Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
All right. It was all right. I’d just have to go really slow. Take my time. I could do it. I had a spare. I had a Fix-a-Flat. I knew how to change a tire.
I was going to make it home.
Everything hurt. I was pretty sure my toes were bleeding. The cartilage in my knees was shot.
This sucked.
I could do it.
It was fucking cold.
This sucked.
A couple more tears spilled out of my eyes. I was an idiot for doing this by myself, but I’d done it. Hail, some snow, rain, thunder, eating shit. I’d made it. I’d done this bitch-ass hike.
I was tired and a couple more tears came out of my eyes, and I wondered if I’d taken a wrong turn and was on a game trail instead of on the real trail because nothing looked familiar, but then again it was dark and I could barely see anything that was out of the beam of my flashlight.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Then I saw it, the big, low-hanging tree that I’d had to duck under right at the beginning of the hike.
I’d made it! I’d made it! I shivered so hard my teeth chattered, but I had an emergency blanket in my bag and in my car, and I had a thick, old jacket of Amos’s that had found its way in there somehow.
I made it.
More tears filled my eyes, and I stopped, tipping my head up. Part of me wished there were stars out that I could talk to, but there weren’t. It was too cloudy. But it didn’t stop me.
My voice was hoarse from the screaming and the lack of water, but it didn’t matter. I still said the words. Still felt them. “I love you, Mom. This sucked ass, but I love you and I miss you and I’m going to try my best,” I said out loud, knowing she could hear me. Because she always did.
And in a burst of energy I didn’t think I had in me, I took off running to my car, my toes crying, my knees giving up on my life, and my thighs shot for the rest of my existence—at least it felt like that in the moment. It was there.
The only one.
I didn’t know where the hell those other people had gone, but I had no energy left to wonder how I hadn’t run into them.
Fuckers.
As exhausted as I felt, I chugged down a quarter of my gallon bottle of water, stripped off Rhodes’s rain jacket and my damp one, and pulled Amos’s on. I took my shoes off and almost tossed them in the back seat but didn’t just in case I needed to get out of the car; instead, I propped them on the floor of the passenger seat. I wanted to look at my toes and see what the damage was, but I’d worry about it later.
I checked my service, but it was still nonexistent. I shot off a message to Rhodes and Amos anyway.
Me: Finally done, it’s a long story. I’m okay. Didn’t have service. I think the tower is down. On my way out, but I have to go slow.
Then I backed out and started the trip home. It was going to take about an hour to get there once I got off this sketchy part. Best-case scenario, it would be two hours to get to the highway.
And it was just as shit as I remembered. Worse even. But I didn’t care. I gripped the steering wheel for dear life, trying to remember what path I’d taken on the way up, but the rain had cleared my tracks.
I got this. I can do it, I told myself, driving literally two miles an hour and squinting like never before and hopefully never again.
My hands cramped, but I ignored them and the weird feeling of driving with no shoes on, but I wasn’t putting those boots back on anytime soon.
I drove, not turning on the radio because I had to concentrate.
I made it maybe a quarter of a mile down the road when two headlights flashed through the trees around a bend.
Who the hell was driving up here this late?
It was my turn to curse because the best path was straight down the middle, and it wasn’t like the road was wide to begin with. What were the chances? “Fuck,” I muttered just as the lights disappeared for a moment and then reappeared on the straightaway, coming toward me.
It was an SUV or a truck for sure. A big one. And it was going a hell of a lot faster than I was.
With a sigh, I pulled off to the side, zipping up Amos’s jacket to my chin, and then pulled off even more. With my luck today, I was going to get stuck.
No, I wasn’t. I was going to get home. I was going to—