A Girl's Guide to Being Jilted | ✓

05 | In Which They Reunite

This is what I get for taking my mother’s stupid piece of junk out.

“Thank you!” I screamed to no one in particular as beads of rain began to hit the car with a soft spatter.

“I don’t know why you’re messing with my life God and I don't know what lesson I’m supposed to be learning but pitching horrible stuff in my way isn’t going to make me learn faster.

“You took my dad, you took what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life and all for what huh? What is the big lesson I’m supposed to get from all this? Fine, I agree I haven’t always made the best decisions but that’s why I’m here. To start over and make my life better. Things are supposed to look up now so why this?”

By this time tears had begun coursing down my face. Suddenly everything hurt more than I initially felt.

I wasn’t just mad at the car for breaking down, I was angry at the regressions that occurred in my life.

From working in probably the best job I’d ever had to living in my childhood bedroom, from being heavily deluded to shoved into stinging clarity.

As I mourned the death of my life and dreams, outside the rain turned to a screaming banshee. The wind howled and threw drops of water at my face through the open window.

Meters below I could hear the splashing of the river as the rain added to its volume.

As the rain got heavier something else happened to me.

I suddenly became numb. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t blink, I just sat glued to the chair.

Strangely I could feel the wind blowing across my face and the cold spot on my left arm that grew as more drops of rain got on it. But inside me was dead.

By this time the sky had grown so grey and murky that I could only see about a few feet in front of me. That was how it rained in Ernest and everyone hated it. First, the sky grew so dark everyone thought it was the end of the world then the heavens would open and release so much water it could drown a whale.

I just sat there for what felt like hours, getting increasingly wet from the open window.

Just then I spotted the hazy shape of a black car coming towards me on the opposite lane.

I didn’t expect the driver to come to help me so I didn’t make an effort to call out because what was the point? I’d only be leaving here just to face the harsh reality that was my life and at the moment sitting here, risking catching a cold, seemed a lot more attractive.

I’d deal with my problems the only way I knew how: by avoiding them until they went away.

I focused my attention on the patch of the river that was visible through the passenger’s window on the right.

The white water twisted and broke at the foot of the mountain a few meters away. There was something so wild and beautiful in the waves as they crashed together.

“Excuse me?” said someone from my left. The rich, velvety voice was almost drowned by the sound of the rain.

Turning, I was met with a deep set of aquamarine eyes and a head full of very curly dark hair that was shaded by a dark umbrella.

“Are you ok?” He asked, almost putting his head into the car.

I wanted to answer but I found my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth.

“Do you need some help?” He sounded like he wanted to hurry up this conversation and get out of the rain.

“I’m stuck,” I croaked out. A gust of wind chose that exact moment to pass and my feeble voice was drowned in it.