They’d come into the diner when they obviously knew I’d be working, so they weren’t trying to avoid me, but they also weren’t going out of their way to reassure me about anything. It was a strange position. I was at a nearby table when I heard my friends whispering at their table.
“I just want to talk to her,” Lauren said.
“You need to stay out of it,” Carter said. “Let them figure it out themselves.”
Lauren let out a sigh, and I instantly felt terrible. Clearly, something needed to change. I didn’t want to be the cause of any problems happening between my dear friend and her partner.
I made a pact with myself as I went to the kitchen to pick up a fresh order. That evening when I got off from my shift, I would find him. I promised myself I would find him and tell him about my fears and my questions and let him fill in his side of it.
There was no denying how I felt about him. I really wanted to be with him and could see myself one day settling down as his wife and a mother, but there was no way I could ever come close to that place in my life if I couldn’t talk to him. Running from Deacon because my insecurity reared up didn’t exactly bode well for a healthy, happy partnership.
When I had a moment, I took out my phone and opened up a message to Deacon. I stared at it for several seconds, trying to decide what I was going to say. Finally, I just typed in a simple message, asking if we could talk that night.
I hoped I hadn’t ruined what Deacon and I had before I could really make it work for us. I hadn’t even given us a chance together, but now I wanted nothing more than to try to find my way back to him. I was ready to make my daydreams about Deacon come true.
25
DEACON
We need to talk.
That was all the message said. I read it a hundred times, wondering if there was more, waiting for a follow-up message or some color to the conversation. When none came, I realized that was all I was going to get through text. Just as well. I still wasn’t great at it.
The main worry was that she was brushing me off. That saying those words, with the loaded way they are interpreted in any relationship, was a way of telling me it was over already. Either way, I decided not to respond immediately. I wanted to give myself a little bit of time to reply.
I didn’t want to be a dick. I knew that my frustration could very easily bubble over, and I could say something that would only make the situation wildly worse. It would be very easy for me to take a situation that might resolve itself if we did talk and destroy it to the point where talking wouldn’t solve anything. Assuming it could, anyway.
My mind was racing, and I knew I just needed a little bit of time to figure out how to respond. Not a lot of time. Just a little bit. Maybe just until I could get home. Then I would be able to settle into some comfortable clothes, have a single beer to calm the nerves a bit and take the edge off, and then hunker down for a long conversation.
The wind had picked up badly out of nowhere, and I was surprised by gusts that blew on the truck as I drove up the mountain toward the cabin. It was enough that I swerved a little on the first big one, nearly going into oncoming traffic.
Instinctively, I reached for the radio and turned down the volume. I wanted to concentrate better on what was going on around me, and for whatever reason, the music was distracting me. Turning it low kept it on so I had it in the background, but I kept my eyes peeled on the road and focused on driving without being blown around.
As I turned a sharp corner, I heard a cracking sound that I recognized instantly as danger.
Then, the world went haywire. The crunching sound of heavy wood on metal filled my ears, and I yelled out. I slammed on the brakes and tried to pull toward the side of the road.
The crunching sound got louder. Another smashing sound hit above me, and I looked up. The ceiling of the truck was caving in. I snapped my eyes forward as light filled the cabin and glass broke all around me. The last thing I saw was leaves, impossibly large and close leaves, streaming into the truck and flying into my face.
Then everything went black.
A beeping sound. Faint, repetitive, and constant. It was coming from just beside me, and my brain told my body to turn and look at it. But nothing moved. It was as if the signal was met by resistance, my body telling my brain that under no circumstances did it have enough energy to do what was being requested.