The Open Road

by Quinn Loftis

Charity showed Samantha the picture she’d taken of her while she was sleeping. Samantha made another groaning sound. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking at the swollen mass of purple flesh that was the left side of her face.

  “Don’t apologize,” said Charity. “We’re just happy you’re okay … well, relatively okay.”

  “What time is it?” Sam asked, starting to feel drowsy again.

  “Nine,” said Jessica. “I’ve already called Tran and Brenda. “They both said to just call them in a couple of days and let them know how you feel about coming back to work. Brenda might stop by during lunch break tomorrow with some of the other girls from work.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Tran took it badly. I’ve never heard anything like it. He started screaming in Vietnamese at the top of his lungs. I couldn’t understand his words, but I got the meaning. I think he’s out on the streets right now trying to hunt Derek down.”

  “I wish Tran would catch the son of a bitch and shove bamboo shoots under his fingernails,” said Charity.

  “That would be nice,” said Samantha as she drifted off again.

  * * *

  Jason opened the bottle of sleeping pills and sat it down on the table in front of him. Then he opened the bottle of antidepressants and sat them next to the sleeping pills. His worn picture of Bethany, Hannah, and Chloe lay flat on the table beside them, along with a tepid glass of water.

  The RV was parked in a campground in Albany, NY, where it had sat for a week after he’d driven there from Maine. The pitter patter of a weak rain shower echoed on the roof. When he’d arrived at the campground seven days ago, Jason had levelled the motorhome, hooked up the plumbing and electricity, and gone back inside. He’d yet to emerge since that time.

  The RV’s air conditioner hummed ubiquitously in the background. Jason, always hot natured, found that he ran the air conditioner full blast almost all the time. Had Bethany been there, she would have been freezing, most likely dressed in a hoodie and wrapped in a blanket. At home, when she would ask if he’d turn down the A/C, he’d always volunteer to warm her up with his body heat. Sometimes, she actually took him up on the offer.

  Jason picked up the sleeping pill bottle and dumped the entire contents in his hand. Then he picked up the antidepressants and tipped those into his hand as well. He felt the weight of the pills, mixing them around with his finger. His phone rang. With his free hand, he fished it out of his pocket. He smirked when he recognized the sender. How many pills could I swallow at once? The phone eventually stopped ringing.

  Jason dumped the pills with a clatter onto the table. He lined them up. Alternating colors, pink for antidepressant, white for sleeping. His phone rang again. Again, he ignored it. The pills had been prescribed for him by a doctor friend of his brother, Jordan, not long after the accident. Other than a split across his forehead that required twenty-two stitches, a rather serious concussion, and a broken ankle, physically, Jason had escaped the accident mostly intact. He had weaned himself off the painkillers quickly and easily. But these pink and white pills had been given to him for the mental anguish. Though Jordan had constantly badgered him about taking care of himself, Jason had refused to take anything to dull the pain he felt over Bethany’s loss. He’d been prescribed a month’s supply of each. All sixty pills were now arrayed across the table.

  His phone beeped. Charity had left a voice mail. He didn’t check it. She, Samantha, and even Jessica had called him several times over the past week. He couldn’t talk to them. If he did, he might lose the strength to do what was necessary.

  He began separating the pills into sets of five. He wasn’t sure what would happen when he started, so he decided to begin swallowing the twelve piles one by one as quickly as possible, so as to make sure the job got done. His phone beeped again. It was a text message from Charity. He picked the phone up and read the message.

  Call me NOW!

  Jason hesitated, thinking for a second he might actually call Charity back. But then he sat it back down. He knew what she’d say. She would berate him for being such a coward and ignoring Samantha’s calls and emails. And he would deserve it. That was the worst part. Everything Charity would say would be true. Every name she would call him would be appropriate. Samantha had been amazing. She had been doing everything she could to encourage and support him. But the more he got to know her, the more he learned just what a great person she was, the further he fell for her and the more scared he became.

