The Scream

It seemed like no matter what time of day or day of week, there was always traffic on the DVP. Jeremey had read something about how demand for travel is always greater than road capacity, so there’d always be traffic, no matter how many lanes they added. He wasn’t sure how true that was, but it was nice knowing that everything could be reduced to mathematical formulas. He looked over at his father, who had one hand in the middle of the steering wheel, and the other idly tapping away on the door of the car, outside of the open window.

It was a hot day. Jeremey reached up and closed the sunroof. Summer always gave its last bit of heat in an all-out push in the first few weeks of September. Dorm rooms at this time were a hot hell without air conditioning, but it was the only two weeks of the year that air conditioning was needed anyways. It also seemed like the Labour Day weekend was always moving day as well, since college. He had moved to and from multiple houses at school, and then when he eventually moved downtown, it was also on Labour Day weekend.

Soon, the smell of autumn would be in the air. Perhaps because of school, the autumn air always left him with a sense of apprehension. A little bit of unease, some expectation, and a smidge of anxiety. Little did it matter that his last first day of school was ancient history, September always made him feel apprehensive. And even though the air was sun-kissed, not yet filled with the smell of rotting leaves and pumpkin spice lattes, he felt it, this year, stronger than any previous year since he graduated college, or perhaps even including college.

Jeremey felt beads of sweat trickling down his forehead. He dabbed at it lightly with his fingers, hoping not to disturb the sunscreen he had applied half an hour ago, but knew it was futile. He glared angrily at the traffic. His father looked at him.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just so hot in this car.”

“Sorry.”

Jeremey immediately felt bad. Why did he snap at his father? And why was his father so apologetic? The old SUV didn’t have air conditioning, and everyone in the family preferred the Corolla. For a move however, it was absolutely the right choice. Jeremey didn’t have a lot of stuff, and it probably could have all fit inside a small trunk and the backseats, but the SUV made everything easier. Everything except air conditioning and weaving through traffic to expedite the journey. Jeremey lifted the front of his shirt a few times rapidly, and the breeze felt good before he stopped, and the shirt clung to his chest once more. But it wasn’t really the heat that was bothering him.

The SUV also didn’t have Bluetooth audio, and none of their phones had a headphone jack. Jeremey turned the radio on. Brat was playing. He changed the station. Taylor Swift breakup song. He changed the station again. Too Sweet. And again. Someone Like You. It was crazy how many pop songs were about failed relationships. He looked over at his father, who didn’t notice. Or was pretending not to anyways. He turned the radio to a jazz station and left it there.

“Alternative route found. Exit at Lawrence Avenue. Saves up to five minutes.”

Jeremey’s ears perked up, and he looked over at his father who didn’t react.

Jeremey rejected the new suggestion but kept the navigation on. He looked out the window and saw the sign for Lawrence Avenue slowly inch by. Everywhere I go, I see her name, he thought to himself. Why did that seem so familiar? He thought about it some more, and realized that he was quoting the Spiderman meme. Jeremey was slightly disgusted. Him, quote a meme? On top of that, a Spiderman meme? The Tom Holland Spiderman?

He smiled anyways. It was stupid but it was funny.

Laurence was always the one that showed him memes and TikToks. He tried his best to avoid spending time on social media aside from messaging applications, so every night, he would watch all the TikToks that Laurence had bookmarked that day, At first, he protested that it was detrimental to his sleep hygiene in the neurotic way he typically managed on his health habits, but he eventually looked forward to the special curation of shorts videos Laurence had gathered over the course of the day. Screenings, they had taken to calling them.

But there weren’t going to be anymore screenings. About a month ago, Laurence deleted TikTok because the algorithm got to be too sad and started showing her depressive content. That was the same time that Jeremey told her that they should break up. Their relationship was coming onto two years: not quite long-term, but no longer short. It was still short enough that Jeremey was ready to throw it all away for a job in Tokyo. Ever since he spent a semester there in college, he had wanted to live there. At one point, he was even considering becoming an English teacher for a year. Then he got comfortable in his life, got a promotion, and got a girlfriend. He had given up on Tokyo until his VP tapped him to start the Japan office. He knew that he needed to go.

Jeremey felt tears welling up in his eyes, and slowly wiped them away so his father wouldn’t notice. The last month was a quiet melancholy, a wistful denial of what was to come. Tokyo was not uttered once that month. They did the things they loved to do, and the things always said they would do and never did: eat in and eat out; play pool at a dive bar and lane swim at the local pool; holding each other without speaking and speaking to each other while doing their own hobbies. And then earlier today, they said their last goodbyes.

Finally, the traffic was easing up. It always eased up after Highway 401. Plus, they were two in the car, and could take the carpool lane. The breeze roared through the windows of the car, its scream drowning out the radio. It reached a crescendo as his father merged into the carpool lane and stopped accelerating. In that moment, Jeremey felt like screaming as well. But he didn’t. He wasn’t brave enough.