My vision blurred around the edges.
The girl was not touching me.
She sat there in my front seat, staring into the mirror like I did not matter. Like my car did not matter. Like my body struggling for air was only background noise.
“I won’t let you leave me,” she said.
The man behind me moved.
Fast.
I saw it in the rearview mirror.
His hand shot forward like he meant to grab her.
Then his body slammed back against the seat so hard the whole car shook.
My eyes widened.
For one second, he looked pinned there.
Frozen.
His jaw clenched. His shoulders strained. His fingers dug into the seat beneath him.
No.
That was not what I was seeing.
That could not be what I was seeing.
I was choking. Panicking. Blacking out.
My brain was filling in blanks with nonsense because fear did not care about logic.
“Stop,” he forced out.
The girl laughed once.
It sounded like a sob pretending to be cruel.
“You don’t get to leave,” she whispered.
The road curved ahead.
Rain smeared the windshield.
My foot slipped off the gas.
The car slowed.
I tried to breathe again.
Nothing.
My lungs burned.
I thought of all the emergency medicine articles I had read at three in the morning instead of sleeping like a normal human being.
Loss of consciousness could happen fast.
Brain damage came after.
Stay calm.
That was always the advice.
Stay calm while your body betrayed you.
Stay calm while you died.
The man’s eyes lifted to mine in the mirror.
“Brake,” he said.
I barely heard him over the roaring in my ears.
“What?”
“Brake.”
It was not a request.
My foot slammed down.
The car jerked violently.
The girl flew forward.
I screamed, or tried to.
Her hands hit the windshield.
Except they didn’t.
Or they did.
I didn’t know.
For one impossible second, her palms pressed against the glass.
Then she was gone.
Just gone.
The passenger seat beside me was empty again.
My textbook sat where it had been.
My iced coffee sat where it had been.
The old receipt fluttered from the air vents.
There was no girl.
There had never been a girl.
My lungs opened.
Air rushed in so fast I choked on it.
The car rolled forward slowly, tires whispering over the wet road.
I stared at the empty seat.
Then at the windshield.
A crack spread across the glass in a thin spiderweb pattern.
My heart stopped.
In front of the car, a figure stood in the headlights.
Barefoot.
Drenched.
Black leather shining in the rain.
The girl.
“No,” I whispered.
Behind me, Paul Johnson moved.
The strange stiffness in his body was gone.
His voice came low and urgent.
“Drive.”
I stared at him in the mirror.
“What?”
“Drive.”
“She’s in front of the car.”
“Kat.”
That was all.
“No,” I said. “I’m not hitting her.”
The girl did not move.
Rain poured over her face.
Her eyes stayed on the man behind me.
Not me.
Never me.
“I said no,” I whispered.
Then my foot moved.
Not much.
Just an inch.
Enough to press the gas.
I looked down in horror.
My leg had gone stiff.
“What are you doing?” I gasped.
I did not know if I was talking to him.
Or to myself.
The engine growled.
My hands tightened on the wheel.
The girl stood perfectly still.
My foot pressed harder.
The car lunged forward.
And the headlights swallowed her.
