by Jaymin Eve
Especially in the outdoors during winter.
As I packed, I debated whether I should leave Dylan a note. But then again, dogs and mice couldn't write, so surely, he wouldn't expect a note from me. Even his "little bird" wouldn't be able to write, so... fuck him.
Yeah, my anger over the animal references was building.
Exiting the cabin in no time, I went the long way around the camp, all the while hoping my sense of direction wasn't completely faulty as I navigated somewhat familiar landmarks. When the dirt path out of here finally appeared, I could have screamed in excitement. I refrained, not wanting to clue anyone in on my whereabouts… if they'd even noticed I was gone yet.
Once I was on the smooth road, I took off as fast as I could go, pushing through my fatigue. From the walk up here, I knew it was only a couple of miles down to the main roads, and from there, I would hopefully be able to hitch a ride into the nearest town.
I mean, no risk, no reward, right? Dylan had taught me that, the bastard.
My pace didn't slow, and my stomach had settled enough that the nausea was gone, allowing me to keep my food down and my energy levels moderate. There was something so freeing about taking my life into my own hands, and even though I was currently penniless, homeless, and possibly pregnant, a part of me was pretty sure this was the best off I'd ever been.
The sound of cars and traffic reached me before the road came into view, but it was enough to spur me on with the thought of how close I was. When I rounded a bend and the dark asphalt became visible in the distance, I let out a small "yes" of celebration.
This was it. My chance to get the fuck out of here and start a new life.
I just needed a little helping hand because the twenty bucks in my pocket—the only emergency money Blake had allowed me—was to buy a pregnancy test and nothing else. Once I'd done that, I'd find a homeless shelter or some sort of refuge for the night, and then tomorrow I'd worry about the other details.
When I was on the road, I walked until there was a decently open section of road—giving me space to check out the oncoming traffic and make a Russian roulette choice of who I would flag down. Surely, there was an instinct that went into this shit, and if I could make the right choice, I might just make it through the night.
A blast of icy air ruffled my light jacket, and it felt like the temperature dropped even further as I walked along the road, waiting for another car to come along. The dark clouds on the horizon were also a little ominous, but hopefully I'd be in town before that happened.
A motorbike zoomed past, and I dropped my head. The next was a truck and then another one right behind, both driven by men. I didn't want to risk that, so I looked the other way and kept walking. Even when one slowed, I waved him on, and he didn't stop.
The next few cars were noes for various reasons too, until finally, a light brown sedan came into view, going significantly under the speed limit. As it got closer, I saw it was being driven by a middle-aged woman.
This is it! She was the one. I had a good feeling about making it through the day alive with her, so I lifted my hand and waved her down. At first I thought she was going to ignore me, and fuck, I wouldn't have blamed her. When the sedan continued past, my heart sank. I dropped my arm and head, letting out a long breath of exhaustion as another burst of freezing air chilled me to my bones. Knowing I couldn’t give up yet, I lifted my head again only to find she had stopped a little further down the road.
Her car was idling as I hurried forward, heading to her side first. She cracked the window just a touch, cautious. She was older than I'd thought at first, her hair a mass of silver waves brushing her shoulders, and she had very kind blue eyes that met my gaze.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
My lips trembled from the cold as I forced a smile. "I'm so sorry to wave you down like that. I just got lost while camping in the woods, and I was hoping for a ride into town so I could call my family to get me."
She fumbled for her phone, which was sitting on the passenger seat. "You can use my phone."
I'd already thought of this possibility, but I was banking on the fact that there was likely no cell service. It was probably part of the reason Dylan set the camp up here in the first place. I'd let her discover it, though, if it made her feel more at ease.
She unlocked her phone, looking down before her forehead crinkled. "Oh no, sorry, there's no service here."
Wow, really?
Her face didn't lift for a beat, and I knew she was debating whether it was a good or bad idea to allow a stranger into her car. I felt terrible for her, guilt slamming into me. But I was cold as all hell, and there was a storm on the horizon. Surely she wouldn’t leave me.
"You know, I'm sorry for putting you in this position," I told her sincerely as she looked up and met my eyes. "It's not safe to offer strangers a ride. You have a wonderful day."
I turned and walked away, hoping that wasn't my last chance at not freezing to death out here.
A car door opened behind me, and I turned to see her half out of the car. "Come on," she called. "A massive storm is coming, and I can't leave you alone. I'll take you into Warde."
Hope flared in my chest as I turned and hurried back. "Thank you so, so much. I honestly can't tell you how much it means to me."
She didn't know it, but her kind heart might have saved my life.
When we got into the car, she cranked the heat up again, and I sank into the seat, feeling my exhaustion worse than ever. The pack sat snuggly at my feet, and since it held everything I had in the world, I was not letting it out of my sight.
"Were you camping up here alone?" she asked, and I got that she was having a hard time believing that. Nothing about me, including my clothing, screamed “experienced camper.”
"No," I said softly. "I was with my..." Boyfriend, lover, mild acquaintance? "With a friend. But it turned out that he was actually not a real friend, and when the truth about him came to light, I bailed as quickly as I could."
