The Road Back to Us

by K. Webster

  “Care, I’m so sorry. I got held up at the office, but, baby, I just made us so much fucking money and it’s only the beginning. I’m about to give you the life you’ve always wanted.”

  Maybe I don’t want that life anymore.

  Maybe I just want you.

  Of course, those words remain unspoken.

  I’ve just dried my eyes when the door pops open and he jumps back inside.

  “Motherfucker! It’s cold as shit out there!”

  His chocolate-colored hair is white with snow, and his nose is bright red. It reminds me of so many Christmases at his Mom’s, playing in the snow. An ache in my chest surfaces, because even though we are divorcing, I miss those times. If only they’d stayed that way.

  “Did you dig us out?”

  “Yep. Now, let me know if you get a signal on the laptop so I can stop again,” he orders as he puts the car in drive.

  We fishtail a bit but eventually gain traction. The signal flickers between no bars of service and one as we move. At one point, it shows two bars but disappears.

  “Anything?” he asks as we slowly prod along.

  “Nope.”

  After another twenty minutes of driving in silence, Bentley finally speaks—shocker, it isn’t about work.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I flit my eyes over to him. He’s watching the road ahead, both hands gripping the steering wheel hard enough to make his knuckles go white.

  “Your job is important. I get it,” I reply.

  He turns briefly to look at me. “No, I’m sorry that my job has been my number-one priority. Everything I’ve ever done is because I wanted to provide for you. And now”—he laughs bitterly—“it was all for nothing. I’ve lost you anyway.”

  I chew on my lip to keep from crying. “We drifted apart. It happens.”

  When he slams his fist on the steering wheel, I yelp. “Dammit, Care, it wasn’t supposed to happen to us. We were supposed to last. We weren’t supposed to fucking drift apart. How do we fix this? Please tell me we can stop this and figure out a way to be together.”

  His words tug at my heart, but I don’t know that I want to fix this. It’s too far gone.

  Then three bars pop up on the laptop.

  “Signal!” I shout.

  He slams on the brakes on instinct, and my heart skips a beat the moment he does it.

  The snow.

  The dark road.

  The low visibility.

  A sick feeling of dread washes over me as we spin uncontrollably.

  “Shit!” he exclaims as he desperately tries to turn toward the spin so that he can get it under control.

  But the car careens wildly. Thankfully, there are no cars out here, so we aren’t in danger of hitting anyone. We’re more likely to plow into a tree on this road, but that’s not any better.

  The scream that’s been lodged in my throat escapes when my belly drops. Holy shit, we’re airborne. Why in the hell are we airborne?

  “Care!” Bentley yells as he throws a bulky arm across my chest.

  The car slams down, but I can feel that we’re pointing downward. I think we’ve gone off a hill. When the car flips, his laptop flies from my hands and slams against the windshield. I bounce hard in my seat as the ceiling crunches above me, and then my belly flops as we roll again.

  And again.

  And again.

  My head slams against something to the side of me—the window, maybe—and stars burst in my vision. The rest is a blur of crunching, scraping, pounding, and thumping. When we finally slam to a halt, darkness steals me away in an instant before I even have a chance to worry about Bentley.

  “The grocery store is that way.” I point down the road we just passed.

  He slides a warm palm over my bare thigh and squeezes. “I know. I have a surprise for you.”

  Surprise? “I’m not dressed for surprises,” I giggle.

  He grins back. “Baby, you’re actually overdressed for this surprise. I’ll take care of that soon enough though,” he tells me cryptically.

  When he pulls into a fancy, gated building, I gape at him. “Where are we? Who lives here?”

  “We do.”

  “What? We can barely afford our two-bedroom apartment. There’s no way we can afford this luxurious place,” I argue.

  He chuckles as he parks the car. “Come on, Care. I’m taking you to our new home.”

  On the entire elevator ride up to the fifth floor, I get angrier and angrier, because if he’s messing with me, that’s just plain mean. But when he unlocks the door and ushers me inside, I begin to cry. This must be some sort of joke. The loft is absolutely beautiful, with breathtaking views of downtown Vancouver.

