Whispering, because I wasn’t sure if Dean was right outside the door, I said, “I’m stranding you with him.”
“Yeah, well, at least I’m not marrying him. I’ll deal with him later.”
Hugging her again, I said, “I owe you one.”
“Nope. You’d do the same thing for me.”
I sure as hell would have.
And so I drove Roxy’s car down the mountain, feeling like I’d made a clean escape. All I had with me were my purse and phone—and, almost ten minutes later, when I got to the junction at the bottom of the mountain, I took Highway 285 south.
An hour later, I was seated at a table in a restaurant in Poncha Springs while nibbling at a sandwich, wondering what I should do next.
CHAPTER 30
Feeling satisfied hunger wise, I left the restaurant determined to sort out the shit in my head. I decided to keep driving south but first I was going to turn off my phone. I had received far too many text messages and phone calls and I couldn’t deal with them right now. Roxy could assure everyone I was okay but needed space.
Still…I had messages and/or missed calls from my mom, my grandparents, Roxy, Cy…and even though I only saw the first line of what he’d written, I knew he was really pissed. I even had a message from Mick, meaning he must have made it. We’d invited him to the wedding, not wanting him to feel left out, but we’d assured him he didn’t need to attend if he didn’t want to.
Jesus. I’d let so many people down.
There was radio silence, however, from Braden. Not that I’d expected to hear from him. Were the tables turned, I wouldn’t want to talk to him…maybe ever again.I’m so sorry I did this to you.
But now I knew it would have been worse to have gonethrough with it, to keep lying to him. He deserved so much more.
I turned off my phone, needing to ignore the world for now. I should have probably sent a text to my mother at least, letting her know I was okay, and I decided to call her later, when my emotions were even calmer. For now, though, I trusted that Roxy was handling the fallout. God, I owed her big time. Maybe I’d pay for a vacation for her like I was my mom.
And, for just a brief moment, I felt queasy again, lightheaded and full of doubt. For the time being, the money was finally rolling in for Once Upon a Riot—but this…this could break up the band. In terms of money, that meant it would probably dry up pretty quickly.
But I couldn’t think about that right now. I had to first get my head on straight.
Buckling myself in Roxy’s car that, thankfully, handled like a dream, I began driving south again. When I spotted a huge outdoor recreation store, I decided to take a chance that they might sell coats or jackets. I managed to find a light blue hoodie that had sported pretty font and drawings ofColorado Wildflowerson the front. Even though it was overpriced, I felt like it was worth every penny.
Then I got back in the car, driving farther from the wedding. Soon I came to a junction. I could go east, west, or south. East would eventually get me home to Nopal, following the path of the Arkansas River. West would take me over the Continental Divide…and a sign told me, if I kept going south, I’d be heading toward Monte Vista.
Why not?
Near the south edge of town, I stopped at another gas station and bought several bottles of water. If I was going to drive for as long as I felt like I needed to, I’d need to behydrated. When I got back in the car, I pulled onto the road heading south and turned on Roxy’s CD player…turning it right back off when Zack’s voice filled the car singing “Sweet Love.” Although it warmed my heart that my best friend clearly did like our music, I didn’t want to hear it right now.
Silence it was.
Besides, hadn’t I wanted quiet time for myself?
I’d barely left Poncha Springs before the road started to climb and I drove past a green-and-white sign that told me Poncha Pass Summit was seven miles away. I felt nervous, because I’d never driven over a pass before but, as I continued to climb, I relaxed. There were no sheer drop-offs on my side, and I loved feeling like I was in nature. There was still plenty of snow everywhere but on the road, and the deciduous trees were still bare, not waking up from their winter sleep yet, but the conifers kept my journey full of pine green.
Ten minutes after getting in the car, I reached the summit and pulled over in the parking area. The sign said I was just above nine-thousand feet—but it didn’t look like it at all. The mountains were so close up. All I could see were peaks all around, many of them wearing snowy caps, and if I hadn’t just climbed several thousand feet, I would have found it hard to believe I was on a summit. There was plenty of snow on the ground except where there was asphalt, covering the small flat meadows tucked inside the bowl of mountains.
I got out of the car to walk around a bit, wishing the clouds would go away. It felt fairly cold but the hoodie took the edge off. Maybe now would be a good time to call my mom. Fetching my phone out of the car, I turned it back on and waited.
But, of course, there was no signal.
Maybe it was better that way, because I hadn’t come to any conclusions about my rash behavior…or my decision to go it alone. Every minute I got farther away, I was beginning to form an idea of who I should be.
That notion was still in its infancy, though, and I’d need to spend more time not doing anything—not driving, not looking at scenery—to figure it all out.
And then I remembered something from my childhood. The Great San Dunes were somewhere south of here, near Alamosa. I remembered loving trekking up and down the dunes, splashing in runoff that constituted a makeshift creek, pretending like I was on a beach somewhere. I also had a memory of my grandpa renting a snowboard so I could slide down the dunes at high speed.
I’d loved it there…and maybe that was where I could reflect and figure out my mess of a life.
