my phone alarm scares me awake. That’s when I realize today is the day Bobby is taking me to that cool spot. I jumped out of bed and grab my robe, jump into the shower and clean myself as thoroughly and as quickly as I could. while I am finishing up doing my hair and make up I hear my phone go off. It was Bobby. the text read ‘I told you to be ready by seven.’ I looked at the time and it was 6:55 AM. confused, I texted him back that I will be right out quickly. I put on my sneakers, grabbed my purse and a sweatshirt in case it’s chilly. As I’m walking through the house, I notice that it appears to be very dark and still. Crazy Aunt Trisha must still be sleeping. I get out the door as quietly and as quickly as I could.
I get to Bobby’s truck. Open the door and say hello. He said “hi, let’s go. We are on a schedule.”
“Are we stopping for coffee?” I asked.
“No.” he replied abruptly, then he handed me a piece of paper. I unfolded it. It was typed out and literally said itinerary on the top of it:
7:00 AM- pick up Madissy
8:00 AM - should have gone through first toll $2.50
9:30 AM- should have gone through second toll $1.75
10:30 AM- bathroom stop at McDonald’s
11:30 AM- arrive at destination
after reading it, I asked, “why did you give this to me?”
“that’s your copy, It’s very simple. it’s important to me that we stick to the schedule… and you will be paying for tolls since I paid for my gas since and I’ll be doing the driving”. At first I found what he said extremely bizarre and got annoyed. But, then I thought… actually, it’s pretty fair. I took out my phone and started looking at it. Bobby had an audiobook playing through the speakers in his car. I was trying not to pay attention to it. It was some kind of thriller about a murderer, who is trying to not get caught. It was already deep into the story so I was kind of lost, sounded kind of scary.
we got to the first toll and I handed Bobby a five dollar bill. He didn’t even look at me, He just took it and handed it to The Guy. Once we were driving at a reasonable speed again, I asked Bobby if we could maybe talk for a while. He looked at me with this confused look.
“About what?” He said.
“ I don’t know, about anything.”
he looked annoyed, but said nothing.
”I know, let’s play a game.”
“Game, what kind of game?”
“When my parents and I used to go on road trips we used to play a bunch of games.”
“How about the alphabet game?”
He just scoffed.
“Please stop being childish”
well that went over like a fart in church. Really feeling annoyed, I just took out my phone and watched videos.
We were on line for the second toll. Bobby looked over at me and asked me to give him money for the toll.
”Bobby, I gave you five dollars. That should’ve covered both tolls.” I said, feeling confused. he told me that he gave me the change from the first toll. I told him that he didn’t and he started checking his pockets.
“I definitely gave it back to you.” I checked my pockets, around the truck and looked through my purse. I could feel that he was getting agitated so I just took out my wallet and handed him $20.
“Don’t you have anything smaller than this?” he exclaimed with frustration. I explained that I didn’t and that I didn’t even expect to have to pay for tolls. Frustrated, he took the $20 bill. He paid the man and I noticed he put the change in his pocket. annoyed, I told him that the change was mine. His response was that there were going to be more tolls on the way home. I said “that’s fine, then I won’t be giving you any more money for tolls then, right?” He raised one eyebrow and gave me a weird half smile. It was a little unsettling, but it shut me up. My thought was, ‘Yeah after this trip I think I’m going to have to break up with this guy, who isn’t really my boyfriend to begin with… Back to watching my videos. ‘
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Realizing my bladder is very full, and I’m getting uncomfortable. I look at the clock and see that it is only 10:05 AM. The last thing I want to do is ask him to stop at a bathroom. I wait another three minutes. It occurs to me that I am definitely not gonna last until our scheduled bathroom time. So I say in the sweetest tone I can muster
“Bobby?” he gives me a side glance.
”I really need to use the bathroom.” he frowns and tells me that I have to wait for the clean McDonald’s bathroom that he knows. I explained that I couldn’t wait. He gets really frustrated and pulls off the highway really fast.
