I saved for 1,094 days for my Tesla Model S Plaid, bleeding for every overtime shift and skipped meal. Yet in eleven minutes, my brother reduced my dream to twisted metal and smirked like I was the villain. His words were crueler than the impact. He started to say, “Mom,” implying they would back him as always. He was right—until I checked my phone and saw the proof that meant, this time, everyone would answer to the truth.
My name is Aurora West, but for the last three years, I had ceased to be a person and had instead become a singular, obsessive function of capitalism. To my co-workers at Stonebridge Risk and Compliance, I was the woman who never turned down a weekend shift. To my friends, I was the ghost who stopped showing up to brunch because eighteen dollars for avocado toast was mathematically irresponsible. To my landlord, I was the tenant who argued over a five percent rent hike with the ferocity of a cornered badger. I had been running on a deficit of sleep and a surplus of ambition for 1,094 days. That was the exact count. I knew the number because I had a countdown widget on my phone, ticking away the seconds until I hit the financial target I had plastered on my vision board.
I wanted a Tesla Model S Plaid. Not the base model, not a used one. I wanted the Plaid. I wanted the kind of acceleration that could pin your spine against the seat and make you forget, even for a few seconds, that you grew up in a house where you were always the second option. It was not just a car; it was a receipt. It was physical proof that I, Aurora West, could build a life without the safety net my parents, Mara and Gordon, had woven exclusively for my younger brother.
The day I picked it up, the air in Greenville, South Carolina, felt different. It was humid, sticky with the promise of a storm. But inside the dealership, the air was crisp and smelled of expensive polymers and victory. When they handed me the key card, my hand shook. I had paid for this with missed birthdays. I had paid for this by eating instant oatmeal for dinner three nights a week for two years. I had paid for this by taking on freelance consulting gigs that kept me awake until three in the morning, staring at spreadsheets until the numbers blurred into gray static.
I walked out to the lot. There it was: Midnight Silver Metallic. It looked like a shark that had evolved to live on asphalt. When I slid into the driver’s seat, the silence of the cabin was heavy. I pressed the brake, shifted into drive, and the car moved with a ghostly electric hum that sounded like the future.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
TAP → NEXT PAGE → 👇
