Speeding Cars

It wasn't supposed to end up like it did. It was supposed to be a fun guy's only Vegas weekend, full of gambling and strippers, the last one before he committed his life to one woman. Tom didn't even want to do it, it was all Simon's idea, and he was very persistent about the whole thing.

"Come on Man!" Simon urged, "Everyone does it. And as your best man I am insisting that you do it too."

And for some reason, some god-awful reason, Tom agreed. And what was even worse was the fact that he had fun.

Until the phone rang that is.

It was three in the morning and he was at some sleazy strip club watching Simon get a lap dance from some blonde named Candy or Sugar, he couldn't remember now. At first he didn't even realize that it was his phone, then he considered just letting the voice mail get it, and then finally it occurred to him that if someone was calling him at three in the morning it probably wasn't something that should just be brushed off.

He quickly fished the phone out of his pocket and answered it with a speedy, "Hello?"

It was Paula's mother. She sounded like she had been crying and that was when Tom knew that something had gone terribly wrong. She hadn't even gotten the first syllable of "Hospital" out before Tom was out the door and on the way to the car, Simon followed behind a seconds later calling out after him.

"Tom, what's going on? What's wrong?"

"It's Paula." Tom told him as he struggled to unlock the door, "She's in the hospital."

"Is it the baby?" By this time Simon sounded just as worried as Tom.

"Yeah. So, you know I'm sorry to just leave you but…"

Simon put his hands firmly on his friend's shoulder and looked deeply into his eyes.

"Listen to me. Don't even worry about it. You go to L.A. be with your family. I'll get a car and take our stuff back."

"Thank you."

"Don't worry about it."

Tom slid into the car and started it. Then he paused for a moment before looking up at his friend.

"Look I know it's late and she'll probably bitch you out for waking her up before giving you time to explain but…"he sighed and looked back down at the steering wheel, "Do you think you could ask Harriet to…"

"I'm already on it. Now drive safe."

And with that Tom was off. He had never driven so fast in his life; he'd never been in a car that went as fast as that one was. But like everything it had to come to an end.

He was in a little town called Perum, Nevada when he was pulled over by some backwoods sheriff's deputy for speeding and given a citation to appear in court. But in all honesty as soon as he got back on the road the ticket was forgotten about. The only thing on Tom's mind was his pregnant fiancée back home in some hospital room, probably scared out of her mind.

But by the time he finally got to L.A. and to the hospital it was all over. The life that he had spent the last five months planning for was gone. And he missed out on all of it.

Now he knew that it wasn't that deputy's fault. If it hadn't have gotten the ticket there it would have happened somewhere else, Tom knew that. But he also knew that he wanted something, someone, to blame and at the moment that was the only logical thing.

So that night, once he finally left the hospital, Tom went home and walked right past the duffle bag that Simon had dropped off, and past the answering machine filled to the brim with messages from people offering their sincerest apologies, straight to the kitchen trash where he pulled the ticket out of his pocket and began ripping it into tiny pieces hoping that he would never have to think of it again.