—From “Grandma Nadia: Collection” by Lindsay Lauren

She handed us the wheel like it was nothing, like control was a thing you could trust a 
child with, like the dirt roads didn’t already bear the scars of our mistakes. The truck 
growled as it moved, tires spitting gravel and raising ghosts of dust behind us, the air 
thick with earth and fuel. My hands shook on the cracked leather wheel, knuckles tight, 
the way you grasp onto something too big to understand. The world outside the window 
became a smear of gold and brown, the horizon wobbling with every overcorrection. 
She sat beside me, calm as if chaos wasn’t unfolding, as if the fences we’d already 
plowed through didn’t matter, as if this wasn’t a risk. Her laugh came low, unbothered, 
like she knew that broken things could always be fixed; a dented fender, a splintered 
gate, a bruised ego. I swerved too hard, slammed the brakes, felt the truck lurch forward 
like it wanted to buck me off. Skid marks curled behind us, dark scars carved into the 
dirt. But she never flinched. Not once. Her gaze stayed steady, her silence heavy with 
trust. Mistakes weren’t the point, freedom was. She knew it had to be wild to mean 
something, reckless to stick, untamed to feel like the first real lesson in living.