Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
She hated the car.
Which was something I never could have known until I shoved her into one with me and hit the gas. She hated the faces in the cars that passed. Hated the horns beeping and the music blasting from stereos. And she really, really hated the gas station attendants that insisted on cleaning the windshield at each stop we’d been to since driving into New Jersey.
Between the anxiety about running, the stress that accompanied driving a car for the first time in years, and Edith’s chronic barking at anything she didn’t like, I’d been a ball of frazzled nerves for days on end.
What I really needed was sleep.
I even reclined my seat all the way back and reached for a blanket to cover us both.
But all I could do was stare up at the roof, fixating on a burned spot that looked like someone had possibly been reckless enough to put out a cigarette into the felt.
This car had a whole three or four lifetimes before I got it horribly used and at a steep discount. It was perpetually stuck on one radio station that, since getting to the upper east coast, had been playing nothing but static that set my teeth on edge, a crack in the windshield I’d been praying wouldn’t splinter across the whole glass panel, and so many mystery stains on the seats that I wasn’t really sure what color it had been originally. Tan maybe. Or gray. Definitely not the grubby brown it currently was, making me spread towels over the surfaces so Edith and I didn’t need to sit in the filth.
Slowly but surely, Edith’s shaking lessened as sleep fully claimed her. Leaving me utterly alone in my anxiety.
I tried rectangular breathing. I tried grounding myself by counting five things I could see, hear, smell, and touch. I tried listing all the ways I’d done this perfectly right.
But still, the uncertainty was as clinging as glitter.
It wasn’t long before the general worries gave way to the what-ifs.
What if he wasn’t in town?
What if I couldn’t find him?
What if he didn’t want to see me?
What if he wouldn’t help me?
It had been years, and I was still hanging all my hopes on the fact that he would remember his offer to help me.
Would he still recall that long-ago promise?
Would he even remember me at all?
A guy like that had to catch the eye of a thousand women a year. More. What were the chances that he would remember some random woman he’d hardly even spoken to, let alone kissed or touched or anything that might anchor a memory?
“Stop,” I mumbled to myself.
It wasn’t going to do any good to borrow concerns from tomorrow. Lord knew I had enough of them to keep me company right then.
Reaching back, careful not to disturb Edith, I rummaged in my bag for the bottle. It jingled as I pulled it forward, twisting off the top, and taking one of the pills out. I tried not to gag over the scent of it as I reached for my watery soda.
Then I tossed the pill in my mouth and guzzled the coffee until I was sure it was down there and the taste was off my tongue.
There.
That was one thing off my list.
One less thing to worry about.
Though it created its own new one too. The nausea that was going to plague me for at least half a day.
Oh well.
It had to be done.
Outside, the storm raged. Brilliant flashes of lightning and massive roars of thunder. Rain that seemed like it was trying to wash the world of its sins, it was coming down so hard.
I watched as a whole town went dark after a particularly bright bolt of lightning. Heard the trill of police sirens that said someone likely hit a tree or pole.
A hotel or motel was the kind of place you wanted to be in a storm like this. Somewhere safe. With plumbing that took the brunt of the lightning, if it came that close, so your body didn’t become the conductor.
But hotels and motels were their own kind of dangerous now.
God, the whole modern world was.
But I would figure it out.
I would.
I had to.
I reached to turn the car off, not wanting the puffs of smoke from the engine to draw the attention of cops. The absolute last thing I needed was the government to have my whereabouts. It was all as good as over then.
And not just because I was driving without a license. Or insurance.
It went way deeper than that.
“Ugh.” I couldn’t shut my mind off.
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, feeling how dry and gritty they were from watching the road and a complete lack of sleep.
Over the past five days, I was pretty sure I only managed about four or five hours. And even those were restless. I needed some rest if I was going to not seem like a crazy person running around town asking every person I met if they knew the man I was looking for. And where he lived.