I drove down an empty highway on Christmas Eve with both hands on the wheel. Same ritual as every year: radio off, headlights cutting through the desert dark as I headed to my parents’ house in New Mexico. I told myself I liked the quiet, that I’d chosen that life. The truth was complicated.
Years ago, I’d driven this same road with a woman in the passenger seat. Sarah. I brought her home for Christmas Eve. I thought she was the one. I caught her with my best friend a week before we were supposed to get married. That was when I learned that loneliness was just another safety word.
Snow drifted lightly across the asphalt, catching in the headlight beams like static.
I was running late. The sun had already vanished behind the mountains, leaving a bruised purple stain on the horizon that quickly surrendered to the ink-black night. The temperature on the dash read twenty-two degrees.
The silence in the car usually felt like armor, but tonight, with the snow swirling hypnotically, it felt more like a cage. My grip tightened on the steering wheel.
Then, I saw it. A flash of red hazard lights about a mile ahead, pulsing rhythmically against the desert brush.
My instinct—my “safety” instinct—was to keep driving. Don’t stop. It’s dark. It’s dangerous. But it was Christmas Eve, and the desert didn’t forgive mistakes. I slowed down, pulling onto the gravel shoulder behind an old, beaten-up sedan with steam rising from its hood.
I rolled down the passenger window. A figure bundled in a heavy parka hurried over, their breath pluming in the cold air. It was a young woman, probably no older than twenty-two. She looked terrified.
“My radiator blew,” she said, her teeth chattering. “I have no signal out here.”
“Where are you headed?” I asked.
“Gallup,” she said. “My fiancé is waiting. We’re… we’re eloping tonight. If I don’t make it, he’s going to think I got cold feet again.”
The irony hit me like a physical blow. A wedding. A runaway bride who didn’t want to run away.
“Get in,” I said, unlocking the doors. “I’m going right through Gallup.”
She scrambled in, bringing a gust of freezing air with her. She smelled like peppermint and cheap gas station coffee. “Thank you. Oh my god, thank you. I’m Leo.”
“Jamina,” I replied, merging back onto the highway.
For the first ten miles, we didn’t speak. The car was silent, save for the hum of the tires. Leo kept glancing at the radio, then at me.
“Is it broken?” she asked, pointing to the stereo.
“No,” I said. “I just prefer the quiet.”
“Oh.” She fidgeted with her gloves. “It’s just… the quiet makes the thinking too loud, you know? That’s why I almost didn’t go tonight. I started thinking about everything that could go wrong. Everything that has gone wrong.”
I looked at her. “So why did you go?”
Leo looked out at the swirling snow. “Because being safe isn’t the same thing as being alive. I’d rather get my heart broken a thousand times than sit in a room by myself and wonder ‘what if.’ That’s not safety. That’s just… waiting to die.”
Her words hung in the air, heavier than the silence had ever been.
Loneliness was just another safety word. I had been safe for five years. Safe from Sarah. Safe from betrayal. Safe from the messiness of letting someone in. But Leo was right. I wasn’t living; I was just driving through the dark, waiting.
I reached out and turned the volume knob.
Static hissed for a moment, and then a clear, bright voice cut through, singing Silent Night. It wasn’t sad; it was peaceful.
Leo smiled, her shoulders dropping about two inches. “Much better.”
We made it to Gallup an hour later. I dropped her off at a 24-hour diner where a young man was pacing outside in the snow, looking frantic. When he saw her get out of my car, he didn’t ask about the car or the delay; he just grabbed her face and kissed her like she was the only air in the universe.
I watched them for a moment, feeling a pang in my chest. But it wasn’t the old, dull ache of bitterness. It was something sharper. It was a thaw.
I put the car in drive and got back on the highway for the final stretch to my parents’ house. The snow was stopping, the clouds breaking to reveal a few stubborn stars.
I kept the radio on. I rolled the window down an inch, letting the cold, crisp air bite at my cheeks. When I finally pulled into my parents’ driveway, seeing the warm yellow glow of the porch light, I realized I wasn’t just safe.
For the first time in five years, I was actually home.
