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Had sex with me while I was passed out.
Dumped me in the desert to die.
I winced as I turned my head back to look up at the sky.
“Thanks a lot, God. I guess this is the infamous rock bottom I’ve heard so much about.” I chuckled. “That’s what this is, rock bottom, and there are even real rocks. How ironic. So God, what do you have to say about all this? Am I worth it? Those so-called Christians back home don’t think so.”
I looked across the open sky, the sunshine burning more freckles onto my face. I realized I could lay there talking to a God I wasn’t sure cared about me, or I could get up and figure out what to do next. I could worry about all the trauma, the memories, the church, and the doctors later.
For now, I had to survive.
That started with standing, trying to anyway. One of my feet was bare and the other shoved halfway into a dirty sock, more evidence of what happened to me last night. Hell, it could’ve been last week since I didn’t have my phone or any clue what day it was. Standing wasn’t easy, my left ankle throbbed with pain, but I was determined to survive for some reason that even I couldn’t understand.
I picked up my pants and put them on. Slowly. I ignored the pain of desert debris digging in the bottoms of my feet, ignoring the warmth of the blood as it broke my skin. I didn’t care, I was desperate.
As far as the eye could see, I had an unbroken view of bleak desert sand and scrub. Brown with only a few specks of green in all directions. No signs of the engine I’d heard earlier, which meant I was far from the highway and any remnants of civilization.
I turned as best as I could in 360 degrees. There was nothing.
I was stuck in the damn desert, all alone and injured. Lost and no one knew or cared where I was. After telling Maisie that Ashby Manor wasn’t my home and would never be again, she was probably finally done with me, too.
“Well, that’s it then.” I was completely and totally on my own, a state that I needed to get used to if I was going to make it out of this desert alive. Or this life. I tried to walk forward, hoping it would bring me close to any kind of road that could get me to a police station or fire department. Some kind of assistance.
But once again, my plans were thwarted by…me. Twenty feet into the journey, my ankle gave out completely. I limped a few more feet before the pain became too unbearable, and I collapsed onto the ground once more. Again and again it happened. I limped a few feet and collapsed. Limped a few feet and collapsed.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” I shouted at no one in particular, not even God because now I knew he wasn’t there. I was sure of it. I was too angry to give a damn anymore.
All the pain I felt, both physical and mental, was channeled into the anger I suspected would be the only thing that could possibly push me to keep going.
Going one agonizing step at a time, I managed to put distance between where I was dumped and potential rescue. Safety.
The anger helped me. It fueled me, so instead of running from my anger the way I always ran from negative emotions, I embraced it. I acknowledged the anger at my parents and at God, and I let it consume me, shouting my anger at the sky.
“You motherfuckers! You abandoned me! You built my life on a mountain of lies and abandoned me!” It was unfair. No it was more than unfair. It was downright cruel. They’d prepared me for a world that never existed and then tossed me into a reality I was unprepared to handle.
As far as I was concerned, all of my anger was justified. At Mother and Father. At God. Even at Calvin. Perhaps at him most of all because Calvin committed the most grievous sin.
“You made me believe, for a fraction of a second, that there were good guys in the world!” He’d touched me so gently as if I were precious to him, someone to be cherished rather than trashed.
He’d kissed me like he loved me, and even though I knew that wasn’t true, it felt true at the moment. Every caress and kiss was seared into my brain and I hated it. I hated it because it reminded me of the last time I believed in anything or anyone.
Every time I closed my eyes and relived that night and that morning, all I could see was the hope and wonder I felt. That maybe my current path in life wasn’t the one I was destined to trod forever, and that maybe I’d find a nice guy like Cal to settle down with and live a normal life.