She was silent, and I wondered if she was going to be angry about the small lies I'd told her that didn't quite mesh with this new—mostly accurate—version of events. But she just reached out and grasped my hand.
"Sweetheart, I have been in the exact position as you, a very long time ago." She gave one final squeeze before releasing me again. "And I will give you a piece of advice from someone in the downhill sprint toward the end of this crazy thing we call life. You are young and beautiful, and men will want you for those two factors alone. They will want to own and possess and claim you. And there is nothing wrong with that because desire is a potent and enjoyable part of life.”
She didn’t have to convince me. It was half the reason I’d stuck it out with Dylan for as long as I did.
“But one day,” she continued, “you won't hold this flush of youth and vitality. One day your beauty will be mostly on the inside, and it’s not worth wasting your time on men who won’t be there for you in your older years. I made the mistake of chasing after someone who was in it for the wrong reasons, someone who didn't walk in my social circles, and for my trouble I got amazing sex but years of heartache, cheating, and abuse."
Her voice broke, and I sniffled a few times as her words hit me close to the chest.
"Are you alone now?" I asked, my voice husky.
She nodded. "I am. Alone and happier than I've ever been. Being alone was my worst fear, and it turned out, it was the best choice I could have ever made."
She let me sniffle in my seat, the silence between us surprisingly not uncomfortable. "I'm really glad you stopped for me," I said when I'd gotten myself together. "I made the choice today that I am going to change my life, make a new start away from the men who have hurt and abused me. I've been referred to as a mouse in the past few hours, and I felt as small and pathetic as one today. But... no more. This mouse is going to evolve."
She shot me a smile, taking her eyes briefly from the road. "It might have been fate that I stopped for you, young lady.
It's my first time picking up a stranger, and as much as I wanted to leave you there, I felt an urge to take a chance on you."
"My name is Brooke," I said, deciding to ditch Brooklyn completely.
"I'm Ruth," she replied. "It's so nice to meet you, Brooke."
For the rest of the twenty minutes into the town, we chatted about our favorites in life—food, movies, geographical locations. I had to guess at some of those, since I'd barely even left my house before, but Ruth was very well traveled, and she regaled me with stories about Egypt and Vietnam and other amazingly exotic-sounding places.
"Where would you like me to drop you, Brooke?" she asked when we entered the town.
I thought about it for a moment. "Walmart, if possible. Or as close to." I’d never been to a Walmart in my entire life, but I was willing to bet it’d be the last place on earth Dylan would look for me. If he was looking for me. Which he probably wasn’t.
She nodded. "It’ll take me about ten minutes to get there, if that’s okay?"
"I can walk," I said in a rush. "You've already helped me far more than I deserved."
Ruth just laughed. "You're too sweet, and I can see how you've let yourself fall into the hands of powerful men."
Somehow, she knew exactly what Blake and Dylan were like, even without me giving her more than a few snippets of facts about them.
"And I need to stock up before the storm, so I'll head in as well, if that's okay."
I nodded, not wanting to let the kindest person I'd ever met go just yet. "Thank you. I'd love that."
Ruth just smiled, like she already knew I had no desire to be alone, and continued driving across Warde. When we arrived at Walmart, I anxiously left my pack in Ruth’s car at her suggestion—no Walmart would let me carry a bag that big inside—and got out. Ruth stayed by my side the whole way into the store, chatting about her farm on the outskirts of town, which she'd just recently bought and moved into.
"It sounds lovely," I murmured as she grabbed herself a shopping cart at the front of the store.
She nodded. "It is. But it's lonely."
I had no response to that. I'd never lived alone, but I understood feeling lonely with my whole soul. Maybe it was fate that’d brought Ruth and I together.
"Here." She held her mobile phone out to me. "We should have reception here. Give your parents a call while I stock up on supplies." She winked, and I hesitantly took the phone from her outstretched hand.
Ruth walked away, pushing her cart ahead of her, giving me the privacy I needed to call... no one. I had no one to call. There was no way in hell I was calling Blake—if he was even still alive—and I didn't know how to get ahold of Mary. Her number had been saved in my old phone, and I’d never memorized it.
Idiot.
So instead, I found myself making a fake phone call. Mariah Carey’s version of Christmas carols echoed through the store as I talked to my fake parents, and I nervously wandered over to the aisle with pregnancy tests. The second I spotted the shelf with all the different options, though, my hands started sweating so hard I almost dropped Ruth's phone.
Then I just stood there, frozen with indecision. How the fuck was I supposed to know which test I needed? There were so many. Digital ones, non-digital ones, ones with lines or smiley faces or the words "pregnant" and "not pregnant" and ones with early detection and...
"Fuck me, I'm going to faint," I whispered aloud, bracing my hand on the shelf in front of me as the world started tilting.
Ruth was there in an instant, though. She’d abandoned her shopping cart further down the aisle and rushed over to me, her arm wrapping around my waist as she supported my weight.
"Hey, now, none of that," she murmured, her voice soft and kind. "Come on; you need some fresh air."
I couldn't argue with her; I was too worried I was in the middle of a panic attack. So I just let her lead me out of the store and sit me down on a bench beside the main entrance.