  It was no longer that he thought he was somehow cheating on Bethany or dishonoring her memory. He knew Bethany would want him to be happy. But Jason just couldn’t take the risk of falling in love again. If he could lose the woman he loved once, it could happen again. The pain of the first loss was still too much. He needed to end the pain now.

  His phone beeped again—another text message from Charity. This one was a picture. Jason stared it at for a moment, trying to make sense of the image. It looked like a purple gourd with facial features. One side of the gourd was swollen and puffy. One of the eyes was black, completely swollen shut. The other, though barely visible through the narrowed slit, was bright green. Recognizing a hospital bed and the long curly tresses surrounding the swollen face, Jason jumped to his feet. When he did, his hip struck the table, scattering pills across the floor. He cursed and punched the screen of his phone to call Charity while simultaneously flinging the door to the RV open. In the brief space of time before she answered on the first ring, he’d already unhooked the motorhome’s electricity.

  “What the hell is going on?” He barked into the phone, not bothering to wait for her to say hello. He held the phone trapped between his ear and shoulder while he unhooked the water and sewer hoses. He left them where they fell and scrambled back inside the rig. He punched the button to lift the leveling jacks, cursing their slowness while Charity explained what had happened with Derek and why Samantha’s face was now the same color as an eggplant. By the time Charity had finished the story, the city of Albany was in Jason’s rearview mirror.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Samantha couldn’t tell if she was dreaming or hallucinating. She’d thought the intravenous painkillers would knock her out, but she hadn’t expected them to cause her to imagine things. But she was definitely hearing things that weren’t there—primarily, Jason O’Neal’s low voice whispering to someone in the room.

  “I can’t believe this happened,” she heard him say. “I had no idea that Derek guy was capable of this.”

  That sounds like Jason, but it can’t be. Jason is dead. I could tell from his last video. He’s gone and he’s not coming back.

  Then Samantha heard Charity’s voice. “Psh, she didn’t tell you he liked to smack her around?

  “No, she must have forgot to mention that part.”

  Jason’s voice again.

  “The girl is too damn stubborn for her own good.”

  That certainly sounds like the real Charity.

  “She’s going to be mad at me when she wakes up, isn’t she?”

  Jason again. Samantha thought hard. Who was Jason talking about? Why would anyone be mad at a hallucination? Then she remembered everything that happened. She remembered falling to pieces in Charity’s car when she watched Jason’s last video and thought she’d never see him again.

  “You think? She thought you were dead. Do you really think she needs that right now? I know you’ve gone through some terrible stuff, Jason, but you’ve got to realize the world doesn’t revolve around you. You’ve got to consider how your actions affect other people.”

  Charity is using her mother hen voice. I have heard that voice directed at me too many times. But why is she using it now? If this was a figment of my imagination, I certainly wouldn’t be imagining Charity giving a lecture.

  “You’re right,” said Jason. “I know now. Speeding across the country in the middle of the night, worried that someone you love is hurt, tends to put things in perspective.”

  “Someone that you wha
t?” Samantha croaked.

  Jason was at her bedside in an instant, his blue eyes staring down at her. Samantha reached up and touched his face, still not entirely sure he was real. She felt the unruly dark beard that had grown there.

  “Ouch!” he said as she grabbed a handful of it and yanked as hard as she could, though she didn’t know how hard that might be, being drugged and semi-conscious as she was.

  “What the heck was that for?”

  “First, to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. And second, for letting me think you were dead, asshole.”

  “That was a bit of a dick move, Jason,” said Charity.

  “If it wasn’t for you, I would be dead,” he said to Samantha.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

  “I’ll explain later,” he replied. “I think you need some rest.”

  “Uh, no,” she said, pushing herself up on the pillows so she could get a better look at them. “You haven’t answered my calls for two weeks, and you think you’re just going to show up here out of the blue and start telling me what I need. Not a chance, you weirdo, vagabond RV guy. You can just jump right back in that motorhome and head out the way you came for all I care. Get out of here before I have the nurse call security.”

