It’s late. Don’t know how late since my watch stopped working — shoulda had a new battery put in while I still had the chance— but it’s late. Sky’s dark. Gotta be after nine by now. Probably even ten.
Julie’s probably worried sick. Or pissed.
Possibly both.
She doesn’t like to drive in the rain. Even a little bit of a drizzle’s enough to keep her inside until it passes since the roads out here can be treacherous, and everyone speeds. Doesn’t matter what time of day it is or what the weather’s like, everyone out here wants to go as fast as they can.
This morning it was pouring, which meant that she wasn’t about to set a single toe outside. I don’t have that hangup, so I volunteered to go to the store instead.
“You sure, Dex? It’s really nasty out, and — ”
“ — And we need groceries.” I said. “Fridge’s just about bare. If nothing else, I need to go get what we need for dinner.”
She shook her head. “Yeah, but you know how everyone drives around here. Didn’t you say you nearly ended up in the lake the last time?”
Some asshole had been riding my bumper, and there’s a sharp turn in the road not long before our house. It had been raining that day too, and the car had nearly skidded off the road. If it had, I would have been sent tumbling down a very steep hill into the lake, and that would have been the end of me.
Thankfully I’d managed to get the car under control before that happened, but ever since then she’d been even more jittery about the rain. I gave her a peck on the cheek before grabbing my keys.
“I’ll drive safe, okay? Don’t worry, I’ll make it home. Promise.”
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