26. Megan
Chapter 26
Megan
I spoke too soon. A junkyard at the end of a narrow country lane is infinitely worse than spending Saturday night in IKEA. The only light is the full beam from the van, casting a glare across a sea of scrapped cars, in varying states of disrepair.
Everywhere else is in shadow, and my eyes play tricks on me, surrounding us in figures that aren’t there. Unless they are? Pretty sure I’ve seen this film before, and it doesn’t end well for the English teacher with no sense of direction.
“Is this the part of the evening where you murder me? Is that why you bought me a blanket? So you can roll my body up in it and bury me?”
“No,” Ollie laughs, opening his door and hopping out. He runs round to my door and opens it for me, chivalrous even under the creepiest of circumstances. Little does he know, Hattie and I watched enough true crime documentaries to know that you never let someone take you to a secondary location.
“What are we doing here?”
“We’re here to process our feelings. Get out.”
“Excuse me?”
He holds his hand out and I put my palm in his without thinking, stepping down and into the night.
“I think you need to smash some shit up. And here is the shit.” He sweeps his arm out like a circus ringmaster introducing his performers, then rests his palm against the small of my back, urging me forward and into the light.
“I don’t follow.”
“A friend of your dad owns this place. These cars have been scrapped, so here,” he holds out a heavy axe with a long wooden handle. “Smash shit up.”
I just stare at it.
Where did he even get an axe?
“Have you ever used an axe before?”
“Of course I have.”
“Really?” His surprise is written all over his face. “When?”
“No, I’m lying,” I confess. “When would I have used an axe?”
“OK, I’ll show you how to use it properly. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. Or me.” He passes it to me and I tighten my fists around the end of the handle. I have to strain to lift it.
“It’s heavy.”
“Yeah, so watch your toes.” Ollie stands behind me, wrapping his arms around mine, and shifting one of my hands higher. His are big and warm and make mine look pathetic in comparison.
“You want to hold your hands slightly further apart, one around the body, one around the throat.”
My own throat rolls, gulping at the thought of him putting his hand around it.
“What do you mean, the throat?”
“This part here,” he says, running his finger along the side of my hand, right at the point where my fist wraps around the handle. “Shift that hand a little lower, keep a firm grip, but the rest of your body should feel nice and loose.”
My body hasn’t felt loose in years, but I follow his instructions and bounce up and down a little, enjoying the sensation of having him pressing behind me.
“Nice, good job,” he says, his mouth close to my ear. Heat licks at my spine from his praise.
“Next you’ll want to swing the axe up above your shoulder.” He guides my arms up to the right position. “But you don’t want to over-swing. And don’t hit yourself in the head with it, OK?”
“OK,” I nod impatiently.
“Then just look at where you want to aim and drive it down. But be careful. Hmmm, maybe I should have brought you safety goggles...”
“Enough already,” I shrug him off, surprisingly eager to smack something. I raise the axe and run towards the nearest car, bringing the blade down with a crack. A caveman grunt unfurls from deep inside my chest, and I add a nice dent to the hundreds of others. Standing back, surveying the damage, eyes and mouth wide open in furious delight.
“That felt great.”
“So do it again. And be louder.”
I swing it a second time, sending the wing mirror of an old Jeep flying in the dark.
“Louder,” he shouts behind me. “Let me hear you scream.”
The place my brain goes just from that one sentence is entirely inappropriate. “What if someone hears us and calls the police?”
“We’re miles from anyone, Megan. Be as loud as you like.”
And so I am.
Dragging the axe by my side, I stalk my way around looking for perfect spots to lash out at. The cold night air fills with my screams of frustration as I smash a door off its hinges, bringing the blade down harder and harder. I spin on the spot, slamming it into the side of a rusted, beat-up motorbike that creaks and falls over.
“This is amazing,” I yell over my shoulder.
Ollie stands several feet back, arms folded across his chest, a grin spreading across his face as he watches me run wild. My heart is pounding, adrenaline surging, blood coursing through my biceps, fire in my throat. When I finally pause for breath, bent at the waist, I catch his eye.
“This is weirdly hot,” he says, and we both burst out laughing. I hold the axe-head flat against my chest, unable to tear my eyes away from him.
“Feel better?”
“Much better. How do you know about this place?”
“I come here sometimes when I need to blow off steam. When I need to rant about things that nobody wants to listen to.”
It makes me sad to think that Ollie doesn’t have someone to talk to.
“You know you can talk to me, right?”
“Yeah, I know,” he says, his toe scrubbing at the dirt beneath us. “And you can tell me things, too.”
“My job doesn’t excite me anymore,” I blurt out. “My friends don’t need me, and you’re weirdly hot.” I clamp my hand over my mouth and his laughter dies in his throat.
“What did you just say?”
“Fuuuuuuck!” I scream. With the last of my strength, I raise the axe above my head and roar as I bring it down on a windshield, which shatters under the force. I collapse to the floor, lying in the dirt until my breath returns to normal. Ollie shuffles over to stand at my feet.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear.”
“You heard nothing,” I tell him. It’s bad enough I accidentally stripped in front of him a few weeks ago, now I’m buzzed on wine and adrenaline and telling him I think he’s hot? The sooner this man moves out and stops messing with my brain, the better, but god I feel alive right now.
He reaches out and I grab his hand and let him pull me up.
“Come on now, wild woman, let’s get you home.”
There’s no holding back my smile this time. I rather like the idea of being Ollie’s wild woman.