What a complete fucking nightmare. My eyes squeezed shut as I rubbed my temples. Sweat formed a line down my back from the stress of my drive, but I’d made it.
I’d successfully made it to Whynot.
Fingers crossed the mechanic could give me a ride to the hotel.
God, I needed sleep. My spine was stiff from hunching over the steering wheel, every joint molded together. Sleep, stretching, and a date with the vibrator in my duffle bag was in my near future.
I yanked the key from the ignition. My limbs protested and rejoiced in the same second as I got out and stretched. I leaned back into the cabin and snatched my phone, checking my messages.
BLOCK THIS BASTARD (Justin)
Are you serious, Madi? Did you egg my fucking house???
You know I could press charges for this!
Oh yeah. I should have done worse, actually. Throwing a carton of eggs at his door on my way out of LA hadn’t been enough. But, then again, nothing would be enough. I’d wasted eight years of my life with a man who hated me the moment I stopped obeying him like a dog.
Then again, the woman he’d cheated on me with had a diamond on her finger before my wheels had hit New Mexico.
That’s howsurehe’d been that he’d found the one. And maybe he had. But Justin and Veronica could suck the tip of my imaginary dick. I hoped she got a yeast infection and he was devoured by the killer ants from my favorite Indiana Jones movie.
A couple of spine twists and a neck cracks later—god, I was crunchy—I walked straight up to the glass door of the shop. The cool metal of the handle felt good on my fingertips as I pulled.
And pulled again.
“You’re kidding me.”
I yanked with my entire body, but it didn’t budge.
Between the drive and nearly running over someone—I was so ready to be done with today.
“Come on. Are you fuckingjoking?!”
I pulled with all my strength, but my fingers slipped. I had two seconds to scream before I fell.
My ass thumped against the ground and I rolled back, limbs sprawling out as I came eye to eye with picturesque, postcard clouds. Pain radiated up my tailbone and all of the tears I’d been holding back threatened to spill over.
Slowly, I raised my head.
An orange piece of stock paper was taped haphazardly to the glass.
Off until Tuesday. —DW
“A thousand curses upon you, DW,” I whispered menacingly. “Curses.”
Only in a small town would the only mechanic be off on a fucking Friday morning.
My head plopped back as I dragged in a slow breath, trying to pull myself together. The kind of breath that kept me from screamingagain.
What if I just stayed down here for the rest of my life until I collapsed into dust and blew away into the desert? What then?
You can’t give up.
Tears blurred the sky like a watercolor palette. I swiped them away, my nose burning.
I was on my own. No job lined up. Single. In a small town in the middle of nowhere. Not to mention, my anxiety was a nasty stone gargoyle that sat on my shoulders, heavy and weighing me down, keeping me pinned to the asphalt.
The all too familiar feeling that nothing was going to work out threatened to drown me. The little voice that constantly whispered I wasn’t good enough or that something bad would happen because that’s what I deserved or that I was a failure.
