1
Julia
My knuckles blanched on the steering wheel as I pumped the brakes of my rental car. Even though I’d been told—more than once—that automatic brakes didn’t require pumping, I couldn’t help myself. The action calmed my nerves, giving me the illusion that I had an ounce of control as the tires slid and scooted upon the ice-covered road and large snowflakes the size of oranges fell from the sky.
With the sheer quantity of snowflakes hitting the windshield, I knew any sense of control I thought I possessed was nothing more than a figment of my imagination. If circumstances were different, I could relax and see the beauty around me. If instead of driving alone to an unknown future, I was sipping hot chocolate next to a roaring fire with friends and family, I might be able to appreciate that I had somehow managed to enter a giant snow globe and that whole world had just been given a strong shake.
My attention went back and forth between what I believed was the road before me and my GPS. The directional system had taken me on what it considered the best route. According to the screen, I was still on the pavement; thank God the GPS could differentiate because from my viewpoint, everything between the endless borders of tall pine trees was nothing more than a white ribbon.
Though I continued forward, my estimated time of arrival continued to grow later and later. That was in no doubt due to my decreased speed. Between the snow-and-ice-covered surface, the lack of defined road, and increased blizzard conditions including gusty wind, it seemed as if instead of driving, the car was crawling forward. The speedometer varied between fifteen and a whopping twenty-five miles per hour.
When I’d left Chicago this morning, the forecast had been clear. The weathercaster said that snow wasn’t supposed to arrive until late tomorrow. With only a seven-hour drive, my plan was to arrive at the hotel in Ashland, Wisconsin, before nightfall, spend a few days, and get a feel for the city. With fewer than ten thousand people, it would be drastically different from what I was used to in Chicago.
Different—that in a nutshell was exactly why I applied for this job.
“Good plan, Julia,” I said aloud to myself.
Maybe after hours of driving north from Chicago, I was hungry to hear a human voice, one not singing or on a podcast. Or perhaps, I was too exasperated with my situation to keep quiet any longer.
“Did you ever wonder why this job was available? It’s because whomever this client is could be a psycho and on top of that, it’s located in the middle of nowhere.”
Sadly, nowhere was exactly what I’d sought.
Going back to my analogy of a shaken snow globe, that was my life.
Shaken.
Hours of driving had given me a new perspective, one that benefited from a bit of distance. I knew there were many people who faced greater obstacles and more adversity. I also wasn’t the princess in the ivory tower that many believed.
My eyes narrowed as I tried to make out the road before me. The headlights created a tunnel of illumination filled with glistening large snowflakes above a thick white blanket.
“Come on, you can make it. Just” —I looked again at the GPS— “another hour.”
My stomach growled as I held tighter to the steering wheel, feeling the way the wind gusts pushed me sideways. I shook my head, wondering if I’d see any signs of civilization: a gas station or small town. The darker the sky became as my car plowed through the accumulating snow, the more I admitted to myself that I should have stopped in the last town.
As I crept onward, the phrase ‘should have’ seemed to repeat on a loop in my thoughts.
I should have stopped in the last town, filled the gas tank, gotten something to eat, and found a hotel.
I should have said no to Skylar Butler when he asked me to marry him. I should have seen the writing on the wall. I should have discouraged my parents from planning the most lavish wedding of the century. I should have known his parents were more excited about our nuptials than he was. I should have questioned Skylar’s schedule, his trips, and the times he didn’t answer his cell phone. I should have trusted what I’d known most of our lives.
In my defense, as the sayings went, hindsight was twenty-twenty and love was blind.
In my case, I think a more accurate assessment of our impending nuptials was that our love didn’t have vision problems; it quite simply never existed, not in the way that made your heart beat faster or your mouth go dry. It wasn’t that Skylar wasn’t easy on the eyes.
He was handsome and he knew it.
That had been an issue since we were young.
Skylar was also capable when it came to foreplay.
Further than that, and I was in the minority of women in Skylar’s orbit. I didn’t know if the rumors of his sexual prowess were accurate. We’d agreed to wait for that final consummation of our relationship. That’s not to say we hadn’t gotten close. The thing was, we’d been a couple since neither of us could walk or talk. It was difficult to think of one another in romantic terms.
The agreement of remaining pure was implied.
Apparently, it was an agreement between Skylar and me, not him and...well, anyone else.
My grip intensified on the steering wheel. It wasn’t the worsening conditions but the memory of finding the text message from my best friend and maid of honor, Beth.