Hitchhiker (14 page)

“I’m good, sweet girl.” I imagined he was in his upper eighties, and his voice sounded slightly groggy like he had phlegm in the back of his throat. “My oh my, I almost didn’t recognize you. You used to have blond hair and were a little shorter. When was that…” He paused to think.

I remembered. It was at my grandpa’s funeral. “About seven years ago,” I replied.

“Yes, now I remember. This memory of mine; sometimes I’m sharp as a whip, and other times, I can’t remember how to tie my shoe.” His laugh made me smile.

Mr. Raymond had been my grandparents’ next-door neighbor for as long as I could remember. He and my grandfather grew up together and joined the Army at the same time. Both had gone their separate ways during World War II, but they survived and came back to the homestead in Montana. Raymond, unfortunately, had lost his wife to cancer about twenty years ago. I vaguely remembered her. He never remarried, and he stayed in his home for as long as he could but eventually decided to move into the retirement home that wasn’t too far from here. I thought he would have gone to live with his kids who lived in Florida, but Raymond had spread the ashes of his late wife in the woods behind his old house, and he said he wouldn’t leave her.

“Well, I’m so glad to see you. You look like you’re getting around okay.”

“Yes, they shuttle us old people around on a bus, at least twice a week, to make us feel like we can still do things.”

I giggled. “That’s good. You got to stay young and vibrant.” I reached out and rubbed his arm.

“And who’s this gentleman behind you?” He had glanced over my shoulder.

I’d forgotten all about Dawson. He stepped forward and held his hand out. “Dawson Michael, nice to meet you.”

This was a first. I’d never seen him so formal and proper before.

“Nice to meet you, young man.” Raymond spoke.

“Ma’am, your total is $78.96,” the cashier said, interrupting us.

I grabbed my purse. “Sorry. Got a little distracted.”

I was pulling out cash when Raymond asked a question that made everything stop. “Is this the fiancé that your parents told me about last year?”

I could have sworn that the temperature in the store dropped to freezing. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Dawson’s eyes were drilling a hole in the back of my head. I gulped and attempted a smile at the old man I now wanted to kill.

“No.” I coughed. “He’s actually back in Maine.”

Raymond appeared confused. “Oh.” I could tell he was trying to put two and two together.

I risked a glance at Dawson. Oh, I was definitely getting my ass handed to me when we got in the car. There was confusion, hurt, and anger written all over him. He shook his head ever so slightly, as my warning.

The cashier had bagged my groceries and handed me my change. I needed to get out of here.

“Mr. Raymond, it was very good running into you. If I have time, I’ll stop by sometime and we can visit a little more.” I hugged him for the second time.

“Yes, dear, I’d like that.”

I went to leave and saw that Dawson had already grabbed all the bags and left. He didn’t even bother saying good-bye. Shuffling outside, I saw him loading the groceries in the back of the car and getting in the driver’s seat. I swallowed. This was
not
going to be pretty. I had no idea how I was going to explain this one. I could always lie and tell him that I wasn’t engaged any longer and that Seth was just someone from my past, but lying to Dawson any more than I already had didn’t sit well with me. Getting in the Rover, I was apprehensive to start any conversation with him. Turns out, he didn’t want to talk. He cranked up some hardcore angry music, with some guy screaming the lyrics, and I wouldn’t have even been able to hear myself speak if I’d tried.

The whole ride home was like that. My mind was going a million different directions with explanations, but none of them sounded good enough to believe that this was going to end well. When we got to the house, he got out before me and slammed the door shut to the garage.
Okie dokie
that kicked my nerves into overdrive. And I guess I had to get everything from the back.

When I got into the house, my hands were full, and I walked to the kitchen. Passing Dawson’s room, I saw he was lying on his bed with his phone in his hand and earbuds in his ears. I exhaled. I thought for sure he was going to want to grill me, but apparently, he was going to kill me slowly with his silence and this waiting game. Fine, I could take it.

I’d put away the groceries, swept and mopped the kitchen floor, dusted every inch of the living room and basement, and washed a load of clothes. I knew that several hours had passed, but Dawson hadn’t come out of his room. I didn’t know how long he expected me to last with the quiet, but it was slowly breaking me down. I was a ball of nerves and my stomach was in knots. I thought I could win this game; that I could wait for him to approach me about the subject. But I was playing against the champion of silence. How quickly I forgot what it was like being in the car with him for hours without a single word uttered… miserable.

Tossing down my mop, I marched through his door. “It’s not what you think.”

He calmly pulled the earbuds out of his ears and set his phone down. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

I chewed the inside of my cheek. “I don’t. I’m just saying, whatever you must be thinking, it’s not it.”

“Then tell me, Chandler, what is it? Because I remember specifically asking you if you were married or had children.”

“But I’m not married,” I shot back.

He glared at me. “Don’t play stupid.”

“Well, I’m not.” I took a deep breath and let the word vomit overtake me. “I’m
engaged,
but I don’t know for how long. I had met Seth before I graduated college. He works with my dad at a real estate agency out of New York. I thought I loved him, I really did, but so much has changed over the last couple of years. He started working more, and I had nothing going for myself, and yet everything all at once. I’m a trust fund kid who was expected to stay at home and take care of the house and be the perfect little housewife. I couldn’t.” I shook my head furiously. Tears were forming and I became pissed that I was on the verge of crying. “I’m not someone who does what’s expected of me. I like challenging myself. Seth came during a time in my life when most girls my age were settling down. I assumed I could find happiness with him. I didn’t. I wanted to rebel and be my own person. Not live under his thumb.”

He watched me for a long, drawn-out moment. “When were you planning on telling me?”

