So the brush and windswept trees and flat, endless expanse was like an alien planet. Seagulls swooped and soared above the trees and the sun seemed brighter.
I rolled down my window so I could smell the salt in the air.
“Roll up the window!” Flynn said, sounding irritated.
“I just wanted to smell the sea air, Flynn. It’s not a big deal,” I murmured, rolling the window up.
“It’s too loud. I don’t like the noise,” he replied, relaxing again now that the sounds of traffic were drowned out by his music.
“Sorry,” I said, trying to hide how irked I was.
Flynn drove through populated urban areas as he headed toward Sandbridge Beach. I was fascinated by everything I saw.
Slowly the sights and sounds of the city gave way to sand dunes and quaint beach shops. We followed the road and I could see the ocean outside my window. I had only ever seen that perfect blue on television. Now I was seeing it with my own eyes!
“Look, Flynn!” I gasped, hardly able to believe what I was seeing.
Flynn didn’t look; he was entirely focused on his driving. He was consulting the paper he had written his directions on and starting to look anxious.
“This isn’t right. I should have been able to turn right back there. But there was no road.” I recognized the panic on his face and I knew he was minutes from a meltdown.
“Let me drive, Flynn. I’ll get us there,” I said softly. Flynn shook his head.
“I’m driving. I have to do it. But there should have been a road back there. There wasn’t a road. The directions said there would be a road. See, I wrote it there,” he pointed to the paper he had propped up on his dashboard so he could see it.
I had tried to convince him before we left to use the GPS on his phone. I had explained it would make it easier to find our hotel once we got to Sandbridge. Flynn had adamantly refused, saying he’d write it down. I knew he felt better when he wrote things down. But I had worried something like this would happen.
“Can I have your phone?” I asked, careful to keep my voice calm.
“There wasn’t a road back there! There was supposed to be a road,” Flynn was saying again.
I knew he was dangerously closed to losing it. I reached over and picked up his phone from the center consol. I found the navigation app and plugged in the hotel’s address. The directions popped up a few seconds later.
“Look, Flynn, you can turn right at the next light. It’s okay,” I said, trying to reason with him. I showed him his phone.
“No, it said turn back there,” Flynn said again. He had slowed down to fifteen miles an hour and there was a line of cars behind us. Someone laid on the horn and Flynn gripped the wheel so tightly I thought he’d snap it in half.
I needed to get him to pull over so I could drive us. But how was I going to do that and not push him further into his meltdown?
“Flynn, listen to me. I think you need to pull over. I can drive us. You can relax and let me take over. Please. For me,” I said. I made sure not to touch him. I knew that would be disastrous.
“Flynn, please,” I said again. Suddenly Flynn jerked the steering wheel hard to the left, the wheels crunching over seashells and sand on the shoulder of the road. He threw the car into park and pushed open his door, jumping out and almost into oncoming traffic.
People were laying on their horns. Several were yelling out their windows at Flynn who was now pacing in front of the car, rubbing his hands.
I didn’t get out of the car right away. I stayed where I was and watched him. Every time someone honked their horn, he covered his ears.
Eventually his pacing became less intense and his hands stopped wringing. I got out and went around to the driver’s side and got in. I didn’t say anything to him. He would come when he was ready.
I pulled up the address on Flynn’s phone and sat it on the dashboard. Murphy was whining again in the back seat. And I waited.
We were sat there for another fifteen minutes before Flynn got in the passenger side. He wouldn’t look at me. He kept his head down. He put on his seatbelt and positioned his body so he was angled away from me.
“The hotel is fifteen minutes away,” I said, putting on the blinker and pulling back out into traffic.
Flynn didn’t say anything. I knew he was embarrassed. He was always shy after his meltdowns. But I tried really hard to act as though nothing had happened. The last thing I wanted was to make him feel worse about something he couldn’t control.
My empathy for Flynn was surprising in so many ways. I had been told my entire life by therapists and social workers that I possessed an inability to empathize. I was missing the crucial part needed to identify with others. I had been labeled. Defined. Explained and diagnosed. And every single one of them had been wrong.
Because I understood Flynn. I connected with him. I wanted him to feel as good as he made me feel.
And that was completely contradictory to everything I had been told to believe about myself.
I turned up The Cure and allowed the music to soothe him in a way my words never could.
Despite Flynn’s humiliation, I could tell he was starting to perk up. He looked out the window at the ocean and I saw his smile.
“You’re going too fast. The speed limit is twenty-five,” Flynn told me, pointing to the speed limit sign as we passed it.
I looked down at the speedometer and saw that I was only going five miles over, but I slowed down anyway, much to the annoyance of the people behind me. Well, they’d have to just get over it.
“Don’t follow too closely to the car in front of you. Keep at least two car lengths between you,” Flynn frowned, pointing to the vehicle in front of us. I was tempted to smack his pointing finger away.
It was like traveling with a talking driver’s manual.
“Actually, that’s just on the highway, Flynn,” I countered. I had passed the written exam the first time. He wasn’t the only one who knew his road facts.
Flynn made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort. I glanced over at him and his mouth was curved upwards into a smirk. I don’t think I had ever seen Flynn smirk before. It made me grin.
“You’re right. That’s on the highway,” he agreed.
“Wow, I knew something Flynn didn’t. We need to mark this day on the calendar,” I teased.
Flynn frowned. “Why should we mark it on the calendar? That’s stupid.”
It was my turn to snort. “It’s a figure of speech, Flynn. We won’t really be writing it on the calendar,” I explained.