The day had started like any other—long, gray, and heavy with the kind of weariness that seeps into your bones after a week of too much work and too little rest. The highway stretched endlessly ahead of me, a ribbon of fading asphalt swallowed by dusk. I remember the way the air smelled faintly of rain and diesel, and how the dying sunlight turned the clouds a bruised purple above the hills. It was the kind of evening where you drive with the window cracked just enough to feel alive, just enough to let your mind drift.
