Work Text:
The year is 2025. Michael Wheeler is fifty four years old. He has a suburban house in Bumfuck Nowhere, USA. He has two failed novels. He has an ex-wife, and two kids that he hasn’t seen since the divorce.
Sometimes, Mike wants to end it all. Especially when he turns on the radio and that song is playing.
He audibly groans as Chappell Roan’s beautiful voice fills his sad, little Toyota Corolla.
“And when you wake up next to him in the middle of the night, with your head in your hands.”
“God FUCKING damn it!” He yells, slamming his hand on the dash board.
Mike’s mind is suddenly flooded with an onslaught of memories. That day on the tower… what was he thinking?! He wishes that Will had thrown him off the second he opened his mouth.
“You’re nothing more than his wife.”
You’re right, Chappell. Mike is nothing more than this. He failed in life. He remembers when he told Will, “I mean what did you expect, that we were just gonna sit in my basement and play games for the rest of our lives?” Well touché, universe, touché. He may be 54 now, but Mike feels like he’s never left the basement.
“And when you think about me, all of those years ago,”
Mike and Will had fallen out of touch over the years. Every once in a while, Mike would google Will to see what was going on with him. Mike wondered if Will ever did the same.
Mike put his foot on the gas pedal.
“You’re standing face to face with I told you so.”
In the horizon, he could see a red minivan driving in the other lane. Then, as it got closer, it switched lanes. It was speeding towards him.
Mike panicked. Every bone in his body screamed move! Move! Switch lanes! You’re gonna get into a crash!
“You know I hate to say it, I told you so,”
But then he hesitated. What did he have to live for? His flopped career as an author? His ex-wife who he never really lived? His two estranged children? Will? He had nothing. No one.
As Chappell hit her high note, Mike lifted his hands from the steering wheel and accepted his fate. The last thing he saw was the woman in the terrible little red minivan, a middle aged brunette wearing a flannel, staring at him with pure intent to kill. What the hell was her problem?
”I told you so!”