Chace reached down to the side of the steering wheel and flicked on the headlights; unlike the other cars around him, his ’86 Chevrolet didn’t have those new-fangled daytime-running lamps. The highway his beat-up truck barreled down seemed to lead into a never-ending abyss of trees and sky; the silhouette of the trees in the sunset reminded Chace of his tightly curled black hair that his girlfriend loved so much. On his left side, the median drifted closer and closer as his eyelids tried to force themselves down over his grass green eyes. Chace willed himself to stay awake, for he had only just recently finished the Driver Improvement Program, and he promised himself to never go back.

A honk made him jump slightly as a dissatisfied driver tried to show his anger after a big, red trick had cut off the merging traffic. Chace pressed down on the gas to leave the scene and get away from the small white car that had begun to tailgate him. After checking his blind spots with a quick look out the window, Chace moved into the right lane and waited for the small white car to pass him up. Fast as he had gone, while still trying to stay under the speed limit of this particular road in the interstate system – 70 miles per hour – the small white car hadn’t been satisfied and kept coming closer and closer.

As soon as Chace had abandoned the left lane, the small white car sped up beside him and a young girl in the passenger seat who couldn’t have been more than Chace’s own eighteen years brought a purple wine bottle to her lips and threw her head back, eventually falling onto her door to keep her balance in her deep state of intoxication. Chace’s heart sped up slightly and he tried to tell himself that it was only the girl who was drunk, not the driver, but another glance over to the small white car revealed a slightly older girl taking her turn in draining the wine bottle; of all the people who had to be next to a driver driving under the influence, why did it have to be him, Chace thought to himself. He tightened his hands covered in deep olive-toned skin over the steering wheel and tried to bring back the lectures over defensive driving he had heard in school.

The white car moved past Chace as the high school senior fumbled to pull his aging cell phone from the pocket of his jeans; he began to dial 911 just as red and blue lights started to flash behind him. He groaned and pulled over to the side of the road and his cell phone flicked off; Chace groaned again: How could he have forgotten to charge up his phone?

A tall, burly police officer appeared on the driver’s side of the car, and Chace rolled down his window as quick as possible with the annoying hand crank his girlfriend made fun of.

“Yes, officer?” Chace asked as smoothly as possible while trying to contain his anxiousness.

“Do you realize that it is a violation to talk on a cell phone while driving?” the officer asked, his deep voice a cliché of all the cops on television shows.

“Uh, yes, but-”

“Do you have your driver license and proof of insurance?” the officer continued on, cutting off the teenager.

“Yes, but I was calling 911-” Chace tried to interject as he pulled out his wallet.
“911? Why?” the officer shot back, interrupting Chace yet again.

“There’s a drunk driver-” he found his driver license and the officer plucked the small plastic card from his hand without a second thought.

“A drunk driver? Where?” the officer looked around as if the driver would magically appear.

Chace took a deep breath in to try and control his anger, “Just up the road. It’s a small white car-”

“Alright. I’ll let you off this time with a warning,” the officer growled. He turned and jogged back to the black and white motorcycle still flashing the red and blue lights.

Chace leaned back into his seat and scratched the back of his head. He looked over his shoulder to find an appropriate spot in which to enter traffic again, but he realized something very important.

“Wait!” Chace yelled as loudly as he possibly could as the officer drove away, “You still have my license!”