Eighty-nine cents in the ashtray, half-empty bottle of Gatorade rolling in the floorboard. That dirty Braves cap on the dash, dog tags hanging from the rear view. Old Skoal can and cowboy boots and a Go Army shirt folded in the back.
Rachel pulled open the door, relishing the sound of the rusty hinge creaking as she climbed up behind the steering wheel. There were a lot of things that she loved in the world, but she had come to love this trusty truck more than any of them. It was her photo album of memories, her key to freedom, her constant reminder, her way to forget. She could still remember the first time she had ever driven it just a few days after high school graduation when Noah had taken her out to the lake to tell her that he was enlisting with Finn. He was just her boyfriend's best friend, but that night, the two of them in the pale moonlight made promises that she carried with her everywhere.
When Finn had gotten kicked out of bootcamp, Rachel had kept writing letters to him every other day and sending packages every week. The longer that he was gone, the more meaningful their letters became. He became her closest confidant, she was his only one. He called her with tears apparent in his voice when he got the letter finally telling him that she had broken up with Finn. He finally told her that he loved her that day, and they were married three weeks later when he was back in Lima on leave. She headed off to New York for her sophomore year of college as a married woman, and he took off for parts unknown on a secret mission on the other side of the world.
That first tour of duty was the hardest ten months of Rachel's life, but just as she finished her final recital in May, he touched back down on American soil. She was waiting the second he stepped off the plane at the fort, dressed in dark jeans and his favorite Army shirt all tied up to show off her body. They hadn't made it much past the edge of town before he had his way with her in the backseat of that old truck, the one she had driven hours from Lima just so that he could drive it again when he got home. He had left that shirt folded up on the backseat after that as a reminder.
They had one perfect summer together, three months where he didn't belong to the United States government and she wasn't caught up in the Broadway drama that awaited her back at NYADA. He took her to Chicago to see Mike dance at the Joffrey and she surprised him with a camping trip in the Smokey Mountains for their anniversary. No one understood how they had happened but everyone knew that they were happy. Even in New York, Rachel had been the perfect Army wife, continuing her tradition of sending packages and volunteering with a wives' group in the city and indulging Puck's more wanton ways when the distance just got too hard.
This thing burns gas like crazy but that's alright. People got their ways of coping, oh, and I've got mine. I drive your truck. I roll every window down and I burn up every back road in this town. I find a field, I tear it up 'til the pain's a cloud of dust. Yeah, sometimes I drive your truck.
He had served the next year in North Carolina, and much to his displeasure and that of her father's, she transferred down to Duke to complete her junior. There were finally some things more important to her than Broadway, and her husband was the beginning and the end of the life she wanted to live. They fell into a nice life there on the base, and Rachel found that she actually thrived on being surrounded by families like theirs. Knowing that he only had six months left probably helped, but like he usually did, Puck would soon see that he made a mess of their happiness.
"You did what?"
"I signed up for another tour of duty," he told her quietly. It was three weeks before they were set to leave for New York. She was excited to finish up her last year of college at NYADA and start auditioning in the city. He was finally going to use the money he had saved from the GI Bill to get into the music program at Tisch. "They need me, Rach."
"I need you, Noah!" she exclaimed. She was somewhere between hysterical and livid. "I need you here with me. I'm your wife, dammit. How could you do this without even consulting me? Did I factor in your decision at all?"
He looked down and twisted the wedding band that was on his left hand. He'd never taken it off, not even in Afghanistan. "I'm doing this for you, for us," he tried to explain. "The money that I'd get for this would pay off your college and set us up for awhile once I start school. You'll be busy in New York, Rach. I'd be back before you even graduate."
Rachel had eventually calmed down enough and accepted his choice because it was too late and there was really nothing else she could do. He had driven her back to New York in his truck, the two of them stopping along the way to eat at diners and enjoy random tourist attractions and make love under the stars. They'd both cried when he had kissed her on the steps of the brownstone in Brooklyn she was going to be sharing with Kurt while she was gone. She would have cried harder if she would have known that was the last time she'd ever see him alive.
I leave that radio playing that same ole county station where ya left it. Yeah, man, I crank it up and you'd probably punch my arm right now if you saw this tear rolling down my face. Hey, man, I'm trying to be tough. And momma asked me this morning if I'd been by your grave. But that flag and stone ain't where I feel you anyway.
It had rained the day of his funeral, and Rachel had decided that she really hated Ohio in winter then and there. She'd stood beside her father and Noah's little sister, the nine-year-old clutching her hand tightly. All of their old friends had come and told her how sorry they were for her loss, but Brittany was the only person she really believed. Her fathers let her sleep in her old bedroom for two weeks before they convinced her she needed to get out of the house. She had thought about going to the cemetery but ended up at his mother's house instead.
