2
Charlotte
I made it ten miles outside Savannah before I finally broke down and cried.
“Dang it, no! Stop!” I told myself, but it was useless. Once the dam broke there was no stopping the flood. The rain on the windshield matched my face as I drove west on I-16.
I hated girls who cried. They seemed soweakto me, reacting to every little thing with an emotional outburst. It was the stereotypical thing to do. It was the kind of thing people expected from a twenty-four year old woman when things didn’t go her way.
But the week I’d had would’ve brought anyone to tears.
My cell phone rang on the console, sending a shot of fear up my spine. If it washimcalling, I didn’t think I could answer. I wasn’t emotionally ready.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that it was someone else. I waited two more rings to collect myself and then put the phone to my ear.
“Hi, Momma.”
“Oh, sweet pea,” my mom’s soothing voice said. “I got your message! What happened?”
I told her everything I’d kept from her over the past month. How my boyfriend Scott had told me he wanted to take a break four weeks ago. Which would have been fine, except we worked together in Savannah. No, that was an understatement. We’d started our own business—a food truck—together. Which meant the last four weeks had been the two of us working together, and living together, in a weird pseudo-partnership where I didn’t know where we stood or what was going to happen.
Scott was a good guy. I thought some time would help him figure things out. And then we could get back together.
I was so naive.
“We were at a dinner with the editor of a food magazine,” I told Momma. “Scott’s phone was on the table, and he got a message. I glanced at it.”
“Oh, honey…”
“I couldn’t help it! Some girl named Tammy was asking if he would be able to come by her place for drinks.”
That wasn’t entirely accurate. The exact text was:
TAMMY: Hey baby, let me know if you’re coming over for COCKtails. I need something to stir mine with.
She’d capitalized the COCK in cocktails, and ended it with an eggplant emoji. The sluttiest of the emojis.
But if I told Momma that on the phone I’d probably start crying again.
“What’d you do, Charlotte?”she asked.
The rain was coming down so hard on the windshield, thundering against the glass and hood of my car, that I could barely hear her. “I excused myself to the bathroom, took an Uber home, and packed my bags as quick as I could.”
Some mothers might have tried to look on the bright side of the situation, or insisted that maybe it was all some hilarious misunderstanding. But my Momma was a realist. And she didn’t raise her daughter to be a fool.
“I’m sorry, sweet pea,” she said. “You’re on the road now?”
“Should be home in three hours. Sorry this is all last-minute…”
She made a dismissive noise. “I’ll have fresh sheets on the bed and a warm pie in the oven.”
I stifled a sniffle. “I love you, Momma.”
“Love you too, sweet pea. Be safe.”
I felt a great deal better after talking to her. Saying the words out loud took the sting away: Scott and I were done. In my head the words could fester, but out loud they had no power.
The interstate ahead was closed for construction, so I followed the orange cones down the exit and toward a detour road. A speed limit sign said 35 MPH, so I immediately slowed down. A few moments later, I passed a billboard: