The grand mal seizure was coming.

When we made our plans to make fun of the cheesy horror films, Zack had told me he wasn’t going to drive the DeLorean to pick me up. I hadn’t complained. I liked walking and, besides, he always drove and picked me up since my neurologist had yet to return my license to me.

That seizure was the subway’s fault. I’d never sat in the back car before. The door at the back that typically linked it to the next car worked as an extra window in the caboose. A window that allowed just enough extra flashing light as the Red Line sped under Hollywood Blvd to trigger my epilepsy that, even with medication, still liked to occasionally pop its head up just to let me know it hadn’t gone away.

I stumbled away from the Subway station entrance and let myself fall to a sitting position on the curb. I’d had worse bruises before. It was easier to let gravity assist me than try to force more electrical signals through the storm gathering in my brain.

The sunlight burned and blurred the world around me, so I closed my eyes. There was nothing I could to stop the dizziness and trembling from gathering strength. I probably had six or seven minutes before I completely shook apart. Possibly eight if I utilized every mindful and meditative technique I knew. I called my friend.

No answer.

I had weed in my purse for these contingencies, but I had to make it safely out of sight before I could medicate. In the days before vaping lighting up in the middle of a street would get you arrested despite its legal status to buy in California. Almost any alternative to jail was preferred, even the hospital where they would watch me seize, sleep, and then tell me to schedule a follow up appointment with my neurologist before billing me for several thousand dollars. He would give me a prescription I couldn’t really afford and send me on my way.

One time, while visiting Atlanta, the hospital there gave me some good drugs. Unfortunately for me, LA’s addicted homeless, had made their hospitals stingy. That was okay, though. I hated it when they tried to set up an IV in my convulsing arm. It rarely ended well for me. But unless I could make it from the subway entrance to my friend’s apartment a half mile away before it hit, I would have a bruised and bloody arm to look forward to in an hour.

My phone rang. My friend was calling me back.

“Hi,” I managed to say without whimpering.

“Hey Starla, what’s up? Off the subway?”

“Uh, ye-ah.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Seize.”

“Fuck.”

“Ye-ah.”

“Don’t move. I’m on my way.”

He hung up. I wrapped my arms around my knees and pulled them close so I could rest my head against them. The urge for a cigarette welled up, but I stomped it down. I needed to save my muscle movements for when my friend arrived. Wind from the passing cars jerked my hair and clothes every which way, but otherwise I tried to become as still as a rock, even if I was trembling like a leaf before it fell. A river of people continued to flow out of the subway station, and someone slammed their foot into my side.

“Fucking tweaker, get in the gutter where you belong.”

I had no spare energy to engage with him, so I said nothing. The impact shock, though, shaved about thirty seconds off my seizure countdown.

“Mommy, is she hurt?” a sweet-sounding little girl asked.

“You know how we ignore drunk people asking for money? She’s like them.”

Thirty more seconds sliced off.

“Unbelievable. Who wants to live somewhere with shit like her on the streets?”

Another thirty cruelly ripped away. As if they had the potential to spend the afternoon in a living nightmare when they had planned to laugh at B Horror movies with their friend. They would forget me in less than five minutes, but I would hear their voices as echoing whispers for the rest of my life.

Then, in the distance, an engine rumbled. A V6 PRV. It’s the only one I recognize. I’d heard it twice before. The first time had been ten years earlier when he’d bought the sports car and then driven by my apartment with his girlfriend to show off.

“How’d you afford this?” I’d asked before taking a drag on a cigarette, my senior “fuck my life” present to myself as puberty and stress made the seizures worse.

“Why you think I’ve been working so hard at the diner these last two years?”

“College?”

“Fuck college, I’m going to be an actor.”

“Sure you are. Can I get a ride?”

“Hell no, you’ll stink it up.”

I blew smoke over the Delorean’s hood. He flipped me off.

The second time was five years later with a different girl in his front seat, and I sat passenger to a guy with a Porsche. At a red light, they gunned their engines, the older DeLorean’s growl compared to the Porsche’s purr. When the light turned green, the Porsche ripped past the Delorean like it was a sedan. When they finally caught up to us, I handed my joint to my boyfriend.

“How’s that for smoke?”

“Fuck off.”

“Hey, don’t be like that. Can I get a ride?”

His girlfriend flung her middle finger out the window as he gunned the DeLorean out of there.

Now there I was, sitting on the curb, shaking like I was made of gelatin and hearing the engine approach. This time, I didn’t need to ask if I could have a ride. He pulled up next to me and pushed the door open before flipping off the honking cars behind him, a blurry angel bathed in the sun’s gold.

“Get in.”

Pulling myself up, in, and slamming the door down in one fluid motion was surprisingly easy, like I had never been in another car. The movement cost me all but one of my remaining minutes, but it didn’t matter. No random asshole or wannabe hero would call the cops or 9-1-1. I could relax, let the seizure come, and count my bruises when it was over.

“You carrying?” he asked.

“Always,” I mumbled through gritted teeth.

He shifted and gunned the engine. “Light it up.”

I opened my eyes. He stayed focused on the road but lowered the windows an inch. That was the invitation I needed. My hands knew exactly what to do, and the smoke hit my lungs with less than thirty seconds to go.

The nice thing about smoking is that once it enters your body, the high begins almost instantly. Edibles and vaping have a delay, which can be troublesome in my situation despite their other discrete advantages.

The first hit calmed my tremors, the second cleared my vision, and the third stopped the world from spinning. I was about to take a fourth hit to make sure I was really good to go when he coughed.

“You good?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’ll finish it up at the garage.”

He nodded and rolled down the front windows. I leaned back, marveling at the passed buildings and tasting the salty California breeze. His hand covered mine. I shifted my pipe and lighter to the opposite hand and then linked my fingers through his.

“Thanks. Really. I know you didn’t want smoke in here.”

“If someone was going to do it, I wanted it to be you.”

When he downshifted to pull into the garage, he pulled my hand with his. Once parked, we sat there with the windows rolled down until the smoke cleared from the DeLorean.

Crystal N. Ramos lives with her husband and two children in Georgia, USA. She has won the Maggie Award for Excellence in Prepublished Romantic Fiction twice and has an MA in Professional Writing from Kennesaw State University. Some of her shorter work has appeared in Rescued Hearts: A Hidden Acres Anthology, Stygian Lepus Issue 5, and The Dr. T. J. Eckleburg Review. In her imaginary spare time, she likes to knit, cross-stitch, and play Minecraft. You can find her at https://www.facebook.com/crystalnramos.