  “I did it, Caroline. I finally made us a shit-ton of money. The whole time, I promised you I would. And now, it’s happened. Welcome home, babe.” He envelops me in his strong arms and squeezes me tight.

  “It’s amazing,” I praise before I kiss him roughly.

  After an epic kiss, I pull away from him and unbutton my denim shorts. When they drop to the floor, he lets out an animalistic growl.

  “I’m dressed properly now,” I smile.

  He steps forward and invades me with his heat. Then he hooks his thumbs into my panties, and a shiver quivers through me. A rush of breath leaves me when he begins sliding them down my thighs. Allowing gravity to do its job, he lets them fall around my ankles.

  “Now you’re dressed properly for my surprise,” he murmurs before he falls to his knees and surprises me many times over with that wicked tongue of his.

  Bentley.

  Bentley!

  My eyes are heavy, and I am cold. I’m completely zapped of energy and feel as if I’ve been hit by a truck. I blink several times to run the darkness away and sadly the memory along with it. Holy shit, we’ve been in an accident. Lifting my head, I wince in pain as a migraine slices through it. I raise a shaky hand to my cheek and dust glass from it.

  Am I on my side?

  That means the car is on its side!

  “B-Bentley,” I slur.

  My neck hurts, but I slowly drag it upwards. Then something splatters on my forehead.

  Blood.

  “Bentley!”

  When he groans, I praise God that my husband is still alive.

  The car is still running, and I briefly wonder if we’ll blow up or something.

  “Bentley,” I sob. “Please be okay.”

  He releases another moan into the air above me.

  I need to help him. He’s just hanging in the air, barely held against the seat by his seat belt. Frantically, I unbuckle my own belt and reach for one of his dangling hands. After sliding my hand into his, I squeeze it.

  “Bentley, I’m going to get you out of there. Are you okay?”

  God, I hope he’s okay.

  CAROLINE!

  “Bentley!” she cries out, her voice somehow wading through the fog of my head.

  Where am I?

  What the fuck happened?

  When I manage to crack an eye open, I realize I’m hanging out of my seat. We’ve been in an accident. And it’s all flooding back.

  The loss of control.

  Careening over the side of the fucking hill.

  Flipping countless times until slamming to a stop on our side.

  “Care,” I choke out. My voice is a whisper and my head is killing me.

  “You’re bleeding. Are you okay?” she sobs.

  Her hands are all over me as she checks for injuries. My cheek hurts like a motherfucker and I’m bruised to shit, but other than that, I think I’m fine. When my eyes meet hers, the relief is evident.

  “Fuck, you’re bleeding too,” I grumble.

  She raises a hand to her bloody cheek. “I’m fine.”

  “I want out of this damn seat. Can you help me?”

  “Yes. What do you want me to do?”

  I scan the car to see what we need to do next. Thank fuck that the car is still running and, therefore, pro
viding heat. The windshield is cracked in a million pieces but otherwise intact. Our side windows, however, are both obliterated. In fact, she’s kneeling on snow that’s made its way in. That’s not going to fucking work.

  “Grab my laptop bag from the back, if it’s still there, and cover that snow,” I instruct as I figure out how I’m going to get down without smashing the hell out of my wife.

  She crawls around the side of the seat and finds it. Once she’s made a place to sit that’s not on the snow, she looks back up at me in question.

  “Now, please put your coat on, baby, before you freeze to death.”

  I expect her to cringe at my pet name for her, but she doesn’t. Instead, she scrambles into the back and searches. When she starts to cry, I panic.

  “What’s wrong, Care Bear?”

  “I can’t find my gloves,” she sobs.

  Gloves.

  I’m still wearing my coat from digging the car out of the snow earlier, but I shoved mine into my pocket. Hopefully they’re still there. Reaching into each pocket, I find them.

  “Here. Wear mine.”

  She shakes her head at me, but I toss them to her in the back seat.

  “Stay there. I’m coming down.”