"Now, will you be okay here for a minute, Brooke?" she asked, crouching down in front of me with a look of concern on her lined face. "Just take some deep breaths. I'll pop back in and pay for my things, then we can get going."
I jerked a nod, wrapping my arms around myself. Fucking hell. I couldn't even buy the test; how was I going to handle it if I really was pregnant? If there was an actual life growing inside me?
Holy crap. I was in no way ready to be a parent. No freaking way.
Ruth was quicker than I expected, coming back out of the store with several large bags weighing her down. On instinct, I jumped up to help her carry them, but she waved me off with a shake of her head.
"I'm stronger than I look," she told me with a laugh. "All this gray hair doesn't mean I'm a senior citizen quite yet."
I trailed along beside her as she headed back to her car and loaded the bags into her trunk. Why I was still lurking around her, I had no idea. I needed to politely thank her and go back into that store. No matter how panicked I was at the idea of being pregnant, I needed to take the damn test.
"Well, thank you for everything," I told her with a tight smile. "I don't even know what just happened back there. I think I'm coming down with something."
Ruth let out a long sigh and gave me a knowing look. "Hop in the car, Brooke. I'll take you to my place until your parents can come get you."
My lips parted, a refusal on my tongue, but Ruth pulled a box from the pocket of her coat and handed it to me before I could speak.
A pregnancy test. I swallowed hard, trying to get myself together; I was crying way too much at the moment. “You didn’t have to do that, but thank you,” I choked out.
She just patted my arm. “Sometimes all you need is a little help to get through the day. Let me be that help for you.”
I shook my head. “I don’t deserve you, but I sure am glad you stopped for me today.”
Ruth didn’t know it, but she might have just saved my life. Again.
19
Ruth lived in the most perfect little house on an acre just outside of Warde. Her land was flat, dominated by the white farmhouse and red barn beside it. When she stopped the car, I had to take a second to really take in the perfection of the entire property.
I stared wistfully at the wide front porch strung with fairy lights, and white picket fences that lined either side of the house. In a side paddock were some goats and chickens, just topping off the perfection. "You live in paradise."
Ruth chuckled, taking a second to look around as well, like I'd reminded her of how picturesque her life was. "Yeah, you know, there are some benefits to no longer basing your life choices on what a man wants. You get the exact life you always imagined."
Playing with the box in my hand, I followed her up to the porch. A homemade wreath decorated her front door, and to me it was utter perfection. "Are you not lonely, though?"
She looked over her shoulder and dropped the bags on the ground to fumble with her keys. "I mean, sure, I definitely have nights when the snow falls so peacefully and I'm snug and warm with a hot cocoa where I feel like I'm missing that one person to share it with, but on the other hand, I sleep in a king-sized bed on my own, and it’s fucking fantastic."
I hadn't heard her curse before, and I had to laugh, enjoying this new side of her.
"You know, that doesn't sound too bad to me."
She winked before grabbing up the bags and gesturing for me to head in first. When we reached the front room, with its paneled walls and cathedral ceiling, she dropped her bags again. Little decorations were dotted around, but I could tell she wasn’t trying to win any competitions with her sparing use of tinsel.
"I just need to duck out and get all of the animals into the barn before the storm hits. Will you be okay here?"
Needing to stay busy so I didn't think about the box I'd shoved into the pocket of my jacket, I turned with her. "Can I help?"
Ruth paused, her smile broad and genuine. "I'd really appreciate that. I know it doesn't feel too bad at the moment, but this
storm is going to be a doozy. I predict that by tomorrow morning, we'll be knee-deep in snow."
She did put her food away first, and then together, we coaxed and half carried a bunch of cute-as-fuck goats and chickens into the red barn. Ruth got them all settled with fresh straw and feed, and then she secured the door tightly, making sure no swift breeze would blow it off.
By the time we'd done that, it was near 2 A.M and there was an icy chill in the air that took my breath away and froze my lashes. I thought back to how cold they were going to be up the mountain and wondered if Dylan had even noticed I was gone yet.
Was he looking for me?
The answer to that was no doubt a yes, but ten to one it was for this information he believed I had, not because he gave a shit about me.
Forget him, Brooke. Forget him and get your own damn king bed.
Ruth was the guardian angel I’d needed to reassure me about my decision to leave. To never again be a victim to the whims of powerful men.
Inside, Ruth built a fire in about five minutes, and I was a little bit in love with how amazing she was. "You have some mad skills, and I legitimately want to be like you when I grow up."
She waved me off. "Women are capable of amazing things, Brooke. Men underestimate us from birth, and then we fall into the really terrible habit of doing the same. I'm telling you now, there's nothing we can't do ourselves, and I promise, most of the time we'll do it better."
"I believe you," I said with a chuckle.
Ruth had moved on to organizing dinner slash breakfast now, so I jumped up from the barstool I was sitting at in front of her huge island in the kitchen. "Can I help?"
Her eyes fell to the bulge in my right pocket, eyes softening. "Would you, maybe, like a few minutes to wash up first? I'll get started with the easy part."