Delores rubbed at her tired eyes and stared at the road ahead of her.
Her path was straight and direct now, and it would easily lead her to her final destination. To her undoing. And with a quick breath of release, she pressed her foot down on the accelerator and sped quickly towards her purpose.
She felt more anxious since leaving the gas station and she pondered, for a moment, about taking her medication. They were, after all, what was supposed to keep her thoughts concise and her head level. Yet lately they hadn’t felt that way. Nothing had felt that way.
Like a carnival ride she couldn’t get off, her thoughts were rapid and unwavering, yet her movements were the opposite, sluggish and drowsy. She was a walking contradiction. Zooming at ninety miles an hour inside and loping along sluggishly on the outside, and still she couldn’t grasp on to anything. She was a ball of yarn coming undone; a tangle of knots and loops and nothing made sense anymore.
Michael had told her to keep up with the tablets; that things would settle down eventually. But they didn’t. She remembered that with clarity. She remembered…she remembered…
Delores pinched between her eyes and squinted. The lights blurred as she passed them, the technicolour rainbows mesmerising in their toxicity. Delores let the blurs become shapes and the shapes become memories, broken only by the beating of her broken heart.
‘Don’t you love us, Delores?’
She nodded, swallowing down the lump in her throat and forcing the tears away. He stared at her, hurt riddling every pore on his handsome face.
‘Then why? Why would you do this? Why weren’t we enough for you?’ his voice became angry, his eyes flashing with the same rage that she had begun to fear.
‘You are,’ she breathed out, but it only incited his anger further. ‘You are enough, Michael, I swear!’
‘No, we’re not. We never were. Women like you are never satisfied.’ He spat at her, his nostrils flaring.
The spit dribbled down her cheek, but she refused to wipe it off. She wouldn’t back down now; the hard part had been done. The truth had been spilled.
‘You’ll be sorry, you bitch.’ He sneered. “You’ll be sorry.”
A horn honked and Delores blinked. The two actions were almost simultaneous. She steered the car back into her lane and let out a shuddering gasp. The heat in the car was stifling, regardless of the night that had fallen all around her. She reached down and unwound the window, letting out some of the heat and memories that continued to suffocate her.
She’d remembered something and, while her heart told her it was important, her head told her to ignore it.
Delores dragged a hand down her hot face and looked around her. She needed to stop. She was shaking, her hands trembling as they gripped the wheel, her body a quiver of nerves and energy. Night had fallen, she realised with anxiousness. She needed to stop and rest.
Tomorrow was the day. Tomorrow was the final day. And God rest her soul she couldn’t wait for it all to be over.
Delores watched the rapidly darkening highway, her eyes carefully searching for signs of a motel. The soft glow of their signs normally alerted her to their presence, but right now they were alluding her. She checked behind her, seeing no other cars, and barring the one car she had almost driven in to, the highway was almost barren of existence.
She signalled right and took the next turnoff, needing sleep more than anything else right now. Finally finding a dark corner to pull into, she turned the engine off and stared out into the blackness beyond her window.
She longed for the dark, for the blackness that would fill her head and take away all the thoughts. All the confusion. And all guilt. So much guilt she was drowning in it.
All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and lose herself in the misery of her loss, but she couldn’t. Because the loss was her fault. She was to blame for all of it. Michael had told her so. She glanced down at her purse, at the bottles of medication, the aspirin and the photo that she always kept with her. A pained cry came from somewhere deep within her.
Nothing made sense anymore.
But the evidence was hard to ignore. Impossible even.
Delores climbed out of her car and went to the trunk. She retrieved the small teddy bear from her backpack and brought it to the front of the car with her. She then reclined her seat and closed her eyes. The night pulled her into its darkness, and she fell swiftly to sleep, her arms clutched around her world.
Chapter Thirteen
Delores
The knock on her side window dragged Delores from sleep.
She blinked sluggishly, her eyes focusing in on the cop at her window. Her heart beat heavily and she sat up, muttering apologies.
“Ma’am, this is no place to be sleeping. Can I see your licence and registration please?”
The cop looked young, yet he was likely older than his looks suggested. His hat was sat straight, his face smooth and clean-shaven. He stared in at the bedraggled woman and shook his head. All those years in the academy and this is where he’d ended up: giving out tickets to people parking illegally. He’d wanted to solve murders and fight crime, not this horse crap. He huffed out an annoyed breath and shook his head again, already getting tired of waiting for her to produce her documents.
