A polar vortex passed over his face. "What, I'm good enough to fuck but not good enough to marry? Am I not good enough for you? Is that it?"
I looked at my feet.
"That is it, isn't it? I gave you my virginity, but you don't want more from me. I told you, I'm not the kind of guy who sleeps with anybody lightly. You were my first."
Tears pricked my eyes. I didn't mean to hurt anybody. I was just here for fun, and now it had turned into so much more. I didn’t want to be his wife.
"Please take me into Madison."
"The roads are piled high with snow. We're only supposed to drive in an emergency."
I felt like it was a pretty damn big emergency right now. I said nothing at all. The silence hung uneasily in the air.
With a last look at me, Jimmy left me in the house. All alone. On my own.
I wrapped myself in a blanket near the fireplace, and I cried a little bit. The day had started out so well, and now everything was ruined. Why did I have to forget my pill? My gynecologist had offered me a NuvaRing, because I wasn't the best at taking my pill at a regular time, but I thought that it was gross to put my fingers up there. But if I had, I would not be facing the prospect of getting pregnant by a Wisconsin farm-boy.
Why did he have to propose? It wasn't what I was looking for. Sure, my dad would be over the freaking moon if I had accepted the offer. Monumentally great sex was something, but it was not the foundation of a good marriage, a marriage that would last a lifetime. Out here in the wilderness, where there was no cellphone reception and no Internet and no air conditioning, I could not survive. I might as well be in another country, not the comfortable one in which I had grown up. This area was too foreign for me. Sure, I liked Jimmy a lot. Was I in love with him? Yeah, a little. Was it enough to steal me away from the life that I already had? No. No chance.
I packed up my clothes. I had not taken a lot out of my suitcase. I just needed to take down my dresses and shirts from the hangers in the closet. I went thumping down the stairs with my three suitcases. It was easier to bring them down than pull them up. I put away all my art supplies.
I did not want to cry. It would ruin my makeup.
I waited for Jimmy to come through the door. I was done here. I knew that he would be back at some point. I stared at the front door like a cat stares at a mouse hole. Waiting.
When it eventually opened, he did not take off his coat.
"If you want to go to Madison, let's go."
Hotel
Amelia
His truck was outside, and he had snow tires on it. I heaved all three of my suitcases into the truck bed and hoped that the snow wouldn't completely ruin everything that I had inside. They weren't waterproof.
I climbed up into the cab of the truck, and the lines of Jimmy's face were grim, as if someone had died. The engine roared to life, and we spent a very awkward, long time driving into Madison through a surprisingly little amount of snow. The snowplows must have come through recently. I could see pink salt on the road, so the salt trucks had been through here, too. I held my hands tightly in my lap, and I stared out the window.
We pulled up outside of a hotel on Watts Road, and he pulled all my suitcases out of the truck. He carried them in his arms when it would have been impossible for me to pull all three of them in. When we got into the hotel, he put them on one of those carts, the kind that you always see being used in Broadway musicals.
"I booked you a room. You can stay here until the snow is gone, and the jet is ready to take you home."
He wouldn't look at me. He just stared at my hair. I felt a tear threaten, but I didn't want to ruin my makeup. Don't cry, Mel.
I extended my hand. "Thank you. I really appreciated spending time with you."
He looked at me. I took a step back from the rage burning in his eyes. "Thank you for coming," he said, but his tone said something else.
He left me there in the lobby. I went to the desk, and I got a key card for my suite. The receptionist offered to send somebody to help me, but I pulled the suitcases into my room by myself.
I lay back and tried not to think of how filthy the bedspread could be. This whole trip had been a complete mistake. I should not have come. I could have decided to get a job while I was still in DC, and then I wouldn't have gone through this. The high of falling in love. The low of having him propose to me and send a rock sailing through the fragile new relationship, shattering it like untempered glass. I took out my makeup remover, and I plugged in my Clarisonic charger. My Clarisonic was charged enough in a minute or two. It buzzed as I cleared my whole face of makeup. I let myself cry now, cry for what I had lost, and what I had not chosen. This was the opportunity cost of going home and living my own life. I knew that I needed to move out of my father's house. I had been living there since I was born, and it was high time for me to get my own place. With my own house, I would have more privacy. Less meddling. I had a trust fund that Dad had threatened to take away, but I also had enough stashed away to keep me afloat for a few months on my own. I knew that truly, with my back to the wall, I would figure out a way to make it work. It was the middle of the school year, but surely they needed substitutes or assistants year round.
I called Captain Harris from Madison. My phone finally had a signal, and I was glad to be back in civilization.
"Hello?"
"We need to bring up the timeline. Can you bring the jet a little earlier?"
“How much earlier?”