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Chapter 25
Before we knew it,it was time to go back to Oakville. Penny had picked up a few gifts for her family, and I found a little ballerina bear that Nat was going to love.
Ryker walked us to the van and I spend an awkwardly long time kissing him goodbye while my long suffering friend sat in the passenger seat scrolling Facebook on her phone.
We were leaning against the back of it, at least, so it wasn’t like we were making out right next to her or anything.
When we drove away, it was harder than I thought it would be. I watched him in the rear window as he got smaller and smaller and finally disappeared as we turned a corner and I felt as if I’d lost a piece of myself. As if I’d never see him again.
“Don’t be silly, before you know it you’ll be spending so much time with him you’ll get sick of it,” Penny reassured me as I stewed in my own misery.
“You can’t know that,” I said, a little more sullen than I intended, but I was depressed and filled to the brim with sexual frustration with a healthy dose of constant fear running in the background. I was not okay, mentally. And yet, I was better than I’d been when I was living in a fog being used and abused. Life was so fucked up sometimes.
“Just call it my sixth sense,” she told me. “I swear, it’s not like I can see it clearly or anything, but I have a good feeling about you two.
We drove back to Oakville taking the scenic route. It wasn’t as fast as the main way, but we loved the meandering roads through farmland and country estates. It was like a tradition of ours, to stop at this one farm store on the return trip to pick up fresh eggs and butter and maybe some sweet bread if there was any left.
“I hope they have cinnamon,” Penny said as she pulled down the long, gravel driveway. “You know I could eat that until the cows come home.”
“I think they’re already home,” I said and pointed to a herd of black and white ones grazing along the driveway.
“You know what I mean, dork,” she snorted and for a few minutes, I was a normal girl again. Hanging out with Penny always made me feel like I was just a boring teenager with the usual teen girl problems. It was refreshing.
Much to her delight, they did have Penny’s favorite bread, and I even picked up some cookies for the guys later. Chocolate chip, I figured you could never go wrong with them.
We drove out and hit the road again, but it was starting to get a little dark. It began to rain partway back to Oakville so the drive slowed right down as Penny looked out the water blurred windshield and gripped the wheel.
We were pretty close to home when she said, “Fucking hell, just go around me, you jerk.”
“What’s going on?” I asked and turned in my seat to look behind us.
“This asshole has been following us since the farm, and they’re getting closer. They have really bright lights, though, and they’re bugging the hell out of me.”
“That’s the worst,” I said and looked again to find bright lights flooding the interior of the van. “Can you pull over a little and put your indicators on? Maybe they’ll go around us.”
“Good idea,” she said. “The road is a little narrow, but it might be okay.”
She slowed even more and clicked the left turn signal on. She edged over to the side of the road and I felt the gravel catch the tires, pulling her sharply towards the ditch.
“Oh fuck!” I exclaimed and held onto my side of the dashboard, preparing for an abrupt stop.
“Oh my god!” she shrieked and gripped the wheel. By some lucky accident, the edge of the road had widened out at that spot just enough for us to avoid driving down into the deep ditch.
We stopped dead, and a huge vehicle came up behind us, whirred around, barely missing the van, and kept going into the night. They must have been going really fucking fast, because I could barely make out what kind it even was as they sped by.
“It’s always the assholes in those giant SUVs, right?” Penny said, taking a deep breath and releasing the wheel. She stretched her fingers out and took another breath.
I joined her, inhaling and exhaling as I processed what had just happened.
“That was close,” I said as the rain pounded down on the windshield and the wipers kept slapping back and forth. “Was it an SUV? I thought I saw a truck.”
“No, definitely one of those gigantic SUVs, the big black ones those mega families drive to church on Sundays. It was probably the Scanlans, they have two of them and about a hundred kids. More souls for God or something.”
I shook my head and made a sound of disgust. “At least we aren’t down there.”
I pointed to the ditch and she nodded vigorously. “I hope there’s no damage on the van, my mom will kill me.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” I said. “We should get back, though. You know she’ll start phoning if we’re not in the kitchen sitting at her table by dinner.”
