My Boyfriend Drove Faster Every Time We Fought — Then He Locked The Doors

Part 1

The heavy bass from the bar’s speakers still echoed in my ears as Tyler snatched the keys off the sticky counter.

We had been fighting for over an hour.

It started over the empty whiskey bottles I kept finding buried under the bathroom sink and stuffed inside his gym bags.

Then the argument spiraled into the warehouse job he lost last month.

Deflecting any responsibility, Tyler blamed his supervisor for having a personal vendetta against him.

Bringing up his chronic lateness only caused him to explode.

Accusations of intentional humiliation flew across the pool table, aimed squarely at me.

The constant cycle of walking on eggshells had completely exhausted my patience.

Reaching for my purse, I told him a cab would take me home alone.

His fingers immediately clamped down on my wrist, squeezing tight enough to leave a mark.

Promises of being perfectly fine to drive fell effortlessly from his lips.

A quiet ride home to talk things out in private was his proposed compromise.

Making scenes in crowded public spaces always made my skin crawl.

Burning stares from the bartender and the bouncer weighed heavily on my back.

To keep the peace, I let him lead me out into the damp parking lot.

The night air felt bitter and cold against my flushed face as I slid into the passenger seat of his sedan.

He slammed his door shut so hard the entire vehicle shook.

He jammed the key into the ignition.

The engine roared to life with an angry sputter.

Tyler didn’t even glance in my direction as he threw the car into drive.

The tires squealed sharply against the slick asphalt as we peeled out of the lot.

This was exactly how our arguments always played out.

Instead of apologizing or talking through the issue, he used motion to punish me.

He always claimed the speed calmed his nerves and helped him think clearly.

I knew it was just his way of forcing me into submission.

Tonight, however, the air in the cabin felt distinctly different.

The downtown streetlights blurred into rapid streaks of yellow as the speedometer needle steadily climbed.

Fifty, then sixty, then seventy.

The familiar city buildings quickly faded into the dark, replaced by thick clusters of towering pines.

I pressed my back completely flat against the rigid fabric of my seat.

My fingers curled tight around the bottom edge of my denim jacket.

I asked him in a low, even voice to please slow down.

He just stared straight ahead at the road.

His knuckles were stark white where they wrapped around the steering wheel.

I reached out for the door handle, needing to ground myself with something solid.

A sharp mechanical click echoed loudly through the silent cabin.

The locks snapped down on all four doors simultaneously.

My breath caught painfully in my throat.

I tugged the handle, but the heavy door held firm against my weight.

He had done a lot of toxic things in the past, but he had never locked me in before.

He always drove recklessly when he had too much to drink.

But this calculated move was a brand new kind of threat.

I turned my head to look at his profile in the dim glow of the dashboard.

His jaw was set in a rigid, unforgiving line.

A humorless, empty smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

He pressed his heavy boot further down onto the gas pedal.

The engine whined in high-pitched protest under the sudden strain.

Cold wind screamed through a tiny crack in my passenger window.

I yelled over the deafening noise, begging him to unlock the door right now.

He just let out a laugh that was loud and sharp like shattered glass.

The sound bounced off the windshield and made my stomach twist into knots.

The two-lane road bent hard to the right.

The tires lost traction for a terrifying split second.

My shoulder slammed hard against the window glass as gravity pulled me sideways.

We had been living together for almost two full years.

That was just long enough for me to normalize the constant undercurrent of fear.

When he drank, his voice always got incredibly loud.

When he got loud, he always ended up behind the wheel of a car.

And when he drove, he became a wall of brick, completely unreachable by reason or tears.

The very last of the amber streetlights vanished in our rearview mirror.

There were no houses out here anymore, no glowing porch lights to signal safety.

There was only an endless tunnel of ancient trees and a thin ribbon of black asphalt.

I slowly slipped my right hand into my coat pocket to retrieve my phone.

Before I could even unlock the screen to dial for help, his right arm shot out.

He slapped the device violently out of my trembling grip.

The phone bounced off the plastic dashboard and skidded into the darkness under my seat.

He warned me in a dangerously low voice that I wasn’t calling anyone tonight.

My heart pounded so fiercely I could feel the rhythm beating in my teeth.

I begged him to just pull over to the shoulder and let me walk the rest of the way.

I told him I was genuinely terrified.

But every desperate word out of my mouth only seemed to act like gasoline on a fire.

The car surged forward again, pushing me deeper into the upholstery.

The rusted guardrails along the gravel shoulder abruptly ended without any warning.

The darkness on my side of the window suddenly looked like a bottomless drop into a ravine.

I shouted his name at the top of my lungs.

He finally yelled back, his voice raw and ragged with emotion.

He accused me of constantly threatening to pack my bags and leave him.

He said I always acted like I was so much better and smarter than him.

He screamed that if I ever walked away, he would have absolutely nothing left in his life to lose.

Loose gravel sprayed violently against the undercarriage as the car swerved toward the crumbling edge of the road.

The taut fabric of the seatbelt dug a bruised line across my collarbone.

I honestly thought about trying to shatter the window and jumping out onto the pavement.

I pictured the rough asphalt tearing at my skin, deciding it was worth it just to escape this metal cage.

But we were moving much too fast for me to survive a fall like that.

I didn’t know what his twisted endgame was anymore.

Another sharp, blind curve materialized in the sweeping headlights.

The back end of the heavy sedan fishtailed slightly, sending a jolt of pure adrenaline through my veins.

My hands went completely numb from gripping the center console so tightly.

I screamed at him to keep his eyes on the winding road.

He shouted back that he was watching it perfectly fine.

But when I turned to look at his face, the burning anger was suddenly completely gone.

His eyes were completely glassy, wide, and staring into a void I couldn’t see.

The engine screamed louder as the car slid toward the edge, and I realized he wasn’t driving out of anger anymore—he was driving out of pure panic.