“That thing is supposed to always work,” Vanessa said, sounding panicky.
“I’m sure that means that there’s nothing serious to report,” I said, even though I was a bit worried myself. “Anyway, this old truck has seen worse. You know that.”
“I know,” she said, but she reached for my hand, squeezing it tightly enough that I could feel my bones grinding together. “You know that I hate storms like this, though.”
“I know,” I said. “But we’re going to be fine. I promise.”
“We’re so far from town, though!” Vanessa rapidly sounded more worried as I kicked the windshield wipers up to top speed.
“We’ll be fine,” I said again, not having the heart to tell her that her panicking was only making me more stressed, and I was the one driving the car. To be fair, driving off the road wouldn’t be too bad: the most I might hit would be a fence. And I drove slowly enough that it likely wouldn’t even do that much damage to the truck. But at the same time, I knew that if we went off the road, Vanessa would go into full panic mode, and I didn’t want that to happen.
I peered through the rain, trying to look for any markers that would show we were still going in the right direction. I hoped that I would not lose control and hydroplane. “We’ve got to be almost to the middle of it now,” I muttered under my breath, even though it was more of a prayer than anything else. For all I knew, this thing could be a few miles across, and I had no idea how long it would take to cross a few miles, when we were crawling along like this.
Suddenly, the radio came back on, interrupted periodically by fits of static. “...urged not to drive anywhere... danger of hydroplaning is very... to pull over and wait for the storm to-”
I reached over and clicked the thing off, glancing at Vanessa’s pale face. “I’m sure it’s fine,” I told her, wishing I could sound more confident. “I’ve driven in stuff like this before.” But the visibility got worse as the sky darkened to true black.
I frowned and then slowly pulled over toward the guardrail at the edge of the road, flicking on the hazard lights. “Maybe we should wait here until it passes,” I said. It wasn’t really a question at that point – there was no way I could keep driving. Where I’d had difficulty seeing out in front of us before, now I couldn’t see much of anything out there.
“How long do you think it’ll take?” Vanessa asked. “And what if someone comes up behind us?”
“The hazard lights are on,” I said, deciding to answer the second question first, since that’s the one that I had a concrete answer to. “Someone has a better chance seeing those than seeing the road, even in a storm like this. We’re the safest we could be.”
“But how long do you think the storm will last?” she asked quietly.
I paused, but I didn’t want to throw out something like “no idea.” I knew that would only make her worry more. “Might be twenty minutes, might be an hour,” I said finally. “It’s too dark to tell which direction it’s moving or how quickly.” I was tempted to pull out my phone and try to look it up, but if it was going to take a while to clear, I didn’t want to have to tell her that.
“Okay,” was Vanessa’s only response.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Vanessa
I knew I shouldn’t let storms like this freak me out, especially since I’d grown up with them. Like Trethan said about driving through them, this wasn’t the first time I’d been out in a storm like this. But all the same, I jumped every time a clap of thunder shook the sky, and I couldn’t quit gnawing on my lower lip.
A bright bolt streaked from the clouds to the ground off to our left. “Do you think that lightning was too close to us?”
Trethan was silent for a moment, considering. But then, he shook his head. “Nah, the thunder didn’t sound until about two seconds after,” he said. “That means it’s almost a mile away. Not quite, but almost.”
“What if it hits us, though?” I asked worriedly. “We’re in a giant metal coffin, basically!”
“We’ll be fine,” he said soothingly. “I don’t remember all the science of it, but I know lightning hits cars all the time and nothing serious happens. Worst that might happen is that the wheels will blow, and then we’ll have to call someone to come help us once the storm has passed.”
“How are you so calm?” I asked him, suddenly irrationally suspicious that he was high or something.
But Trethan just shrugged. “These big storms have never really scared me,” he said. “Actually, they used to fascinate me when I was a kid. I used to go out into the garage and open the door and just sit there watching them. Scariest thing I ever saw was, do you remember that time our shed burnt to the ground?”
Then, he grimaced, clearly regretting having said that. “Not that I think anything is going to happen with this storm,” he said quickly. “Just, I recognize what lightning can do, but we don’t need to be worried about it now.”
“That’s really reassuring,” I said sarcastically, even though I knew I shouldn’t be taking my fear out on him.
He didn’t get offended, though. Instead, he glanced toward the backseat. “Why don’t we get comfortable?” he suggested. “We don’t know how long this storm’s going to last, and I’ve got some blankets back there.”
“What, for the girls that you pick up at the Roasted Bison, so you can fuck at one of the overlooks?” I asked acidly, not even considering my words.
Trethan raised an eyebrow at me, but his tone remained mild. “Actually, they’re there because I took my spare bedding over to the laundromat last week in case I had you over to my place again at some point in the near future, and I hadn’t gotten around to putting it back in the house yet.”
I could feel myself blushing. Even though I knew he couldn’t see how sheepish I must look, given how dark it was, I knew he could hear it in my voice as I apologized.