The Safest Lies by Megan Miranda

my shoulder. “Oh, come on, it is a little bit.”
    I grinned. “Thank you, Annika. You’re a good friend.”
    “Well, I heard there was a boy involved. Do me a favor, when you get back, leave the keys in the visor, yeah?”
    “Okay, I won’t be late,” I said.
    “Don’t go making any promises,” she said.
    Annika swayed back up the front walk, and then she lingered near her door, like she was waiting for me to get in and drive off. I was frozen. I knew, in theory, I’d have to drive again. Otherwise, I’d become trapped like my mother, each of my fears chipping away little by little at the world, until all I had left was the bubble. The world shrinking, twisting, slipping—I’d always be stuck in that moment. I’d always be falling.

    Annika, maybe sensing as much, called over to me, “Lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, Kels.”
    Which wasn’t really true—turns out, despite popular opinion, lightning did not discriminate. But I got the point—what were the chances?
    Take comfort in the logic, Jan would tell me. Chance is on your side.
    —
    I had to drive down the windy mountain roads into town, to the community center, where the ceremony was being held. I took the turns about ten miles under the speed limit, not caring that there was a car on my tail that eventually blew by me on a rare stretch of straightaway. I gripped the wheel, eyes on the yellow line, hovering so close to the center that a car on the other side honked. Any time I saw headlights, I flashed back to that foggy moment—a flash of light, a car on my side, jerking the wheel, the panic closing my throat.
    I wondered if it was possible that the panic itself had knocked me unconscious. I wouldn’t doubt it.
    Eventually I had to pass the site of my accident. I crawled by it, overcompensating each turn of the wheel—worse than my first driver’s ed lesson. The metal barrier on the side of the road had already been replaced. There were no signs anything had ever happened, except the stretch of metal was fresher, with no imperfections yet. If I’d died, there would’ve been flowers or teddy bears or a cross on the roadside.

    We did not fall. We did not die. Everything was fine.
    It wasn’t until I hit the lights in town that I relaxed my grip on the wheel. Wasn’t until I exited the car and stared at my hands, slightly trembling, that I began to laugh. I’d have to tell Jan about this one day, when it was far enough away. When I wouldn’t get in trouble. A fear I overcame, the picture of progress. Standing there, in the middle of the packed parking lot, I’d never felt so powerful.
    —
    I recognized a bunch of student parking stickers on the cars around mine, and some fire department bumper stickers on others as I walked up the steps to the community center. The reception area—the gymnasium, actually—was pretty crowded, with rows of folding chairs set up and reporters with cameras and notepads standing along the wall.
    Out of force of habit, I found myself taking stock of the exits: the double doors behind me, an emergency exit to the side of the makeshift stage, another presumably behind the platform. I looked up: a few windows, but no way to open them. I stayed near the door, another habit I couldn’t quite break. “Always take note of the exits,” Mom had said, worrying her thumb over each of her fingers, until her knuckles popped, one by one. “Besides the obvious. There’s always another way out. The windows. The ceiling. The floor. You have to think beyond, and you have to think fast. ”

    I couldn’t help picturing that now: all these people trying to funnel through the double doors in the event of an explosion or a fire. And me, caught in a stampede. I shook my head, clearing her out of there. The words of a paranoid mind. The words of fear. It wasn’t too late for me.
    Up front, it looked like they were about to get started. The men and women were in suits, and so was Ryan. He was fidgeting with his