La Tapatia Composition

The laughter filled the car as we belted out the notes to the song playing loudly from the radio. We were downtown and getting snacks for our Spanish class from a store called La Tapatia. I was focused on the eye catching lights of downtown, the music blaring from the radio, and the conversation with my friends — not the road — so when I heard a scream from the passenger seat I had no idea what was going on. I had never made a grave mistake while driving before, since after all, I was a great driver… or so I thought.
After loading up the car with our new goodies, I decided I knew downtown well enough to get us out of there without using the GPS. I remembered the way home and driving downtown was a breeze. All I had to do was get us back

on Grand Avenue and it would be easy. Happiness and good times filled the car and we pulled out of the parking spot. While backing out of the parking lot, my friend had connected her phone and started playing songs from our favorite musicals. We belted the notes at the top of our lungs as I drove, smiling as we attempted to hit notes only Broadway stars could. Getting back onto the road, I put my turn signal on to go back the way we had come from.
Suddenly, I heard my friend scream like she was about to die, and I had no idea why.

In that moment, the world seemed to slow down. Realizing what I had done, I joined in her screams of utter terror. “What do I do? WHAT DO I DO?” I begged them to tell me the solution, panic building in my lungs. There was no solution to this, I had completely messed up. The road I had just turned onto was a one way road, and I was definitely not going the right way. When the turn was complete I heard the horns begin, like a wall of sound blocking any escape. I stared into the four lanes of headlights before me and made a decision. I had already messed up and there was no stopping now, therefore I kept going as fast as I could without stopping, trying to escape the situation as fast as

possible.
This plan backfired majorly.

I knew immediately that this idea was not what I was supposed to do. Processing as fast as it could my mind still came up blank. I never learned what to do in this situation. I aimed my Ford Focus in between two of the four lanes. We heard the screech of tires and metal on metal, windows scraping other cars, and other cars hitting mine. The only sounds in my ears were screams and those horrible scraping noises. In this minute of racing against the wave of angry cars, I knew this was my fault and I could have avoided it by just paying attention and reading the signs.
Soon I found a street to onto, and pulled into the nearest parking lot I could, which happened to be a Taco Bell. “Una llamada de cercano,” my friends joked lightly about the situation trying to calm me down, “a close call.” Ignoring them, halfway into a panic attack, the sobbing and hyperventilating began. The car suddenly felt too constricting and I needed out. The ground below me was cold, dirty, and there were pieces of trash in some places. In that moment, I did not even care. The fear and terror that I had ruined my car or hurt someone else was too enormous and consumed

me.
Luckily, everyone that I know of got out without any harm, but I’m betting their cars did not. It was all my fault and so many people had been put at risk. My car only had a slight dent that was not very noticeable, and no one came after me so I assumed that I no one else had any major problems. I knew that if I had just been paying attention and been focused on the task at hand, it would have been fine. Like many teenagers, the overconfidence in my driving was deep down the reason for this fiasco. To this day, my passenger side car door has a noise of scraping metal every time it opens, and each time I hear it I am reminded that sometimes, we need to have a little bit of wariness in what we think we are good at.