"Roxy."
"I'm glad you're following me," I say, and his face changes to a mixture of relief and hunger with a hint of darkness that covers my skin in goosebumps. This is like the world’s longest foreplay session.
"I’m glad too."
I smile and walk back to my van, feeling his eyes burn into my back the whole way. I start the engine and I look in the rearview mirror and see him still sitting at the picnic table, watching. Five minutes into my journey I look back and see his headlights appear behind me.
I smile. I’m finally not alone in this world.
The highway stretches out ahead of me, empty and dark where the white lines disappear into the distance like a path to nowhere. Or maybe to everywhere. I've been driving for an hour, and I can sense him behind me. Two miles behind, like always. Close enough to keep me in sight, but far enough to maintain the illusion that this is still a choice. But it isn't a choice anymore.
Maybe it never has been.
I think about the diner, the way he looked at me with those dark, honest eyes. The gas station, standing too close, the air between us charged with a toxic spark. The rest stop, his fingers brushing mine, the promise of what is to come. I then think about the bar I’m driving toward, the one I'd told him about, where we'd finally stop circling each other and collide.
My hands grasp at the steering wheel with anticipation of the fact that I’m not running anymore, I’m leading him exactly where I want him to go.
The realization should have scared me, forcing me to wake up and vanish into some small town where he'd never find me. But I don't want to.
I want to be found.
I want him to catch me.
The truth of it washes over me like a weight of comfort. I've been alone for so long, surrounded by people who don't understand, who look at my art and see something disturbing instead of something true and beautiful. People who turn away from me as the weird creepy girl who doesn’t belong.
But not Dom. He likes me and doesn’t want to leave or look away, and I know it’s the same for him too. I can see the madness in him, the hermit who struggles with society daily. The wayhe doesn’t fit the mold like me. We were the same two people who'd been walking through the world alone, pretending to be normal, until we found each other on a roadside in the middle of nowhere. And now we can't let go.
I glance again in the rearview mirror, and his headlight is still there, steady and constant. But soon, he won't have to follow anymore, because he will be here with me.
The bar appears in the distance, a low building with a flickering neon sign, exactly the kind of place where people go to hide from the world, from the everyday mundane shit.
I pull into the parking lot and wait with the only thing keeping me company, which is the pounding of my heart, knowing he is about to turn up and that this will be the beginning. I grab my bag with my sketchbook and hop out of the van.
The night air is cool against my skin, so I grab my denim jacket from the passenger seat to wear over my sundress, before walking over to the bar entrance. As I walk over I can smell cigarette smoke and stale beer drifting from the building, with the muffled sound of a jukebox playing something country and sad.
I don’t look back as I put my hand on the door, as I know he is behind me. My pulse races, every nerve ending alive with anticipation. I push open the door and step inside.
CHAPTER SIX
ROXY
The bar is what I expected. Dim lighting that barely cuts through the cigarette smoke, sticky floors that haven't been properly cleaned in years, and the smell of stale beer and desperation hanging thick in the air. A neon Budweiser sign flickers in the window, casting everything in a sickly red light. The jukebox in the corner plays something country and mournful, all steel guitar and heartbreak. It sets the tone perfectly for drifters looking to escape.
I take a seat in one of the booths near the window and let out a long breath of exhaustion. I’m needing food and a break from the endless stretch of asphalt. The bartender, a woman in her fifties with bleached hair and tired eyes, forces a smile when she comes over to my table, and I order a burger and a water. She just nods and retreats into the kitchen, leaving me alone at the corner booth with my sketchbook and my thoughts.
I close my eyes and all I can see is Dom. For some reason I replay our first interaction, the way his voice had sounded when he saidreally goodlike he meant it in a way that had nothing to do with technique and everything to do with truth. His voice should not be so damn sexy.
I flip open my sketchbook, and try to focus. I scan the bar and notice a group of four at one of the other booths, looks like a double date, but it’s one of the women in that group who grabs my attention. I’d say she is in her thirties, but is dissociated from the group. She has wavy light brown hair to her shoulders, wearing a plaid shirt, no make up. She’s pretty, but her eyes portray a sadness that no one else sees. She appears excluded from the conversation as the other three all laugh and chat around her, like she isn’t there. But I don’t think she wants to be there. Her eyes frequently drift out of the window like she is thinking of something else completely. Does she dream of being in another country? Is there another guy? Is she regretting all of her decisions that led her to this point? Whatever she is thinking, I quickly start to sketch her, completely absorbed in the raw emotions playing out on her face that nobody seems to notice.
My burger and drink arrive and I eat mechanically, barely tasting it, with my other hand still moving across the page. I add shadows, depth, texture, making the mystery woman more real than she probably feels. I’m so focused on the drawing that I don’t notice him approaching until he is already sliding into the seat across from me.
"Well hey there, sweetheart."
I look up and inwardly groan in annoyance. He’s maybe forty, with a beer gut straining against a stained t-shirt and the glazed eyes of someone who's been drinking since happy hour. His smile shows too many teeth, and there is something predatory in the way he’s looking at me that makes my skin crawl.
"Not interested," I say flatly, returning to my drawing.
"Aw, don't be like that," he says, his voice slurred and his words running together." Just being friendly. Pretty girl like you shouldn't be sitting all alone."
