Touch me. Kiss me. Love me.
I grip my steering wheel tightly and grit my teeth.
Take deep breaths. Take deep breaths.
Don’t think about them.
Don’t torture yourself.
Don’t allow them a nanosecond of time in your precious thoughts.
I inhale and exhale repeating my mantra several times silently then close my eyes thinking that might help, but it doesn’t.
I pinch the bridge of my nose.
Bite the inside of my cheek.
Dryness licks my throat like a bonfire with snapping flames. I almost choke then reach for the bottle of water resting in the cup holder of my center consul. My fingers tremble, the bottle is full and I fumble as I unscrew the cap. I bring the head to my lips and guzzle down half the bottle in a few long gulps. Part of me thinks the water will put out the fire in my throat, but it doesn’t even begin to extinguish the raw and burning fe
eling.
My attention shifts.
Now I swear I can hear them laughing.
Malicious, cruel laughter at my expense.
Laughing at the fact that I am an oblivious moron.
Too good. Too loving. Too trusting.
Too blind to actually witness what was going on around me.
Too warped in my own life to see all of the signs.
It’s too much to bear.
I’ve almost got myself convinced that I need to put on my hazards, pull over, and a take a break from driving. I decide against that, going ahead with the notion that what I really need is an angst-filled song that I can scream along to. So I change the song on my iPod to You Oughta Know. Since my throat is already raw I figure a little more irritation won’t hurt too much.
Before the song ends, my phone vibrates. A text message. I swipe it from the center consul and read the message on the screen from my best friend, Ella.
Sa…Sa…Sadie! What up my sweet dumpling? How was Boston? You on your way home?
Ella and I have a special relationship. Then again I’m pretty sure all best friends who have been friends as long we have do.
She is the ying to my yang.
My ultimate P-I-C.
I guess that’s what over 20 years of friendship does to two people.
We’re also polar opposites where she’s the classic tomboy, always carrying tools in her purse and I’m the girly girl, always trying to prompt her to wear dresses. We lost touch for a while because she moved to the dirty, dirty south, but when she moved back, we became roommates and quickly picked up where we left off being our silly, glorious selves.
In fact the day after she moved back, I met her for dinner. When I stepped out of my car in the restaurant parking lot, she stood tall, her long straight black hair hanging down her back, her olive skin bronzed, a vibrant smile on her lips.
“What’s up darlin?” she said in her acquired southern twang as she hunched over to meet my 5’3 height and hug me. “You smell like a French whore.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Glad to have you back, Ell.”