В детстве девушка попала в автомобильную катастрофу, когда ехала с родителями. Мать и отец погибли, она осталась калекой: одна нога и рука перестали расти. В этом отрывке она вспоминает, как ей удалось избавиться от страха новой автокатастрофы. Echo Lawrence: As an adult I found riding the bus made my hands sweat. Riding in a taxi, I could hardly take a deep breath. Driving, my heart would pound in my ears and my vision would lose any awareness of colors. I’d get that close to fainting. I was so sure I’d be rammed by another car. On an unconscious level, my memory of the head-on collision was controlling me. It got so bad I couldn’t cross the street for fear that a driver might run a red light. My world kept collapsing down, getting smaller and smaller. Get this. The ideal therapy came to me: If I could just stage an accident and survive it, then I might start to get past my fear. If I could just bump my car into another car and cause a fender bender. Then, I’d see that fatality accidents are so rare they’re not worth the worry. So I started stalking other drivers, looking for the perfect car to bump. The perfect accident. Just one, perfect, controlled accident. A certain car might look perfect, but when I drove close enough to smack my fender, I’d see a baby seat in the back. Or the driver would be so young you knew an accident would destroy their insurance rates. Or, I’d trail someone until I could tell they had a terrible minimum-wage job and the last thing they needed was a sprained neck. Nevertheless, the role reversal helped my nerves. Instead of waiting to be killed by another reckless driver, I’d become the predator. The hunter. All night, I’d be looking. You can’t count the number of people I shadowed, trying to decide if I should plow into their car. My perfect accident turned out to be some guy with a dead deer tied across the roof of his car. Some fucking Bambi killer, a guy wearing a camouflage jacket and a hat with ear flaps. He’s driving a fuggly four-door sedan with the dead deer roped lengthwise, its head laying at the top of the windshield. In the city, a dead deer’s not something you can lose sight of very easily so I keep my distance and track him through neighborhoods, biding my time, looking for the perfect spot to nail his killer ass. Somewhere an accident won’t block traffic or endanger bystanders. Get this. I’m hunting him the same way he stalked that poor four-legged creature. Waiting to get my best shot. I mean I’m really getting off on this. I’m so fucking excited. I scoot through yellow traffic lights, staying a field of cars behind him. I slow and drop back when he turns, then make the same turn. I let cars slip between us so he won’t notice how long I’ve been in his rearview mirror. At one point, I lose the fucker. A light goes red, but he runs it and cuts a right turn around the next corner. All my months of tracking, and my perfect accident’s escaped. The light goes green, and I sprint to find him, turn the same corner, but he’s gone. Down another block, I’m scanning my way through intersections, hoping for a glimpse of that deer corpse, that poor, sad murdered deer, but there’s nothing, fucking nada. Nobody. Listen up. I was driving home, at least happy that I won’t be facing some redneck hunter over his crushed quarter panel – when I see the dead deer. The car’s pulled off the street, idling in the drive-through lane of a fast food place. The driver’s window is rolled down, and a bearded face is barking at the menu speaker. In the fluorescent drive-thru lights, the car looks spotted with rust. The paint, scratched. Most of the car is piss yellow, but the driver’s door is sky blue. The trunk lid is beige. I pull over and wait. A hand passes a white bag out the drive-thru window, the driver gives the hand some paper money. Another beat, and the piss-yellow car eases across the curb, moving into traffic. Before he can disappear, again, I’m on his tail. I pull my seat belt tight across my hips. A heartbeat before my front bumper should smack his backside, I take a deep breath. I shut my eyes and stomp the gas pedal. And again, fucking nada. The car’s jetted ahead, darting between other cars so fast the deer’s dead ass waves its tail back and forth in my face. Chasing him, I forget I have a bum arm and leg. I forget that half my face can’t smile. Chasing him, I’m not an orphan or a girl. The deer’s ass dodges through traffic, and that’s all I see. Up ahead, a light turns red. The piss-yellow car, its brake lights flare red as it slows to turn right. For a blink, the deer’s gone until I follow it around the curve. And there, on a quiet side street, without bystanders or police, I shut my eyes and… ka–blam. The sound, that sound’s still recorded in my head. It’s time frozen solid. My front end is buried so deep in his trunk that the dead deer’s swung loose. The ropes broke, and the deer’s busted open. At about the belly, the carcass has torn into two pieces. And inside, instead of blood and guts, the deer is – white. Solid white. The driver throws his door open and climbs out, bearded. His camouflage jacket quilted and huge. The ear flaps of his hat, flapping with every step towards me. I say, “Your fucking deer…” I say, “It’s fake.” And the guy says, “Of course it’s fake.”