Saving Della Ray

Jess spotted one that had rolled underneath a vehicle parked nearby and she immediately got down in the dirt and belly-crawled under the car after it.

I should have told her not to, but my heart was pumping in my chest and I could still feel my palm tingling where it had touched his warm skin.

“Got it,” she shouted happily, and jumped to her feet.

“Good girl,” I said automatically, and stroked her sweet angel shaped face.

He had ridden off into the sunset, but I had every intention of finding him and paying him back. This was Arnault, a small desert town on the way to the Sangre de Christo mountains and there was no way a man like that wouldn’t be known by absolutely everybody.

Della-Ray

“He said what?” Nichole, my best friend and roommate, screeched from where she was stood scrubbing a pan in the sink. She sounded like I had startled the life out of her.

Nichole and I left our hometown and moved out here to Arnault, Texas looking for change and a new life. We came because we heard it was a special place, a haven for artists, writers, and creatives.

I wanted to leave our dead-end town and reach for something different, so this was supposed to be our great adventure. We were full of excitement. I was going to write in my free time, and she was going to paint.

Nichole managed to secure herself a dream job as an apprentice with a painter she admired, but to my dismay, I realized I couldn’t write a single word. Every time I found a minute to sit down with my laptop, the words simply didn’t flow. Forget about words flowing, my page stayed completely blank.

I knew it had to do with the fact that I was physically exhausted and constantly harassed with the thoughts of all the bills and debts I’d acquired from the last time Jess fell ill. I told myself the words would come back once I had finished paying my debts, once I had more time to myself when Jess was old enough to go to school.

Jess noisily sucked another strand of spaghetti into her mouth.

I turned my head so she couldn’t see my face, and calmly mouthed to Nichole, “He said he wanted to fuck me.”

“How dare he?” Nichole gasped, the pan clattering into the sink.

I hid my smile at her offended, incredulous expression. Nichole’s morals were set on the very traditional, or maybe even on the Amish dial. She did not approve of sex before marriage, let alone fucking for fucking’s sake. I’d known her since we were both fifteen and in school together and she’d only ever had one boyfriend. She dropped him like a hot potato when he hinted at sex without putting the all-important ring on her finger first.

“What? All because he bought you some milk?” she demanded, utterly furious on my behalf.

“Well, he bought himself some milk. He bought us the groceries.”

She looked at me quite speechless.

“He was extremely hot, Nichole,” I said teasingly, to scandalize her further.

Her mouth tightened. “How in God’s name do you manage to attract these creeps?”

I pretended to glance around the room and then back at Jess. “Umm … I must have missed something here. How exactly did I, who was minding my own business in a grocery store, become the problem?”

She sighed and shook her head, making her blonde curls bounce wildly. “Please, Della-Ray. Just stay away from him, okay.”

“What makes you think I’ll run into him again, or have anything to do with him?”

“Because I know you. Admit it. You’re itching to pay him back, aren’t you?”

“Well, there is that.” I grinned. “And his hot body.”

She snorted. “Stop trying to wind me up by talking like that. I know you don’t mean it, but you’re not from these parts and if you’re even slightly tempted, I should tell you that those kinds of men are lethal. They always break your heart. And if he indeed took a liking to you, especially in—in that way—then he will find you and—and have you. So you make sure to stay away from him at all costs. If you see him again, just immediately run away.”

“Well, if he’s as dangerous as you say, then what will running away solve?” I teased.

If I were honest, I felt a little discouraged by her crushing words. I’d hoped it would be a giggly, girly conversation between us, something that brought us closer, but it was clear that wasn’t to be. Ever since we moved out here, she seemed to have lost not only her sense of humor, but also her smile.

She turned her back to me and continued washing the pan, but much harder, her curls bouncing with how much pressure she was exerting. Suddenly another thought occurred to her, and she whirled around to face me again. “Was he just a regular dude with a motorbike, or did he seem like one of those biker gangs type?”