Why didn’t they pass? I drove five over the speed limit. The car behind me tailgated aggressively with their brights full blast in the

All I did was make a right hand turn against a red light. Perfectly legal, and at the time, there were no cars on the road except for quite a distance away to my left. I turned right and merged into the middle lane. My eyes checked the mirror and I began to drift over to the far left lane and swerved suddenly to avoid hitting a car that was in my blind spot. That’s what started it. I returned to the middle lane to wait for them to pass and they went behind me into my lane. That’s when the brights came on and my nightmare began. I sped up. They sped up. I slowed. They slowed.

My foot pressed on the gas and the speedometer needle crept upward until I was twenty over the speed limit, praying for a police officer to pull me over. As I approached a major intersection, the traffic lights turned yellow, then red. My eyes widened. I wanted to cry. What if they had a gun? What if they shot me? All the what-if’s ran through my mind. As a writer, it’s what we do best. There were three lanes and a generous left turn lane. I swerved to the left-hand turn lane. It had a large margin in case they tried to pull up beside me. My doors were locked. I double checked. I sat at the red light with my insides like oatmeal and my hands sweating over the steering wheel.

What was I going to do? Oh Lord! It felt as if a lot of time passed as I lifted my eyes to the rear view mirror to check on the car following me and my heart stopped. My breath came whooshing out between my lips as I saw a police car behind me instead of the people who meant me harm. To my right, the car that followed me sped off, tires squealing through the green light and I continued on my way to Kmart, shaken and thankful.

I came home and called the police to thank the officers who arrived just in time. I gave the crossroads and told the operator what had happened, but because of the brights, the dark night, and my panicked state I had no plate or description of the perpetrators and never saw them again. I thanked God, too, though at the time I didn’t have a full picture of who God was, but He’s been evident throughout my entire life saving me sometimes supernaturally and showing me His presence as I sought him out to fill the emptiness inside.

–Nikole Hahn