My shaky hand hovered over the phone. “Holbeck Gas, Delphia speaking. How can I help you?” I closed my eyes, gulping down my irrational fears that it might be Rocky calling for a repeat show.
“Your grave is waiting. I’m digging it,” Rocky spoke of my death with a sense of glee in his heart.
The horror continued. I couldn’t escape my death. “Go away!” I screamed and slammed the phone down, leaving myself breathless.
Just then, a customer walked timidly towards the counter. “I can’t leave, I have gas to pay for.”
I looked right through the man in front of me as if he was speaking another language. “Sorry, sorry. I’m so sorry. What pump were you on?” I said, almost hyperventilating from Rocky’s call.
“Uh, pump three. Are you okay, lady?”
Embarrassment covered my face as the line got a little longer and people poked their head around the side of the elderly man to be nosey. “I’m fine,” I said as I pressed my hair back against my skull and put a hand on the counter to steady the dizziness that had taken over.
“You don’t look fine. You look kind of like you’re going to pass out. Maybe you need water or something,” the man said in his elderly voice.
My head kept spinning and the phone started ringing again. I let it ring and ring.
A man in a paisley sweater waved his finger like a magic wand in front of my face. “You might want to answer the phone next time. It could have been important.” He scolded me.
“Thanks. Next,” I snapped at him.
He huffed then shuffled out of the gas station.
I felt like the foundation of my life was shifting like sand under my feet.
I’d like to see him handle a call from a murderer.
I bit the bullet and decided to call Bear from my cell phone. Not the gas phone. It felt tainted, and I didn’t want that feeling on me any more than it had been. I had to call someone, my insides were being chewed up. As the customers dissipated, I made the long overdue call to Bear.