She Took the Time

I found this piece just now, one I wrote a few semesters ago for a writing course. My style must've changed a lot since, because I had some difficulty explicating it. I really don't recognize anything from back then.

He knows he’s been had. He’d expected broken glass at his feet, or across the dash, or jagged in the upholstery like crooked teeth, but there’s just the spare set all snug in the ignition because she knew you couldn’t lose it there, and she did it to make you red. So you start to search because something’s gotta be missing. The radio knobs are all wrong. The wheel’s girdling your belly. You’d dust it all down if you could, or fog up the windows with some sort of steam-machine, like you two could when that lot was empty enough, but the prints on the windows’d be none but your own. Then you remember the backseat, but the emergency brake jabs you in the kneecap like she meant it to, so you slam it down and climb over. It still smells like smoke and gin all the same, but wouldn’t you know it, she’s made off with the perfume that you lifted for the anniversary, God knows for what price. Now only those stains remain, and she’d have taken those too if they weren’t so deep in the seat. So you start to ponder shampoos, and in a blink, you think you’ve hit gold, but it’s that damn spare flashing you in the corner eye. The sun’s come up, and she’s made you late for work again. You swing around to the front and turn the key, the spare, ‘cause it’s already there, and you’re late because of her anyway. The car rolls easy into reverse, and you wonder if she took the time to cut the brake line.