30. Paige
30
Paige
M y head hurts.
I’ve been nursing a headache for the last hour after the park ranger started making weird noises through his intercom. I didn’t even hear them until after my phone was destroyed.
Of course, there wasn’t just one bison that passed through the vehicles.
It was close to one hundred .
And about half of them stepped on or kicked my phone around as they went.
I couldn’t get out of my van, so I sat by and watched through the safety of my closed window, which finally began to work.
Poor Rhodes is probably freaking out, calling every person we both know to see if I reached out to them, too. I haven’t. He was the only one. I really need to get to a phone and call him, but I doubt my mostly primitive campground will have one I can use.
After the mass crossing, the cars started moving again, but I pulled to the side of the road to gather some wits and figure out a plan. I didn’t even bother trying to recover my destroyed cell. All of my pictures, my evidence that I took this trip on my own, are gone . I try not to cry while studying the printed map a ranger handed me at the entrance to find a spot that will have a phone.
Cry later .
The plan was originally to head south toward Old Faithful and loop around to my campground near Yellowstone Lake. I’d continue driving north up the Yellowstone River the next day, ending in Mammoth and exiting out of the north entrance.
I was halfway to the Old Faithful village when I was rudely accosted by the herd of bison, so if I just get there, I know they have a hotel and small shops where I can probably find a phone.
Setting the map down beside me, I get a whiff of something awful.
“What died?” I muse, looking around my cab only to come back to me. I gingerly lift my arm to get a good sniff, and I don’t even have to lift it all the way up to know. “It’s definitely me.”
I might need to beg a shower off the hotel or get a room there in order to use one. It wouldn’t be the worst idea I’ve had. Staying in a luxury hotel after days on the road sounds glorious. It is my birthday, after all.
Just get to the hotel .
I reach for my keys in the ignition.
However, the engine doesn’t turn over or roar to life.
More like sputters.
Then dies completely.
And shit .
I check my fuel gauge to see how absolutely fucked I am. Yup . I’m out of gas screwed. The bison crossing took longer than expected, and I never turned the van off, thinking it would clear sooner than it did. Plus, the AC felt too good.
And here I sit, stuck on the side of the road with no gas and no way to reach anyone for help. Rhodes is now Poor Rhodes in my head because I feel horrible for alerting him with my many screams of distress. I wasn’t dying, but he didn’t know that.
Damn. This is so bad.
The man I love probably thinks I’m dead.
Love .
It’s the one thing I’ve been keeping from him, waiting for the right time to mention it. But it just hasn’t felt right to tell him over the phone, regardless of how deeply I feel it. The changes and how my heart wants to jump in his lap and purr like a cat.
Now, I wish I would have said something if only because I’m dramatic, and it feels like I’ll never get the chance, at least not for the next few hours.
I stare directly through my front windshield, grabbing the steering wheel with both hands to steady myself. “I love Rhodes.”
Saying it out loud doesn’t have the kind of effect I want it to. It doesn’t relieve the pressure building behind my breastbone or ease the anxiety pulsing in my fingertips to tap his contact and call him.
I need to tell him .
I swallow, but my throat is tight, and my head is light and airy. If I die before getting to tell him this, it will be the most tragic story of all time. I can’t let that happen. I need evidence. I need to chisel our initials into a tree or leave a message in a bottle.
That’s it .
Something better, far less labor intensive as carving our initials.
I close my gaping mouth and drop my hands from the wheel. “I need my journal.”
Cleo doesn’t appear to care that we’re stuck, continuing to snooze in her bucket seat while I trip all the way back to my bed, where I left my journal. My hands fumble for it, dropping it on the bed before I clumsily whip out the pen and turn to a blank page, starting to write while standing.
Dear Rhodes , I start and don’t stop until I’ve filled an entire page.
I begin to write him some sort of goodbye letter, something I’m not really good at, mixed with a full confession of my love. It was an abrupt turn, but desperate times and all that.
I write everything my heart tells me to, crossing off extra words and adding in letters I forgot to write in my haste to get the words out, which makes the page look cluttered and chaotic, just like my feelings. I’m writing frantically for what seems like hours since when I look through the windshield again, the sun looks dimmer, and my hand is sore.
Spent of all my words, I’m no closer to getting actual help, but I feel lighter. My stomach growls loudly, and the eyes look at me judgmentally, saying, you should have taken better care of yourself .
Fine . I’ll eat first, then get help.
Grabbing a pack of wipes on the counter, I tug one out to swipe under my armpits before squatting down to open my cooler. The new smell I swear isn’t me anymore, is horrendous, and I’m all too aware that I forgot to get ice this morning before leaving the hot springs. I was so jacked up to call Rhodes and start driving that I completely spaced. But now it smells like something died and then rotted and died again, and all the items are grossly warm.
Minus a couple of tangerines I put on the top that are protected by their skin. I grab both, then rummage through the small cabinet beside the water tank to look for what I have left.
I find…crackers.
Really? That’s it? I’m supposed to survive on love, two oranges, and some crackers? The only other things in here are Cleo’s treats, wet food, and a bag of dry cat food I wouldn’t eat in my most daring moments.
The light in the van starts to fade, the sun hiding behind the billowy clouds of Wyoming, and I wonder if I should stand outside and wave down a car in order to use their phone to get help. But now that the traffic has cleared, passersby are intermittent at best. So, instead, I peel open one orange and eat three slices, savoring them as if they’ll be my last meal. They might be, at least for a while. Then, without changing into pajamas, I crawl into bed and tell myself I need to think.
Three minutes later, my eyes start to droop.
I love Rhodes is the last thought I have before falling fast asleep.