"Do you have the keys to Noah's truck?"
His mother had looked at her and simply nodded her head. She returned with the key ring and had handed it over without any question. Rachel had looked down at the little silver frame keychain she had given them awhile back, the one with their wedding photo in it. He looked so handsome in his uniform. She used to love the way he looked in his dress blues, but now she couldn't shake the image of him in them in his casket.
Rachel would have sworn the truck smelled just like him the first time she got in it after he died. There were still little traces of him everywhere in there. Money in the ashtray, his spare dog tags hanging from the mirror, his favorite country preset blaring through the speakers. She had no clue where she was going when she had pulled out of his mother's driveway, but she wasn't surprised when she rolled down all the windows and ended up out by the lake.
The sergeant and the chaplain who showed up at her apartment door told her that it had been an IED and that he likely hadn't felt any pain since his death had been pretty instantaneous. She remembered them giving their regrets on behalf of the president and explaining to her that someone else was going to see his family back in Lima. Kurt had called her fathers after and they'd flown in to bring her home. Everything else was pretty much a blur until a very nice boy in an Army uniform handed her a folded flag.
I drive your truck. I roll every window down and I burn up every back road in this town. I find a field, I tear it up 'til all the pains a cloud of dust. Yeah, sometimes I drive your truck.
She had spent so many days that winter driving all over the county, finding every road she'd ever traveled on with Noah as a way to keep his memory alive with her. Her fathers tried to get her to go to the cemetery, but she could only tell them that she didn't want to remember him that way. The love they shared wasn't there with her when she stood in front of that marble slab with his name on it. She could only really feel him when she was in his truck.
Santana showed up one day in late January with a six pack of Puck's favorite beer. "We're going out to the lake," she said. "We're going to pick Finn up on the way, he'll drive us home. I'm going to get you really drunk, we're going to talk about Puck and we're going to bawl our eyes out. And after that, we're going to figure out what we need to do to get you back to New York because you know that's what he would want, Rach. He wouldn't want your life to stop because he can't be here with you to live it."
Rachel refused to let Finn and Santana ride in the truck, but she had agreed to meet them out at the lake. She wouldn't have as much as a sip, but she had held an opened beer can all night and smelled that old familiar smell just because it reminded her so much of him. Finn told stories about when they were kids and Santana filled in the holes with tales of when the two of them had gotten into trouble and Rachel finally got two people to understand how it was the two of them had ever fallen in love.
"I heard 'Sweet Caroline' on the radio yesterday when I was picking up coffee at the Lima Bean and cried in the bathroom for twenty minutes," Rachel told them. "A package I sent him a few days before he, you know, got returned in the mail last week. I call his voicemail at least once a day just to hear his voice. I know everyone thinks I need to go back to New York to get back to my life, but it doesn't work like that. Noah wasn't just some boy I dated back in high school. He was my husband and a soldier and he died and it hurts. It fucking hurts."
I've cussed, I've prayed, I've said goodbye. Shook my fist and asked God why, these days when I'm missing you this much.
And now here she was, a year later, sitting behind the wheel of that truck. She had her suitcases piled in the backseat and his favorite Army hoodie in the seat next to her. His dog tags gleamed in the sunlight and Johnny Cash was wailing about lost love on the speaker. There was even a can of dip there, his last remaining vice after he had enlisted. There were still traces of Noah everywhere and these days it made her happy rather than making her sad. Even with him gone, that truck still meant everything to both of them.
"I'll call you when I get to New York," she promised her dad and then her daddy. Noah's mother hugged her tightly through the window, his little sister smiling at her with the same hazel eyes as his.
It hadn't been any easy decision to make, but she knew that her friends had been right and that this is what Noah would have wanted. She hadn't done it before she was ready, though, because she also knew that he would have wanted that too. There is already so much waiting for her in New York. She had promised to meet up with Santana and Quinn the night she got back from dinner, and Blaine was coming in the next week to live with her after studying last year in London. She's even going to have his sister come visit over the summer. Life moves on slowly but surely, and as long as she can carry Noah with her, she knows that she'll never really go it alone.
Even if it still doesn't feel real sometimes, Noah really was gone. She will always miss him, will always love him, but she needs to see her dreams through. She would land those starring roles and win her a Tony, dedicating it through her tears to him. And after she left the ceremony, she had belted the statuette in the passenger side and driven his truck out into the countryside in her ballgown, her sparkling heels pushing down hard on the gas pedal and leaving the city behind in her dust.
I hope you don't mind, I drive your truck.
Lyrics belong to "I Drive Your Truck" by Lee Brice.