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"I actually don't have anyone to call." She let out a long sigh. "Everyone I know is working right now. It would take five minutes to drive me to the gas station. I have a gas can right there in my car. Pleeease."
She was distraught. It seemed as if she'd been crying. I had been in situations where I couldn't get to work, and I felt for her. There was no one traveling on this road, and I remembered what it felt like to be stranded with a car that wouldn't start.
"Okay," I said, knowing I was fifteen or twenty minutes early.
"I'll grab my gas can." She ran back to her car, popped the trunk, and came back with a gas can.
In the moment, I was distracted by questioning myself about stopping to help her. I was too distracted to notice that there was something off. Her gas can was small, and she brought it into the driver's seat with her. I was starting to ask her to put it into the back of my Jeep, but she set it at her feet and began talking so quickly that I didn't have the chance.
"This way," she said. "There's a gas station about one mile that way. I need to hurry if you don't mind. I really have to get to work, or my boss is going to fire me."
"What do you do for work?"
"I work at, uh, Moody Gardens."
I paused and looked her over, but I was trying to get there and back to Alec as quickly as I could, so I took off quickly and headed down the road. I could smell that gas can, but it would have been the same in the back of my Jeep.
"What part of Moody Gardens?" I asked, making absentminded conversation as I thought of the gas can. I was so excited to see Alec that I was bummed at myself for stopping. We passed the gate at the entrance of his road, and I told myself that I would have been almost at his house by now. I drove for a moment. I was thinking about Alec when she said his name.
"Alec used to be mine," she said in an eerie monotone.
My head snapped in her direction, and I stared at her. I hit the brakes, not caring who was behind me. There was no one. No one witnessed what came next. What happened in the next minute was the most unexpected thing that had ever happened in my entire life.
The woman, I hadn't asked her name, bent down, picked up the gas can, and spilled it on me as she brought it back up. She turned it upside down, letting it spill onto my legs and the floorboard of the Jeep at my feet. It was so sudden and unexpected that I shrieked and jerked, pushing the gas can off of myself and onto her.
Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to stop the Jeep. The can was small and it wasn't full, so not that much gas spilled out. But I could feel it on me, and the stench of gasoline made it difficult to breathe. I wasn't about to get killed by some psycho woman.
My instincts kicked in. I parked the Jeep and opened the door. I basically fell out of it. I hit the ground with my feet moving. I turned and ran toward Alec's house, feeling like I could not move fast enough. I smelled the stench of gasoline, and I felt light-headed.
"Stop or I'm going to shoot you!"
It was a panicked yell and she was not messing around. I heard her yell the words at my back, and I froze, knowing that she had just poured gasoline on me and she was serious. I was not far enough away from her to feel safe from a gunshot, so I reluctantly stopped running. My ears were ringing and I begged myself to keep it together and think of a way to get out of this. Maybe I could reason with her. I turned slowly and realized, to my own horror, that she did have a gun. I put up my hands, showing her my palms as I stepped back toward her slowly. I needed to reason with her. I asked God to help me with a prayer of no more than five words. She was looking at me, and I gave her a pleading expression.
"What do you want from me?" I asked.
She held eye contact with that crazed look in her eyes. She was holding a small pistol, and my heart pounded violently as I imagined the impossibility of stopping whatever came out of there. I begged myself to stay calm even though I felt like curling up into a ball.
"I haveno problemsharing Alec, but he hasinformed methat you don't want to share!"
"Share? What does that mean? What are we supposed to be sharing?"
"Alec! I've been sharing him for five years! I've donenothing butshare him. He's with me one week, and the next, he's in Paris with some other girl named Camille." Her eyes widened in a crazed look. "He doesn't even try to hide it! He comes back to Houston, back to me, and I pretend everything's fine, and then he's got some other girl he's talking to or taking pictures with the next day. He leaves meall the time!But you know what? He always comes back. Always. Until now. I haven't seen him in months." There was profanity interjected throughout everything she was saying, and she spoke slowly and stared at me like she actually might use that gun she was holding. I had no plan. I could feel tears begin to well in my eyes. I stood there, on the side of the road, staring at her, begging myself not to cry. There was gasoline on my legs and clothes. My heart was pounding and I reeked.
Physically, she was a beautiful person, but she was absolutely mad with jealousy, and I was terrified of her. Before this moment, I had no idea she existed. She was Alec's long-term fling, and the feelings she had for him were apparently serious. She was not playing around.
I hated the thought of anyone besides me loving Alec, and that, more than anything, caused me to feel lightheaded and full of panic and anxiety. There was a gun pointed at me and gasoline on my clothes, and yet I still felt jealous.
And then somehow, in the midst of all that chaos, I felt sudden stillness, calmness, and peace. The whole situation was extremely scary, but I suddenly wasn’t scared. It was a supernatural change of perspective—the kind I wish I could access any time.
I took a deep breath, looking directly at her. I felt in my heart that she didn't want to hurt me. Even the whole gasoline thing had seemed weak and reluctant compared to what she could have done. I felt a sort of confidence in that moment that only God could have given me.
I stared down the barrel of that gun. She was shaking and I was calm. Even if she killed me it didn't matter. I was going to be okay.Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…
And it was the truth. I feared no evil in that moment. I normally wasn’t the type of person to say what I said next, but I felt that extreme circumstances called for extreme measures. "Can I ask you an important question? Have you ever accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?"
"What?" she said. She squinted at me like I had lapsed into a foreign language.
"Jesus," I said. "Have you ever accepted Him as your personal Lord and Savior?" It wasn't abnormal for my voice to shake when I was in a high-pressure situation, but I felt uncharacteristically calm and confident as I spoke to her.
