Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 289(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Thankfully, it only took holding the phone up in the air outside of the window for a moment before it connected and I got the directions back to my own place.
It only took a couple of miles before the car started to act up again.
Cursing and shouting and crying, I willed the car to keep moving. I couldn’t get stuck somewhere, especially now that the one person I knew was the reason I was driving in the middle of the night in the first place. How stupid was I? I took the only person I knew in town, and the only person in town who knew exactly where I lived, and slept with him way too early, before I realized he was just a player.
And I got played.
Sputtering and clunking, the car made it through the town, but by the time I reached the base of the mountain my place was on, it was a much less comfortable guess that it would make it. I got a bit of speed before I started to ascend, but the whine of the engine and the randomly jerking, rumbling motion of the car made me feel like I was inside an active volcano.
“Come on,” I moaned, trying to encourage the car to keep moving. “Come on, I can’t do this. I just can’t. Come on.”
If it stopped on the side of the mountain, I had two choices. Both of which likely ended up with me as the subject of some murder mystery episode on Discovery ID. Either I could try to make do and fall asleep in the back seat of the car, waiting until the morning when I could call for a tow truck or an Uber or something to pick me up and take me home, at which point I would have to invest in some rental car or a lease with a high APR.
Or I could try to walk home. It was only about a half mile to the entrance of the property and another mile to the trailer itself. But that sounded like forever to walk, and the chance for danger was high. Not just from other people, but from coyotes and bears and whatever else might lurk in the mountain.
Yet, for all its whining and complaining, the car eventually crested the hill and turned into the drive for the trailer. I was at least somewhat heartened to make it onto the property and coasted all the way to the small fence that separated the trailer’s immediate plot from the business it used to sit on. I slammed it into park and let my head fall to the wheel.
Deep, heavy sobs came out of some deep place where I had hidden my emotions until I was safe at home. Or what counted as home for now. The cluttered-up horde of a dead distant relative I didn’t know. Still, it was “home.” Slipping out of the car, I slammed it shut, not even bothering to bring anything inside that still remained in the car that needed to come in.
The only thing I wanted inside the trailer right that moment was me.
I stomped inside and slammed the door shut, thinking it would provide some satisfaction. It didn’t. It only knocked a picture off the wall I had hung the day before. Appropriate. Even the touches I was making to the house were being shattered.
I pulled out my phone and saw that I hadn’t gotten a message yet. Perhaps he was still asleep. Or maybe he knew why I left. Or didn’t care. Either way, I held down the power button, turning it off and then throwing myself into the mattress. Crying myself back to sleep, I kicked myself for being so gullible.
18
JASON
The first thing I noticed when I rolled to the side was that the bed was strangely cold. I expected to have to maneuver around to my side so I could curl around Beth Ann, but instead, I was met by chilly sheets that were not only empty but had seemingly been empty for quite a while.
For a second, I thought I had dreamed the entire thing. Our date, our dance, our night together. That I had just conjured it up in my head while I slept and woke up thinking it was real because it had been so vivid. It wouldn’t have been the first time my brain had played a cruel joke on me while I snoozed.
But the pillow smelled like her hair.
Beth Ann had been there, and now she was gone. I hadn’t even noticed her get out of the bed, and now she was missing. Somehow, that was worse than the thought of having dreamed it all.
The light of an early morning dawn was coming in through the window, and I sighed and rolled onto my back, staring at the ceiling. What had I done wrong? I sat up and looked around the room for any signs of her, but her clothes were missing, and she had clearly snuck out as the door I knew I’d shut was standing open.