  “I guess I deserve that,” he said, not moving away from her bed.

  “You do,” said Sam, turning away.

  “Far be it from me to defend Marbles here,” said Charity. “But Jason did drive all night from New York to get here. Maybe you could hear him out, Sam.”

  She turned back to face them and raised her eyebrows. “Oh, really. Jason drove from New York, did he? How nice. He was in New York? That’s something I might have known if Jason had bothered to answer his damn phone and TALK TO ME!”

  Jason and Charity cringed. Jason held up his hands. “You’re right. You are so right and I’m sorry, Sam. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. You deserve so much better than that.”

  “You’re damn right I deserved better than that. I care about you. I was worried sick.”

  The door opened and a nurse stuck her head in. “Everything alright in here?” She cast an accusing glance at Jason. No one said anything for several seconds, then Sam finally responded.

  “It’s fine. This idiot was just about to try to explain why he is such an idiot. I’m interested … for now.”

  “Just hit the button if you need anything,” said the nurse.

  Samantha crossed her arms. “Okay, go ahead, Jason. Try to justify ignoring me for two weeks.” She narrowed her eyes as much as she could with a bruised and swollen face. “Try to justify letting me think you were dead.”

  “Listen, there is nothing, nothing, I can say to justify what I did. I’m not trying to. I was wrong. I am sorry. But what I said was true. If not for you, I’d be dead. I was just about to take my own life because I couldn’t handle the pain any longer. Charity called just in time.”

  Samantha narrowed her eyes. “Oh, so you’re answering Charity’s calls then. Is it just me you’re ignoring?”

  “No, I was ignoring her, too. She’s been ringing my phone off the hook and I haven’t answered. But she sent the picture of you in the hospital, and it came up on my phone’s preview screen. When I saw you, I had to come.”

  Samantha just stared at him, clenching her teeth, which caused her swollen face to throb, but she didn’t care. The pain felt good in that moment. She needed it to help her focus. Jason had acted like a total selfish jackass. What he did was almost unforgiveable. Almost. But Samantha understood why he did it. And she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have done the same thing in his place. How many times had she acted foolishly to avoid having her heart broken again?

  “The deal is still on,” she said after several minutes.

  “What deal?” he asked, a confused look on his face.

  “La Madia. As soon as I get out of here. And I’m ordering every dessert on the menu.”

  Jason smiled. “You can have two of every dessert, and I’ll take you out for ice cream afterward if that’s what you want.”

  “Hold on. Pump the brakes, Marbles. She still has to fit into a bridesmaid’s dress,” said Charity.

  “There’s still time to have it altered,” said Samantha. “I need ice cream.”

  “And you’ve got to fit into a suit,” said Charity.

  “Me? Why me?” Jason asked.

  “Because my wedding is in less than two weeks. Now that you’re here, you’re staying for it.”

  “Oh, you want me at your wedding now?”

  “You came for my girl when I called. It took longer than it should have, and you’ve been acting like a complete and total jackass lately, but you came and that’s what matters. So, I guess you can come to the wedding.”

  “Okay, Charity, I’ll come to your wedding, on one other condition.”

  Charity raised her eyebrows. “Another condition? Okay, what now?”

  “Tell me why you keep calling me Marbles.”

  * * *

  Samantha slept the rest of the night and most of the morning. By the time lunch came around, she was awake and stir crazy, out of the bed and pacing her room. Jason and Charity watched her, their heads swinging back and forth to track her movements. No matter how many times they told her to relax and rest, she refused.

  “When is that stupid doctor going to get by here and let me go home? I’m ready to get out of here.” Samantha said.

  “Uh, you’re not going home,” said Charity. “What are you thinking?”

  “What do you mean I’m not going home?” Sam asked.

