For my driving instructor, I hope you don't mind that I borrowed you for a little while to write this.
CHAPTER ONE
Erin Purser
"Erin" the voice called through the letter box, it was rough and accented in a strange way to these parts. "You're going to have to come out, you've already paid for the lesson" Brian noted as I pressed my back against the front door trying to ease my breathing.
I gnawed further at my lip trying to compose a single train of thought. My hand rubbed ferociously at the Baltic amber around my neck, as if subconsciously hoping the calming properties may be extracted from such a feeble activity.
"Come on Erin" Brian repeated this time with more authority.
My head seemed to be spinning as I tried to ignore the words that kept coming through the letter box. It may have been December but my hands were slick with sweat and I could feel the heat pulsating through my clothes.
"Erin" Brian tried again. "Look we don't have to go anywhere, we can just sit and talk" he tried to assure.
Talk? Talk ... like talking could improve the situation.
I slumped down onto the floor and held my head between my legs compressing my skull in a move that only inflicted more discomfort. It was my attempt to snap myself back into normality. With a well-practiced move I straightened up and began my third round of deep breathing that morning.
Inhale, hold, exhale. Inhale, hold, exhale. Inhale, hold, exhale.
My legs felt as is they may bend and snap at any moment as I pulled myself to my feet, clutching to the door handle for strength.
I could do this. I could do this.
I turned to face the door fully and heard the letterbox drop closed. A twitching hand stretched out and I recoiled against the cool metal of the handle. Gently my hand returned to clasp around the metal and I forced it downwards, opening the door and sealing my fate.
I could do this.
Brian pushed the door open and I flinched away to avoid being struck.
"Morning" he greeted with a toothy smile and the usual swagger that overcame him.
Oh who the hell was I trying to kid, I couldn't do this!
"Can I just have a ..." I began but he gave me a pointed look.
"Just get in the car Erin" he stated throwing the car keys in my direction and I dived a failing of limbs to try and catch them. I missed.
Sure. Just get in the car. Just get in.
He led us down the ice coated pathway and I hesitantly moved across the sheets my converse providing an unsteady footing.
Despite the distance between us I could still smell his heavy cologne which masked the smell of cigarettes. The stench made my nostrils flare, head pulse and chest tighten.
"You could at least try and look a little less pained by this Erin, you know for me" he teased and I forced a smile that was hardly convincing.
Learning to drive is the most difficult task I have ever tried to accomplish. I had never encountered something in life that I had found this difficult, something that didn't rely on a little more revision, looking it up in a textbook or attending more lectures.
Not only did driving require some form of co-ordination but also involved following instructions, using multiple body parts all the while looking around in every direction imaginable in a moving vehicle.
During my first lesson I never even managed to get the car to move. Although we sat there for no less than two hours, discussing exactly how the clutch worked. I remained in a similar stationary state for the month that followed.
Bringing us firmly to present day. Brian was enthusiastic about his work, I was not. He found challenging pupils rewarding, I disagreed. He thought I just needed to get my head around the whole idea of being in a car, he had no idea.
Sally had passed first time. First time! After little for than three months of lessons. Her Dad had gone out the next day and brought her a car. She'd turned up with a Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, even the name made me feel uneasy. I'd refused to travel with her in the death box.
Noah seemed to find driving as easy as breathing, and Paisley had seen driving as bellow her. Quil, well I think he was basically pushed out of the womb with the ability to drive a car. Jacob Black. Well I think for him it was a case of he was proberly driving a car.
Me on the other hand? I didn't know what a car did until it's bonnet hit me in the face. Quite literally. Ouch. But I'll explain that and Jacob Black later.
Brian paced ahead of me striding confidently over the sheets of ice without a second glance back at me. My parents had sourced him from out of town, he came highly recommended with an extensive waiting list and the patience of a saint. Perhaps my parents had anticipated the issues I would be facing.
Over the past month we'd developed a similar routine. It hadn't always been this way, the first lesson I was nervous with anticipation. Despite brandishing a black eye and protruding lump the size of a golf-ball on my skull following a encounter with Black's car I was reasonable optimistic.
Boy was I wrong.
"Want some Calms" he offered, turning towards me as he reached the car and grinning teasingly. I paused hand shaking at the looming door handle.
"No" I muttered taking a steadying breath as I pulled on the handle and lowered myself down into the car. "I'm fine" I lied and the knowing smirk reassured me he knew I was anything but.
"How's your week been?" He paused waiting for a response. He always asked me this, every dam time.
"Just dandy" I complained trying to busy myself as I fumbled to adjust the seat. I did everything to avoid conversation, to avoid discussing me. I hit the remote to adjust the mirrors and watched Brian wince.
I'd already accepted a bill for the damage I'd inflicted to the steering wheel with my nails, having snapped away at the logo with my nervous tendencies.
