She sighed. “I hate when you do this to me.”
“I hate when your aunt calls me crying in the middle of the night because she needs to bitch and can’t get ahold of you,” I shot back. “Tit for tit, remember?”
We’d been fielding each other’s calls for a long fucking time.
Today’s desire to disappear wasn’t unusual for either one of us. Sometimes we used each other as distractions when we wanted to unplug from our family.
Today was no different.
“You’re right. It’s about time that she’ll start calling again anyway. This idea of giving each other’s phone numbers to our family was a great idea.”
I snickered.
We’d done that when we’d finally moved out and gotten a place to share.
When dad had come by looking for me because I’d changed my number and moved out of his house, I’d had a stroke of genius and given Wyett’s number to him. When she’d found out what I’d done, she’d given her aunt my number, and they’d started calling each other’s number ever since.
“Hey, is it okay if I take that old logging road that leads down the backside of the property?” I questioned.
“Go for it,” she said. “It’s not used all that much, so I’m not sure of the integrity of it at this point. But feel free to do whatever. Nobody will care.”
The property that Wyett co-owned with her father’s old friend was in the back hills of nowhere, Texas.
Actually, more accurately, it was known as Souls Chapel.
Souls Chapel, Texas was a small town. The population was a little over eleven hundred souls. There wasn’t even a traffic light or a stop sign in the town. There was, however, a convenience store that sold damn good hamburgers.
In fact, now that I was thinking about their hamburgers, I knew that I’d be stopping there for lunch before I went on my hike.
“Ohhh,” I groaned. “Thinking about one of Crockett’s hamburgers is making my mouth water.”
There was silence on the other end, and then Wyett said, “You’re such a bitch.”
I giggled.
“Love you, Wy-Wy. I’ll talk to you in a few days, okay? If I don’t post anything on FB or Instagram in the next couple of days, you might want to send out a search party. Love you.” I hung up before she could say anything, knowing that she was mad at me now for bringing up her favorite hamburger joint.
Wyett didn’t get out here much. She just didn’t have time due to her job and schooling.
However, I’d be sure to bring her a burger home.
That would make her happy, wouldn’t it?
Thinking about my next few days and what I would need to grab, I packed a backpack, loaded it up with some snacks and a small first aid kit, my video equipment, and then loaded my Land Rover up with my camping supplies.
Once I was ready to go, I hopped into the SUV and headed toward Souls Chapel.
It took me over an hour to get there, which was about normal for someone that actually went the speed limit because she couldn’t afford another ticket or she’d lose her license.
Yes, you could say that I was a bit of a rebel.
But seriously, why the fuck was there a speed limit anyway? Nobody followed it unless they were old or like me and couldn’t afford to get another ticket.
I pulled up outside of Crockett’s Corner store and got out, actually freakin’ giddy about the food that I was about to ingest.
When walked inside, it was to find a very large, very intimidating man with a very big dog at his side. And when I say big, I mean, take my face off in just one lunge big.
“Oh, excuse me.” I smiled.
Or tried to.
The smile didn’t reach my eyes because I was afraid of his dog.
Dogs, for the most part, didn’t bother me. I wasn’t a dog person.
Yes, I knew that made me part serial killer for not liking dogs, but I just couldn’t help it. They were cute, but they had gross amounts of hair, had bad breath, and slobbered.
All of them separately, I could handle. Together? Nope.
I guess that’s probably why I didn’t really hate it when my father told me no on a dog when I was eleven.
However, cats? Cats I fucking loved.
Cats were my jam.
I had two at home. Two that liked me when they liked me and could do without me when they were feeling ambivalent.
Which worked for me because I loved to pet them, I loved to snuggle them, and I loved when they went and did their own thing.
I had a Selkirk Rex, a type of cat that had curly hair. My Selkirk Rex was named T-Rex, Tee for short.
I also had a Highlander. He’s pretty much a normal looking shorthair cat with ears that curl backward. Scotty, the Highlander, had six toes on each foot and was very affectionate and playful… to everyone else that wasn’t me.