I know this because I've been counting the highway markers, riding the high from that conference room. Forty-seven miles of replaying the look on Trent's face. Forty-seven miles ofI did that. I actually did that.
Mile forty-eight is when the Toyota makes a noise.
Not a bang or a screech or any of the cinematic sounds a car is supposed to make before it dies. It's more of a... wheeze. A polite, mechanical cough, like the engine is clearing its throat.
Then, the dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree.
"No," I say out loud. "No, no, no—"
The steering goes heavy. The engine sputters once, twice, and then simply gives up, and I have just enough momentum to wrestle the Toyota onto the shoulder before it rolls to a dead stop in the gravel.
I sit there for a full ten seconds, both hands on the wheel, staring at the flat, empty expanse of highway stretching out in every direction. Fields. Sky. Nothing.
"Cool," I whisper. "This is fine."
It is not fine.
I turn the key. The engine clicks. Clicks again. Does absolutely nothing else.
I pull my phone out of the cup holder and the screen delivers its own little gut punch: 2%.
Two percent, and I'm sitting in a dead rental car on the shoulder of a barren highway miles from home with no charger.
I close my eyes. Open them. The battery icon is red and accusatory.
Okay. Triage.
I pull up the rental company's roadside assistance number first. It rings four times, then dumps me into a hold queue with a tinny jazz rendition of something that might be "Girl from Ipanema". An automated voice cheerfully informs me that my estimated wait time is thirty-five to forty-five minutes.
Thirty-five to forty-five minutes.
I press the phone to my forehead and breathe.
Think, Beth. What matters most right now?
Harper. Harper's rehearsal. I promised.
I pull up our text thread and type fast, my thumbs clumsy and frantic:
Car broke down. Dropping my location pin now. Phone battery is dying but I WILL be there. Do not worry about me.I attach my GPS location, watch the little blue bar crawl across the screen, and hit send. It delivers. Barely.
Then I set the phone on the passenger seat, leave it on speaker for the hold music, and grip the steering wheel with both hands.
And that's when my hands start shaking.
A full-body, teeth-chattering, adrenaline-crash shake that starts in my fingers and works its way up my arms and into my shoulders.
You just rejected your chance at fresh start.
The thought lands like a brick.
And now you're sitting in a dead car on the side of a highway, and you are going to lose everything.
My breath comes in short, shallow bursts. The fields blur. I squeeze the wheel until my knuckles ache.
You are always going to be a secondary character in a life someone else wrote for you.
A semi blows past and the Toyota rocks in its wake, and I flinch so hard my elbow hits the horn. It lets out a sad, abbreviated bleat. Even the car sounds pathetic.
