Chapter Five
Killian
Iwas no stranger to depressing thoughts. Normally, I would end up taking a walk down all the shitty lanes of my life at some point during my long drives. Then I’d move on, because there wasn’t anything that I could do. Turns out I was right about Livia—despite her over bubbly personality, she was carrying a heavy burden on her shoulders.
Pot, meet kettle.
But the burdens had dug deep in my skin, and I’d long grown accustomed to them. Sadness and burdens didn’t fit Livia. As much as it was sort of annoying to have someone constantly trying to chat you up, when the silence of sadness took over her, it felt like the whole truck got covered in a fog of sorrow. I didn’t like it. Thinking of something I could do before we both started to drown, my fingers gripped the steering wheel with frustration. Why was it so hard to talk to her? Had I been alone for so long that human interaction was like a foreign language to me? I could ask her something simple. But what? The more I tried to think of something to say, the angrier I got with myself. The only questions I had come up with were stupid.
I heard her stomach growl, and looked at the clock, then the fuel gauge. We could stop, get food, fuel, and then maybe try to clear the cold blanket of emotion that had covered my rig.
“We’re getting food and fuel,” I said and waited to see what was at the next exit. Hopefully a station with food. The green sign came up and it had what I was looking for. Kickass. We both needed a moment, and this would be a perfect distraction. She sat up straighter and grabbed her boots from behind the seat where she had stored them.
She was out the door as soon as I cut the engine off, like a bat out of hell. Her mind was not somewhere I wanted to venture into right now, and maybe not ever. Livia was like a puzzle box, one I didn’t have time or the desire to solve. My hand went to the door, and I jumped out onto the parking lot, looking for my truck mate. She was opening the door to the fast food joint attached to the truck stop. I stretched my arms over my head then touched my toes. My back was covered in scars, which started to ache and would tighten up if I didn’t keep them loose by stretching.
My mind immediately went to Livia’s face last night when her eyes fell on my back. It was a mess that I knew. Explosions had a way of doing that to you, fucking you up all around. But I lived, and I did what I had to in order to keep living. Those eyes held everything from sadness and curiosity, to the need to comfort. Surprisingly, the one emotion I didn’t see was pity. It was what I normally received. I’d stopped caring what people thought about it a long time ago.
I filled up the tank on the truck, and grabbed myself some fruit, protein bars, and a water. Breakfast was never really my thing, but I knew she was probably starving, so I needed to stop for her to eat.
When I walked back out to the truck she was already there, sitting on her side, with her mouth full of food.
“I got you a sausage biscuit if you want it. If not, I’ll eat it later, so no worries.” She wasn’t completely back to her chipper self. But the little stop had helped her mood improve slightly. This pleased me. I may like my cloud that hovered over me, but she was all sunshine, and deserved to bask in it.
That thought took me by surprise. This woman was chipping away at my sanity, if I was suddenly thinking about how I didn’t like seeing her sad. Fuck me.
“Thanks.” She had thought about me while getting herself something to eat. Even though I only ate fast food when I was desperate, or past being lazy, I held my hand out and accepted the wrapped food. Her lips tilted up, making me feel slightly warm on the inside.
While she continued eating her food, the air in the truck seemed to be easing. I could practically feel her mood improving with every bite. Good to know—food made things better with her. I filed the information away for future reference.
“It’s my turn now. What’s your favorite genre of music?” Livia was returning to her normal, bubbly self. Even though it still made me want to drive my truck into a wall, it felt better to have her like this, than with a frown on her face. I’d suffer the constant chatter. It was all over in a month, anyway.
“Rock.”
“Like who is your favorite band or singer?” She mumbled, food in her mouth.
“You had your turn.” It was sort of fun to mess with her. She rolled her eyes and waited for me to continue.
“What is your theme song?” The question came out of left field for her, but for me, I was genuinely curious. Joel and I used to ask each other that often. There was a song that could explain your every mood. It was like talking in code, a way to communicate with privacy. Once we got in trouble for writing notes in class in middle school. The teacher couldn’t understand what “It’s a hard knock life” meant.
“Theme song? What do you mean?” She was confused, but looked eager to answer my question. Up until now I had just been repeating her questions, not truly caring to play the game.
“If you could use a song to describe you right now, what would it be?” She seemed to ponder that for a moment, then the smile she threw at me once she figured out her song in her head, was beautiful. Even I could admit that. Her whole face lit up; I even felt my own lips start to turn upwards from seeing hers. It was contagious. I shut that feeling down though, not needing to invest emotions in this girl any more than I already had today.
“‘Living in The Moment’ by Jason Mraz. It was the first song I heard when I took to the road, and I’ve been trying to live by it since.” She giggled to herself.
“A whole twenty-four hours.” She laughed about how she had only been trying to live by the moment for twenty-four hours, but truthfully, a majority of people couldn’t even do it for one hour. I felt a respect crawl up from inside me for her. She was brave. Doing what she has done, even just in the past day, was something I could admire.
“You’ve got balls,” I said, complimenting her. Hopefully she wouldn’t take offense to it.
“Coming from you, that means something. Thank you.” She looked proud and turned back in her seat to lean down and grab her sketch book. If this turned out like yesterday, she would be so involved in whatever she was drawing that the truck would be filled with nothing but the sounds of pencil on paper.
My back arched and I relaxed more into my captain’s seat. My fingers fiddled with the knobs on the radio and we rode together in the quiet for two hours. She would sip her drink, nibble on a snack, and constantly change her seating position.
Every once in a while, my eyes would roam over to her figure. She looked so small, her legs were tucked underneath her body, and her hand was moving gracefully across her book. The sides of her hands were covered in black smudges from her sketching.
She pulled her hair up some time ago, and apparently had gotten some of that lead smudged on her cheek. I wanted to tell her it was there, but whenever I caught sight of it, a ghost of a smile hit my face. She was different, and it had been too long since I’d been this close to a woman for this amount of time. Most women were attracted to me. They appreciated the fit body, and the idea of the lone wolf, a nomad. I had a part-time home beyond my truck, but mostly stayed on the road, and my family didn’t want anything to do with me. Women like that. But once they realized I liked being the lone wolf, that I had no intention of abandoning a life on the road, and that my fit body also was that of a combat-wounded veteran, they lost interest. Which I didn’t mind. It had been a while. I found a woman when the occasion arose that I needed one, but I wasn’t one of those horny truck drivers you see in movies, jumping on a lot lizard the second they knocked on the door.
“Do you have any hobbies, besides driving a truck?” she asked while sketching what looked like the view in front of her. Dash of the truck, and the road.
