When I’m getting close to my last turn to make before I find Ethan, I notice the red and blue blinking of police lights up ahead. The cars in front of me slow, so I do, too. There’s some kind of problem up ahead, and I figure someone ran out of gas or something.
But as I get closer, I see all the cars in front of me turning left. I’ll be taking a right, which leads to a main highway.
But then it makes sense. There’s a cop in the road, blocking the right turn. He’s waving everyone to make them turn left. I slam on the brakes and roll down my window.
I wave to get his attention. “Sir, I have to turn right.”
He shakes his head, his hand still motioning to the left. “Sorry, the road is closed.”
“What? I have to go that way.”
“You can’t. Major accident. Gasoline tanker exploded. There’s no getting through there at all, ma’am.”
My jaw falls open. I inch forward a little because I’m holding up traffic. The sun is starting to come up and I can see a huge plume of black smoke off to the right. There’s nothing for me to do but keep driving, so I pull forward, make the stupid left turn, and then pull over on the side of the road. There are dozens of cars on the road now, all headed in the new direction as if they don’t have a care in the world. I thought for sure they’d want to go to the highway, too. I guess not.
I look at my phone, but it has conveniently decided to lose all signal again. I pull up my screenshots, but they don’t show what happens to the left. I only took pictures of my route, which was supposed to go to the right. I’m probably ten miles away from Ethan right now. But I have no idea how to get to him.
My breathing is ragged and I’m fighting tears. I’m still surrounded by farmland and fields as far as the eye can see. There’s no landmarks or street signs to tell me where I am. But, maybe if all these other people are okay with taking this route, they might know another way to go. I’ll just follow the cars. Surely someone knows their way around the vast state of Texas. Eventually we’ll find a main highway and I’ll take it north and I’ll be fine.
I swallow back my fears and sit up straight, gripping the steering wheel like my life depends on it.
I’ll be okay. I’ll just have to figure out where to go from here.