  Now that the dazed feeling has passed, my adrenaline is starting to kick in. I pull my feet out from under the steering wheel and over the center console before I unbuckle. The drop is short, but I’m free.

  “Are the windows broken back there?”

  “Just the one under my feet. The other one is cracked but not broken,” she says, her teeth clattering together from either the cold or adrenaline.

  “Come back up here,” I tell her as I sit on the bag, “It’s warmer up here and with all the snow that’s made it inside, we should huddle together for body heat.”

  When I reach for her, she doesn’t hesitate to take my hand. Then she clambers back into the front. Once she’s close enough, I draw her into my lap.

  “Baby, I’m so sorry,” I murmur as my eyes burn with tears. “I’m a fucking idiot. This is all my fault.”

  Shaking her head, she snuggles against my chest. “No, it wasn’t your fault. It was an accident.”

  I try not to inhale her but she’s in my arms and it is nearly impossible not to do so. God, I’ve missed the way she smells. The scent of her expensive shampoo, the one I secretly love but have never told her, invades my senses.

  “I love this shampoo on you. You smell good,” I blurt out.

  A small giggle escapes her—a giggle I haven’t heard in a long damn time. “I thought you hated it because it was so pricey.”

  “I don’t care if that shit’s a million bucks a bottle. I’d never ask you to stop using it. It smells too damn good on you.”

  “You’ve gone and rattled that brain of yours, Bentley.”

  I kiss the top of her head and inhale the scent again. This feels right. It’s a damn shame that it took hurtling down a goddamned hill to realize this. I suppose I knew that it was right all along but was too much of a stubborn ass to fight for her.

  Now, as snow seeps into my jeans . . .

  As my head pounds like a motherfucker . . .

  As the possibility of the two of us dying before we’re rescued becomes real . . .

  One thing is certain.

  I’ll fight for her. My stupid ass is awake, and now that I have her in my arms, there’s no way I’m ever letting her leave them. Everything can go to hell: my job, my totaled car, our stupid, big-ass loft, her dipshit friend Renée, the divorce. Everything.

  “I’m going to get us out of here, baby,” I promise. I’ll die trying.

  “I know you will, B.”

  Her faith in me has me wanting to pound my fists on my chest like fucking Tarzan.

  “Where’s your purse? Do you have your phone? We need to look for our phones,” I say in a soft whisper.

  My arms are tightly wrapped around her, and even with as sore as I feel, I’d rather just sit and hold her. But I’m not stupid. Our only chance of surviving out here in the middle of fucking nowhere is to get help.

  She reluctantly leaves my clutches to search around on the floorboard. “My purse is gone. I’ll look in the back,” she tells me as she climbs back there.

  As she hunts, I stand and poke my head through the broken driver’s-side window to have a look. It’s dark aside from the moonlight and the one taillight that’s not covered with snow. Both headlights must have busted. The snow has slowed down, but the wind is fierce. I scan the thick forest to see if our phones are out there. I search several times and almost give up, but then I see something.

  “Care, I’m going out there. Stay here,” I instruct as I start to climb out, avoiding the sharp edges where some glass still sticks up.

  “Don’t leave me!” she hisses in terror.

  Before I lose my nerve and crawl back inside to hold her until we die, I quickly hoist myself out of the car. Once outside, I lean back in to meet the terrified eyes of my wife.

  “Baby, I’m just going to look for our phones. I’ll be right back.”

  Tears spill down her cheeks. “Please, Bentley.”

  Leaning forward, I capture her uninjured cheek in my palm. I rest my forehead against hers and promise her with my eyes. Then she surprises me when she lifts up and smashes her lips to mine. The kiss is salty from her tears, and I taste blood. But it’s perfect. It gives me strength.

  “I love you, Caroline,” I tell her as I pull back from her sweet lips.

  She sobs but nods back. I wanted to hear the words, but there isn’t time for that. Slipping away from the car, I once again search the dark woods for the thing that caught my eye.