"It's been a busy one for me" he responded as if I'd asked his eyes desperately trying to get my attention but I fidgeted with the seat belt. "Had two passes" he added brightly. "That's twelve consecutive ones now".
"Congratulations" I noted trying my hardest to remain polite. This was the most painful hour of my week, the one I spent days building up to in dreaded anticipation.
I had tried cancelling, but my parents had started paying in advance and I was under strict instructions not to miss out on anymore. I believed it was a tactic they'd schemed up together.
Brian seemed to reflect my reluctance to talk and filled the hour discussing everyone but me. Which was unnerving as he discussed pupils progress and tried to draw similarities to my own.
"You will get there you know" he tried to assure but I could sense caution in his voice. "You just have to keep working at it" he shrugged.
"Have you ever had pupils that you just know aren't going to do it, like ever?" I questioned picking again at the branded steering wheel which made his brow set into a firm frown.
"One or two. But your not going to be one of them Purser" he assured brightly leaning down to pick up the paper coffee cup. He peeled of the sticker and smiled brightly. "Two more and I get my free cup".
"Coffee's bad for you. Caffeine, it's an addictive drug, you should avoid it" I recommended unable to help myself.
His eyebrows raised and eyes widened making me feel uncomfortable in the chair. "I'll bear that in mind" he shrugged setting the cup down with a light smile. I realised I had revealed something else about myself. Something I'd been trying hard to avoid.
All Brian needed to concern himself with was my lack of emotional composure, he didn't need to no anything else. Especially no more about my anxious, controlling tendencies.
"You gonna start the engine Erin" he beckoned and I realised I'd been staring into space my hands clutched so tightly around the steering wheel they'd turned white.
I was flummoxed and panicked as I released my hands and tried to remember how to start the car.
My eyes must have been wild because Brian leant across and jabbed towards the button on the dash board. "Once to get the electrics on, press it again to start the engine" he noted and I outstretched a cautious finger to rest upon the button.
I spent the next forty five minutes trying to avoid hyperventilating as we moved in a loop around the La Push estate something which continued to flummox me.
The bend was sharp and my hands flailed about the steering wheel as I tried to grasp the ten-to-two position he continued to repeat. My arms were a criss-cross and as I stared down to try and correct them my vision on the road became impaired. My eyes shot up suddenly aware, and I performed a unplanned emergency stop.
My body jerked so far forwards I thought the seatbelt had forgotten it's purpose. I looked sheepishly towards Brian concerned he would sue me for whiplash. I blew back the hair from my eyes, and gently thumped my head against the wheel. From the corner of my vision I watched the black cat make it safely to the other side of the road.
Brian took it in his stride and began to demonstrate as he spoke using his dual controls. "Just imagine the brake is made of glass, really really expensive glass. So you just press it lightly" he seemed conscious I was to far gone by this point to be taking in a word he was saying, I didn't speak car.
"And by the way, you get extra points if you kill it next time" he smirked as my mouth dropped in horror.
I was uncertain as of whether to take him seriously.
The clock seemed to be moving slower than usual and I calculated I still had another eight minutes before he would been considering directing me back to the house. That was if I was lucky. As Brian had a habit of throwing in a extra free ten minutes, I was suspicious he was aware of the way my eyes were never far from the clock. He'd call me out on it at some point, I was certain.
Traveling back home didn't settle the tension in my stomach. A lot of things could go disastrously wrong during a hour lesson, and I still had a few more minutes to live out. I'd already nearly killed a cat. We could crash, the car could explode, we could get into a road-rage incident, I could easily be killed or worse I could kill something … Somebody. The possibilities of disaster were endless and had my throat going painfully dry.
Brian slammed the dual-control on jerking me into the present and the glaze peeled back from my eyes. My body felt sore as I spat hair from my mouth.
"I know you and Black have history but you didn't need to try and kill the guy, jeez" he snickered flicking a loose hand up to the man before the bonnet in a friendly greeting.
I began to scrape feverishly at the steering wheel picking at the surface with a shaking fingers.
Authors Note: Hello, welcome to Hair Pin Curve, my new fiction. If you are new to my writing I have another fiction called Doing It The Blonde Way (also based on twilight), so be sure to check that out on my profile if you enjoyed this.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated, positive or negative as I am looking to develop my skills.
This fiction is inspired by my only difficulties in learning to drive, a battle with took me over a year and a half. Not only did I find myself lacking in any skills need to be a successful driver, but worse my Grandfather has unexpectedly died after a few weeks into lessons and shortly after that I began developing my Fibromyalgia symptoms which turned my world on it's head. During the time I spent learning to drive I battled for a diagnosis, through some really dark times and a horrific family fall-out.
This fiction has been rattling around in my head for a long time now inspired after a very difficult lesson, and based losley around some of my own experience with learning to drive and that of friends. All thought the OC story is quite different from my own, Erin I hope will draw some understanding into the world of anxiety, a issue so many face.