She never broke down.
Not once.
Not when the sky opened like a wound,
not when the roads turned to rivers,
not when I begged her—
quiet, desperate—
to just stop.

She roared like a promise
I didn’t want kept,
dragging me forward
past burning houses,
half-submerged memories,
and children I couldn’t carry.

Her tires kissed the water
like it meant nothing.
Her engine hummed
over the cries of the living
and the silence of the lost.

I wanted her to fail.
To sputter.
To give me an excuse to rest.
To stay.
To scream.
To drown.
But she just kept going,
faithful
like grief with a gas tank.

At every red light,
I shook.
Not from cold,
but from the weight
of still being alive
when so many weren’t.

She didn’t care.
She didn’t flinch.
Even when I hit the steering wheel
until my hands bled,
she just blinked her dashboard lights
like lullabies for the damned.

I slept in her backseat
between rescues,
blanketed in sweat
and the smell of rot,
dreaming of static
and missing faces.

She held me like no one else could—
not out of love,
but out of indifference.

And when it ended—
when the waters receded,
when the city gasped its first breath
through cracked windows and broken prayers—
she waited in the driveway,
still warm,
still loyal,
still ready.

I never forgave her for that.