I looked at my feet and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t you think that you maybe should have mentioned it?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t really like that.”

He laughed, but it was definitely not a funny laugh. “Then what was it like?”

“Don’t be condescending, Dawson. I’m trying to talk to you.”

He waved his arm out in front of himself. “Then talk.”

I swallowed down the anger that was bubbling to the surface. I wouldn’t let it come out. Not when he had every right to be mad. “I’m trying to tell you; I left Maine because I wasn’t happy. I don’t know who the girl was that stayed for the last two years trying to make things work, but she wasn’t me. I’d lost me. I hid behind a man who was only happy if I was the person he was trying to make me into. I planned to tell him that I couldn’t do it anymore when I got back home. I don’t love him.”

“If you didn’t love him, then why was it such a big deal to tell me about him?”

He had a point. “Because I wasn’t sure how I felt when I picked you up. It all became more clear to me after I started to get to know you. And by then it was too late to casually bring it up.”

“What do I have to do with anything?”

It hit me square in the forehead. That very moment, I knew why it mattered so much. I had fallen for him. Dawson came in and swept me off my feet during a time when I was open and vulnerable. Looking at him now, and how angry he was with me, and knowing everything he’d done over the past several weeks with other people, I couldn’t regret it. He gave me something that I needed. He filled a void in my life that I hadn’t even been aware existed. I had
zero
passion in my life. Not like the kind that I got from reading or doing something that I really enjoyed, but one that made me dream of more.

“You’re everything,” I whispered.

“No.” He shot up from the bed and came at me. One second, I was standing there, and the next, he’d pressed my back up against the wall. His hips were holding me in place. “Is this what you’re wanting?”

“What?” I was shocked.

“Answer the fucking question, Chandler.”

He was so angry; I could feel it radiating off him in waves. “I-I don’t know.”

He was surrounding me, and any darkness that lurked inside of him was hanging over both of us like a cloud, threatening to suffocate me. “Yes, you do. I can see it written all over your face. This is me. I’m not changing who I am, not for anybody.”

Where was this coming from? “Okay, I’m not asking you to.”

His lip curled up into a half smile. “Oh, but you are. With your little fairy tale you have floating around in your head. I’m not a knight in shining armor, and I’m not going to give you a happy ever after.” He dipped his head down so he spoke in my ear. “And whatever you think you’re feeling right now,
shut it the fuck off
.” He pulled back. “I’m so pissed at you right now, I need a breather. I suggest you don’t talk to me, or you’ll be sorry you did.”

He released me and walked out. I heard the Rover’s engine turning over and the crunch of the tires on the packed snow. Dawson left. I took a deep breath and slid down the wall till my butt hit the floor. My heart was hammering in my chest, and I felt like he sucked all the oxygen out of the room and took it with him.

What…just…happened?

Pretty sure I cried for two days straight. Dawson didn’t come home, nor did I hear from him. He stayed gone, and I couldn’t move from the couch. The hours were making me anxious, and I wasn’t functioning. I was literally a lump. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with myself—where to go, who to turn to, or if I even wanted to talk. All I wanted was for him to come home to let me know he was alive and that he forgave me. I knew that what I did was so very wrong. I’d slept with him when I’d promised myself to someone else. I knew that I likely went against every moral and ethical code he had by sleeping with someone who was almost married. I wish I could say that it ate at me as much as I knew it was going to be eating at him. But it didn’t. I was more upset that he was probably out with someone else than I was over the idea that I was going to crush Seth when I decided to go home.

Laying here, I felt like someone had died. That was how extreme his silence was to me. For hours, I had no choice but to sit and evaluate how I got so attached to Dawson. One major factor was that lure. Something about him drew me into him, and it went beyond skin deep. He called to my soul in a way no man had ever before, not even passing strangers on the street. When I picked him up that fateful first day, it was like every little piece of him—his voice, his eyes, his scent, his demeanor, and the air around him—snared me. I had no choice in the matter. I wholeheartedly felt that he appeared in my life at that very moment, on that road, for a reason. Even with this deep, sinking feeling that made me not want to breathe without him, I couldn’t regret a single second I’d spent with him.

However, knowing that he was out with any of the women he’d been with—Ashley, Christine, Heather, or whoever—was more painful than I’d imagined a knife to the stomach would feel like. Times like these, I wish he would just come do it. Finish me off. Twist the handle a little deeper and make it so I didn’t hurt anymore. I never understood why he was with them but then would come back to me. I also never understood why I tolerated it. But every single time, I forgave him and let him back into my bed.

Getting up from the couch, I needed to use the bathroom. Padding my way down the hall, I went to use his toilet. Before taking care of business, I stopped to look at myself in the mirror. Deep, dark circles had formed under my puffy eyes, and my brown hair was all over in a messy ponytail on top of my head. I looked awful. I could tell that in just a couple of days, I’d lost weight. I sighed. Dawson’s bottle of cologne caught my eye. It was sitting on the counter and I picked it up and smelled it.
God…
a fresh new wave of tears hit me. Setting it down, I did what I came in here to do. I just wanted to go lay back down and sleep away more hours alone.

Just as I passed the front door, the Rover drove by the window, and I heard the garage door open.
Oh my God, he’s home.
Running into the living room, I flung myself on the couch and covered myself with a blanket. Smoothing my hair back, I curled my lip up.
Ugh, no saving this mop.
My heart was hammering in my chest, and I couldn’t believe the excitement coursing through me that after two long days he was back. I was like a pathetic little girl.

Hearing the door shut, I squirmed with each footstep that brought him closer to me. When he came into my line of sight, even though my nerves were shot, a sense of relief washed over me. All felt right again when he was in the same room.