While we are looking for a bathroom, I point out a few gas stations.
“no. gas stations are dirty. We are not going in there.” it got to the point where I was truly afraid I was not going to make it and now I was in pain. I screamed at him.
“We are going into the next place that has a bathroom because I cannot hold it any longer!” He grumbled out a “fine,” and pulled into a gas station parking lot. I grab my purse and run out of the car. I ran up the bathroom and… shit it was locked. I ran up to the counter and ask the attendant if I could have the key. she hands me a key that is attached to this huge piece of wood. I run to the bathroom to use it. after the using the bathroom, feeling extremely annoyed, but relieved I made it, I decided I’m going to get a Diet Coke and some snacks for the road. I am staring at the gas station attendant while I am waiting my turn. She’s an older lady, I bet about aunt Trisha’s age. She is so very pleasant with the people she’s dealing with. She has a glow about her. You can tell that she spent too much time in the sun. She has very wrinkled skin, but there is something very beautiful about her. I thought to myself ‘I wish she was my aunt instead of that batshit crazy aunt Trisha.’
I paid for my stuff and got in the car. Bobby seems pissed off.
“what’s wrong now?”
“ I see you’ve got yourself a drink, so maybe we could stop at the bathroom again?”
” I got snacks too.” I said in a huff.
”I didn’t eat breakfast and I haven’t had anything to drink today… and if you’re nice to me, I’ll share.”
he just shook his head. once we were back on the highway, I opened up my snacks and tried to get back on my phone. No service, well this sucks. I asked Bobby if we could at least put on the radio.
“no, I am listening to my book.”
I told him that I thought that this was going to be fun, but I am not having any fun. He just looked at me. Then I told him that I would rather he just take me home.
”I’m sorry, you’re right.” he said softly. He turned off the radio and told me to find a radio station I liked. I had my aux cord with me and plugged my phone in to his car so we could listen to my music. Every time I would pick out a song, I would tell him something about the song, why I liked it or what it would remind me of. he really didn’t say much, but remained pleasant and smiled at me here and there. It was kind of nice, much better than being at my aunt’s house. I felt much better about coming.
after driving for a while, where there seem to be really nothing, we wound up on some side streets and what appeared to be a very rural area. Very small town looking. The houses, although small, were beautiful architecturally. Next thing you know, we pulled off onto a dirt/gravel road. Bobby had to slow the car down because of the amount of potholes and bumps. After about 10 minutes, I started to get a little nervous.
“where are we?” He told me that we were almost there. 25 minutes later, we are parked at the edge of a mountain.
“we’re here.”
“where?” I replied.
“we have a bit of walking to do, but we are here.” he went to his trunk and got out a backpack. Next thing you know, I’m following him and scrambling up this mountain. When we got to the top, I looked around and it was absolutely beautiful. it was a Valley surrounded by these red, pink and brown marbled mountains. In the valley, there were all these boulders and trees. it looked like a painting. It took my breath away, It was so beautiful. Bobby never even stopped. He started to go down the mountain.
“Bobby, can we take a moment to take all of this in?” I called out. I needed to slow down. He just told me to keep up. I asked him many times to slow down. He never even turned to look at me. Once we were in the valley, we were scrambling over boulders and between trees. A couple of times, I thought that I may have even lost him. the next thing I knew I was faced with this yellow orange glow. I could see it between the trees and rocks, I knew we must have been close because Bobby was standing there with his hands on his hips. Once I got up to him, I could see that about 100 feet away, there was a complete clearing with this huge hole that was just emulating light. It was much brighter than I thought it would be.
“there it is.” Bobby said, with what appeared to be a bored expression on his face. Just the sight of it made me feel overwhelmed with emotion. I got a lump in my throat and tears had started to form. Slowly, we started walking towards it. As we got closer, I had to take off my sweatshirt because I started feeling the heat. it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my entire life.