  Trudging through the thick snow, I attempt to avoid the hidden underbrush, and a couple of times, I nearly twist my ankle. My jeans will be soaked the moment this snow melts, but I’m thankful I exchanged my Versace dress shoes for my hunting boots because my feet are still dry. Something sticks out of the snow about twenty feet up the embankment. After hiking over to it, I discover that it’s the bag of Doritos.

  Score.

  Once I’ve picked it up, I check around it to see if any of the other food is nearby. I locate my unopened Coke a few steps later, but the Snickers is a loss. When I come across a pouch of pistachios, I frown. Caroline and her new fad vegan eating. I’m tempted to leave the funky green nuts in the snow and let some brave squirrel have at them, but I’m not an idiot.

  Nuts are protein.

  Nuts are food.

  Two of which we’re seriously lacking at the moment.

  I pocket the nuts and wade farther up the hill. If I can find a way to climb it, maybe I could flag help down. But as I investigate the steep incline, I realize that it will be too treacherous. It’s too fucking slippery and sharp. One wrong step and I could roll down the hill and break my neck. Not to mention I would never leave her by herself.

  Grumbling, I make my way over to the thing that caught my eye earlier.

  “Fuck,” I growl once I realize that it’s my laptop. It’s smashed to fucking pieces. But not far away, I see my phone.

  I scramble over to it and snatch it up from the snow. My fingers are cold and don’t want to work properly, but I’m glad Caroline’s are warm from my gloves. When I push the button, I sigh in relief. It isn’t broken, but it is low on battery life. God, I’m such a stupid fucker.

  With a swipe of my finger, I see that I have no goddamn signal.

  “Motherfucker!” I snarl, the urge to heave it as far into the dark forest as I can throw it overwhelming me. But I don’t. I can’t. If it picks up a signal, it could save our lives.

  Pocketing the phone, I continue on my search for anything that fell out of the car that might be of some use to us. Just as my fingers start to go numb from the cold, I see it.

  A hand giving me the middle finger.

  Quite poetic, to be honest.

  I’d give me the middle finger too.

  “Come here, you little bastard,” I chuckle
as I pick up one of Care’s gloves. “Where’s your brother?”

  I’m digging through the snow for the matching glove when I hear it. Speaking of brothers . . .

  Holy shit! I’ve picked up a signal and my brother’s ringtone is jingling through the forest. After dropping everything into the snow, I quickly yank the phone out and answer it, careful not to move a muscle as not to lose the signal.

  “Harley! Listen to me!” I blurt out as soon as I answer. His stupid hillbilly country music is blaring in the background.

  “My brother. When the fuck are you getting here? I miss you, m—”

  I cut him off. “Har, Caroline and I have been in an accident. My signal is shit, and my battery is low. We’re okay for now but won’t be for long because of the fucking snowstorm. I think we’ve run off the road about seventy-five miles west of Mom’s—”

  This time, he interrupts me. “Shit, Ben. Listen to me. We’ll get a search going for you guys, but the storm is bad. They’re saying we’re going to get hammered with at least five feet of snow in the next twelve hours. Is your car okay? Can you stay there until we can find you?”

  “No,” I groan. “The car is currently on its fucking side, but it’s still running. Not sure for how much longer though.”

  “Okay, well, here’s what you need to do. You need fire, water, and shelter. If you can make a fire, that will increase our chances of finding you. Don’t eat the cold snow. Warm it first. And stay out of the elem—”

  The signal crackles and I fear I’ve lost him, but his voice booms back through the other end.

  “ . . . sure the tailpipe isn’t covered by snow so you two don’t die of carbon monoxide poisoning. Stay dry and keep each other warm.”

  “Find us, Harley,” I tell him firmly, but he hears the crack in my voice anyway.

  “I will, Bentley. I love yo—”

  This time, I lose the signal permanently.

  “Fuck!”

  I spend at least twenty minutes trying to regain the signal but come up empty. The only relief I get is knowing that Harley will do everything in his power to find us. Shoving the phone in my pocket, I pick up the chips, the Coke, and the single glove. As I make my way back over to the car, I find the other glove.

  Thank God for small victories. We’re going to need all the help we can get out here.