I was a shell of the man I used to be. Hope stayed with me for about a month after Johanna left, but when it really sank in that she wasn’t coming back, I gave up on life. I tried to pull myself back from the edge several times, but I just couldn’t find my way to the light. I tried to take other women to bed, willing to pretend they were Johanna when the lights went out, but it never worked. I couldn’t even fuck anymore. I spent my evenings at Carson’s just to let the memories play in my head while I drowned them in whiskey.
“GOD DAMN IT, CODY. You ruined the engine. What the fuck is wrong with you?” My father stared at the car I was working on.
“Fuck, sorry.” I walked out of my father’s garage and lit a cigarette before taking a seat on the curb.
My head was completely fucked up. The booze and sleepless nights were definitely to blame, but I didn’t want to do anything to fix it. I had managed to make it to work, even if I was late most of the time, but I had never truly screwed anything up until now. The darkness was swallowing me whole. I needed to get laid. I needed to find a way to get over Johanna. I could fuck my own life up if I wanted, but I couldn’t ruin my parents’ business in the process.
“The insurance will cover it.” My mother walked outside and sat down on the curb next to me. “I think you need to take some time off, though.”
“You need me here.” I exhaled a stream of smoke and immediately took another drag.
“We do, but not like this. You can come stay with us if you want, but you need to get sober before you come back to work.” She patted my arm. “You know I love you.”
“I love you too, Mom. Fine. I’ll go.” I stood and walked towards my motorcycle.
I couldn’t be angry at my parents. It was entirely my fault. I bought a bottle of liquor and went home. Carson’s wasn’t open yet, and while I wanted to spend my evening there, I didn’t want to wait that long to start drinking. I sat down on my couch and picked up my laptop, scrolling through various websites. After a couple of hours, I was already intoxicated and had practically filled the ashtray with cigarette butts. I had cut back to the point I only had a few every day when I was with Johanna, but I was smoking more now than I had ever smoked before. I simply didn’t care. I lit another as I tried to distract myself with whatever was on the screen.
Maybe I just need to start with porn. Surely that will get me hard.
I started surfing porn and for the first time since Johanna left, my cock really started to respond to stimulation. The images on the screen were filthy, but they were enough to get me going. I pulled my dick out of my pants and started stroking, moving between various videos to find a girl I liked. My stomach did a flip when I came across a video featuring a naughty schoolgirl wearing an outfit very similar to the one Johanna wore when she performed—both on the stage and in private for me.
“Yeah, suck that cock.” I started breathing heavier as I continued to masturbate.
It didn’t take me long to reach the point of no return. I had deprived myself so long that it was a quick release. I grabbed a napkin from the table, but it wasn’t enough to catch all of my load. I started to cum and once the napkin was covered, I just had to let it spew all over the couch. I didn’t even care. I picked up the bottle and drank as I stared at the video. My lust was satisfied, but watching the naughty schoolgirl reminded me too much of Johanna. It actually made me start to feel sad once I ejaculated.
I don’t have a picture of her. She took so many on her phone, yet I never asked her to send me one.
I loaded up another tab on my browser and typed her name into the search engine, along with the city she said she was from. There were a few mentions of her from ballet, but they were old articles from when she was much younger. I scrolled further and saw a wedding announcement. I clicked it aimlessly, remembering that she told me she ran away on her wedding day. I blinked a couple of times and rubbed my eyes. It wasn’t an old announcement. It was new. It had been posted the previous day.
“What the fuck? She’s marrying that loser she ran away from in the first place?” I remembered the name, Scott, and that was the name of the man she was marrying. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
I could understand if Johanna went home, back to her family, and the life she knew. I didn’t understand why she would ever marry Scott. I knew there was no love between them, just based on what she told me. They were together for three years and never even fucked. I couldn’t imagine a religious calling so strong that a man would ever be able to resist that long. I stopped scrolling on the article when I got to their picture. She didn’t look happy. She was wearing a smile, but it wasn’t real. Her eyes looked hollow and dead as if the emerald color had been completely drained out of them.
Something isn’t right...
I tossed my laptop on the table, lit another cigarette, and started playing through every conversation we had in my head. She had told me numerous times that she was happy she didn’t marry Scott. Those words were the absolute truth. It wasn’t the passion of the moment or an attempt to convince me she was over him. I didn’t even care in the beginning, I just wanted to fuck her. Something was incredibly wrong. My gut was sure of it. I ran to the kitchen, started a pot of coffee, and then headed to my bedroom.
If she’s going to marry him, she’s going to tell me to my face that it is what she wants.
I looked at the last text message she sent me before I shoved my phone in my pocket. I was a fool to accept that as the end of our relationship. I should have never let it end without her saying those words to me. They should have come from her lips, not from her fingers. She owed me that much. I packed a few things into a duffel bag and drank coffee until the buzz had at least settled. It would take me several days to reach Dahlonega, but I didn’t care. I would get there before the wedding. That was all that mattered.
THE ROAD WAS DIFFICULT at first with whiskey in my system, but I rode for nearly eight hours before I finally stopped. I slept in a bus station the first night, washed up in a bathroom, and then hit the road again after stopping for coffee. My legs were sore and I had never been on a motorcycle that long, but I pushed through the pain. The second day was harder, and I had to get a hotel room just to feel a bed on my back. The third was torture. When I got close enough that I could push on without sleep, I hit the accelerator and kept going.
Dahlonega, Georgia. Ten miles ahead.
It really was a small town. People on the sidewalk stopped and stared when I rode past them. The entire town was smaller than the distance between my apartment and my father’s shop in Reno. I brought my motorcycle to a stop when I got to a church. There were chairs set up outside, a tent covering several tables, and fresh flowers in a lattice archway. It appeared that I had found the location of Johanna’s wedding, although there was nobody around. If I hadn’t lost track of my days, the wedding was supposed to happen the next day.
I need a phone book.
I didn’t see any pay phones, so it appeared the town wasn’t as completely backwards as it appeared. I stopped at a ga
s station and was able to get one from the woman behind the counter. Luckily, there weren’t that many people with the last name Vance in Dahlonega. I would knock on every door in town if I had to. I rode my motorcycle to the first house on the list and parked in the driveway. I knocked on the door and heard noises inside. A few seconds later, an older lady with white hair was peeking out from behind a chain.
“Can I help you?” She held her weight against the door, even as she cracked it.
“I’m looking for Johanna Vance. Is this her house?” I tried to smile and appear as non-threatening as possible.
“No.” She started to close the door.