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“There was no hurry.”
She felt Melisa mulling over her statement and hoped the other woman would leave it be. The whole drive could be in silence, for all she felt like chit-chatting. And for a while, it was. Melisa left Melinda to reacclimatize to the surreal experience of being in a moving vehicle, of seeing houses, storefronts, other cars, and other people. Before long, though, Melisa broached safe topics like the weather and Melinda’s job. Melinda queried in kind, and soon they were passing the community of Genesee, less than a half an hour from the Park & Ride where her car was parked.
“So,” Melisa said, her voice a little softer than before, and Melinda’s neck prickled. “Did you and Grant get along okay, after he explained what was going on and who he was?”
And like a movie, a stream of images flashed in front of her eyes. Grant swinging the maul over his head as he split wood. Grant’s eyes closed in pleasure as he ate her food. Grant’s eyes locked on hers as he moved inside her, just that morning. Her pulse quickened and her heart wrenched. This was madness.
“Yes,” she managed.
“He’s a really decent guy, from what Paul’s told me,” Melisa continued lightly. “Did you guys get to know each other at all?”
That was one way to put it. But how much to tell her? How much to admit? To Melisa? To herself? Would the people they had briefly become have any place in the real world? And was their affair even worth exposing to the light of day?
Melinda didn’t know. The amount she didn’t know was suddenly significantly more than she could bear, and her tenuous grip on sanity slipped away. Everything slipped away. She stared at the dashboard, at her hands limp on her jeans, at the freeway beyond the windshield. Her lungs tightened, a self-made corset that cinched her waist and robbed her of breath.
How much did the other woman suspect? Clearly something, given her careful phrasing. Would she empathize, or would she judge Melinda as being easy, for letting her kidnapper have his way with her?
Melinda felt easy. What’s worse, she felt empty. Where was Grant now? Was he, at this very moment, drinking a beer and laughing at how the dumb chick had given it up, not once, but twice?
Melinda’s face fell into her waiting hands. Back hunched, eyes squeezed shut, the tears pushed their way out of her. She wept. She sobbed with heaving shoulders and whimpers from deep in her throat. She cried until her sense of self was gone.
And then, suddenly, awkwardly, with one last shaky inhale, it was over.
Well, that didn’t take very long.Her sarcasm was still intact, if not her pride. What was that, a three-minute breakdown?
Melisa was still waiting for an answer.
Melinda wiped her eyes. “Um,” she began. “Would you believe me at this point if I said no?” She was grateful for the compassion she heard in Melisa’s low chuckle.
“Absolutely.” The other woman’s face went impassive. “Totally plausible.” Then a smile tugged the corner of her mouth and she sighed.
“Okay, yeah. I thought, or I imagined, that I had seen something between you two up there,” Melisa said. She turned for a moment to catch Melinda’s eye. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I guess. Well, no. I mean...No? Yes? I don’t know. I don’t know anything.” The tears took Melinda again. What the hell was happening to her? She jammed her knuckles into her eyes and rubbed hard to stem the grief. Grief about what? A weekend hookup? Ugh. She laid her palms on her legs and squeezed firmly, determined to not hide behind her hands again.
Melisa strummed a rhythm on the steering wheel. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. Yes. I don’t even know,” Melinda laughed at her flip-flop answers. Wasn’t there anyone else in whom she could confide? No, actually, there wasn’t. “You know what, why not? Not that I know what the hell to tell you. Where do I start? The beginning’s the obvious choice. Okay.”
She hesitated to relive the clawing dread of the back of the Mercedes.
“The beginning was terrible. He was so bloody cold. He thought I was you, and role-playing, and he got pissed. But after that drive, he was...” She stole Melisa’s word.“Decent. He just kept showing up for me and was so strong. He really cared that I felt safe, and empowered, even as we were stuck in that place. He gave me my own space, let me have the kitchen, kept me warm...”
Her pause was more incriminating than the phrasing itself.
“Bloody hell.” She wrestled with the wording, the rules, the truth. “I just don’t know if it’s real!” she burst out. “I don’t know if anything outside of that place is real. How could it be? How could we be anything to each other out here?”
She pinned Melisa with a glare. “How could he and I be real in the stupid so-called real world? How could it work? It couldn’t. Nothing works long-term out here. Everything is upstaged by the next best thing. Everyone leaves, eventually.” Her gaze slipped from Melisa’s profile to the road, and she saw they were almost to the Park & Ride. Great. Way to keep it together.
Perhaps cued by something in Melinda’s voice, Melisa kept silent as she engaged the turn signal and steered the car toward the exit. She followed the ramp off the freeway and turned onto 44th, then Ward Road, then into the lot.
Melinda stared silently at the rows of snow-covered cars. She hadn’t seen this many vehicles since she’d dropped her car here Friday morning. Was it really only Wednesday? Friday was a lifetime ago. Why were there so many cars? Where were all these people? Why weren’t they at home and making the most of their running water and electricity? After her brush with scarcity, the audacity of abundance was discomfiting.
Melinda couldn’t tell which marshmallowed car was hers. What’s the food parallel for death by marshmallows? Something to do with Willy Wonka.
“Just tell me where I should go,” Melisa said as she idled the car near the entrance.
As if Melinda could remember.
