19
Winnie had never been in the situation she currently found herself in. She stared at her phone as it turned dark, her call with Ty dropped. With her pulse pounding at her, she quickly tapped to dial him again.
His phone simply rang and rang, and when his voicemail picked up, Winnie ended the call.
She didn’t seem to have a problem with her service or internet, and so she sent him a quick series of messages.
I lost you, but I heard most of the prayer, and it was beautiful.
I can’t wait to meet more of your friends at Lone Star.
I’m sending you my location pin so that you’ll know where I am.
It’s eerie here in the car—it feels like a cage—and a little bit cold. I turned off the engine because I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, and I’m really glad I wore my puffy sweater today.
I’m going to lay my seat down and just try to relax.
I can’t see anything outside the windows anyway, and I’ve never seen a sky this color before. I took some pictures because it’s just so weird.
She sighed as she looked up, the dust storm raging beyond her windows.
Winnie had never been in anything like this before, and she could’ve looked up some information about what to do, how to shelter if caught outside, but she trusted Ty.
He’d said not to drive, and Winnie was going to wait out the storm and then figure out what to do.
Everything existed in a weird khaki-olive-green state, with thousands of particles flying by her windows, and she slid her chair back so she could recline it down. If she could just close her eyes, she could make it through this.
The car suddenly lurched forward, causing her to yelp. Just as quickly as it had started to slide, the vehicle came to a violent halt as the front passenger side hit the cement pillar she’d parked beside in the parking lot. She’d seen a few people bypass the spot that morning, because they drove bigger cars than her, but her sedan fit just fine, even though the pillar took up part of the parking space in the corner.
The back end of her car fishtailed, and Winnie cried out again, looking in the rearview mirror and trying to make sense of why her car was moving. She couldn’t see another vehicle that had hit her.
In the next moment, she realized thewindwas moving her car.
With the front corner now jammed against the cement pillar, it couldn’t really go anywhere, and the back end got pushed into the truck next to her, also on the passenger side.
Everything stilled after that, and Winnie’s chest felt so tight, telling her she had not been breathing. She took a quick breath and then another, almost expecting the sky to fall and crack right through her windshield.
When it didn’t, she reclined her seat and started to do some deep-breathing exercises she’d learned in a stress therapy class she’d taken after Carver had called off the wedding. That only warded off the worry for a couple of minutes, because deep breathing couldn’t truly erase the severity of the situation.
She lifted her phone and texted Ty again.
The wind blew my sedan into the cement light post in front of me. I’m now wedged between it and a truck.
The good news is I don’t think the car will move again, so I should be able to ride out the storm. The bad news is, I’m not sure if my car is going to be driveable or not.
She sent the texts, though she wasn’t sure if Ty was even getting them. She decided it didn’t matter. She needed someone to talk to, and he was all she had.
Yes, she could have called her friends back in Redwood, or even her mother, but what could they do? Winnie didn’t want her mom to worry anyway, and she sighed as she rested her phone on her chest and closed her eyes once more.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed before her phone rang, startling her back to full consciousness and the reality of her situation.
She lifted the phone, saw Ty’s name there, and quickly tapped to connect the call. “Hey.” She heard the relief and breathlessness in her own voice.
“I got your pin, sweetheart,” he said. “As soon as I can, I’ll get out of here and I’ll come look at your car.”
“Okay,” she said.
“You’re really all right?”