  “You can’t go back there. Your scummy landlord probably hasn’t even gotten your door fixed yet. And you’re not staying anywhere that Derek can find you.”

  “No, no,” said Samantha. “Before you even say it, I’m not staying with you. Brent doesn’t need a battered woman sleeping on his couch right before his wedding. You two should be like a couple of happy rabbits right now. I’m not getting in the way of that.”

  Charity rolled her eyes. “Brent doesn’t care,” she argued.

  “No,” Sam said firmly.

  “Uh, I might have a solution,” said Jason. “I do have an extra fold-out bed in the RV. You can have the big bed, and I can sleep on the fold-out.”

  Samantha stopped her pacing and stared at him. She narrowed her eyes. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked. “We haven’t even had a date yet and you’re already asking me to move in with you?”

  Jason shrugged. “Fair point. How about this?” he asked, raising his hands. “You can sleep in my RV. I’ll stay in a hotel.”

  “I couldn’t take your RV. That’s ridiculous.”

  “No, it’s not. I’m happy to let you have it. I owe you anyway for being such an ass.”

  “I’ll go back home and stay with my mom. I should probably tell her what happened anyway, if I can find her. I’m not taking your motorhome.”

  “No,” said Charity vehemently. “Samantha, you are not going home. That’s the first place Derek will look for you.”

  “I insist,” Jason said. “Derek would have no idea where to find you.”

  “Then I’ll stay in the hotel.”

  “No offense, Sam, but I don’t think you can afford a hotel. And the RV is so much more comfortable. You will love it.”

  “Okay, fine,” she finally agreed. “Now, one of you two go find that damn doctor so I can go see my new rolling house.”

  * * *

  The rest of the week was a whirlwind of activity. Samantha wanted to rest, and she spent as much time as she could in Jason’s RV, which was parked in a picturesque national park not far from town. He had been right about one thing: the RV was comfortable. The bed was memory foam, and Jason had satellite TV on a flat screen. Samantha wasn’t accustomed to such luxuries. Unfortunately, she couldn’t spend the entire time lounging in the comfort of Jason’s motorhome. She had no idea if her slumlord had fixed her apartment door, and Charity’s wedding was rapidly approa
ching.

  Samantha called Brenda and told her she’d like to take the rest of the week off from Caldwell Insurance. Brenda assured Sam she had plenty of PTO built up and to take as much time as she needed. Without telling Charity, Jason, or Jessica, Samantha went by Roanoke’s Roasters and quit her coffee shop job. Over the past six months, she’d finally scraped up enough money to at least get her head above water. She’d paid the credit card off and almost had the rent-to-own furniture paid off too. The coffee shop had been great to her during her time with Derek. But now, she felt like being tied to it was holding her back. She still couldn’t pull into the parking lot without remembering Derek’s squealing truck tires as he drove off and left her there seven months ago.

  Samantha was actually thankful her face was still covered with ugly purple bruises. Even Tran had to have sympathy for her in that condition. If she’d tried to quit Roasters otherwise, he would have lost it. As it was, he still lost it, but he directed his fury toward Derek instead. He swore to her that he would find Derek one day and castrate him. Sam didn’t think for a second he was joking. She noticed Tran had put a picture of Derek behind the counter with a red circle and a slash through it. She had no idea where he’d gotten the picture, but she appreciated the gesture. Samantha promised to come by and visit Tran whenever she could, which mollified him somewhat.

  “You no come by,” said Tran sadly. He didn’t even shout it. “You gone soon.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “You leave with sad internet boy. Tran know what coming.”

  “That’s silly, Tran. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Bye, bye, washerwoman. Tran see you on open road.” And that was all she could get out of him.

  A couple of times during the week, Jason came by and took her to breakfast. The other days, he made her breakfast in the RV. They spent the days running errands and touring Roanoke, Samantha showing Jason the sights, as well as showing him where she grew up and where she went to school.