I backed out of my driveway like a bat out of hell, my tires squealing and all. Steve must have loved that since he was always worried about what the neighbors thought of us. I wondered what they thought about that horrible music blasting out of the house.

Driving past the old man who was still leisurely walking his dogs, I honked me horn and was met with a smile and a wave. I found it ironic that while my dad had turned to shit, he was having a day that he’d tell others about for the rest of his days. How often does a naked woman come running down the street right past you?

I didn’t know where I was going, but I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my chest as soon as I turned out of our subdivision and headed towards the highway. My destination didn’t matter, as long as it was far away from that house.

After some thinking and soul searching, I decided to give my sister a call. I hadn’t seen her for a while and had never seen her new house. I’d been so busy with Steve and trying to advance my career, that I’d neglected the people that really mattered, such as my own family. I pulled over, mustered up the nerve, and dialed the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey sis, it’s Sara. How are you today?”

“Oh, hey you!” she replied, excited to hear from me. “I’m doing well. How are you?”

“Unfortunately, I’m not doing so good. I know you’ve been on us to come see your place, so I was wondering if this was good time to visit.”

“Sure, it’s as good a time as any. When are you guys thinking of coming?”

“Does right now work for you?”

“Oh, right now? Sure, that works for me!”

“Good, I’ll see you this evening then. Oh, and it’s not you guys. It’s just me.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. Does Steve have to work?”

“No, nothing like that. I’ll explain all about it when I get there. Do you think it would be okay for me to stay with you for a little while?”

“Oh no,” she said, her voice turned to a worrisome tone. “I hope everything is all right. Sure, you can stay as long as you’d like. Do you want me to give you directions?”

“No, if you wouldn’t mind texting me the address, that would be great. I can just plug it into the GPS in the car. Thank you so much! I’ll see you tonight. Love you!”

“No problem, I’ll send it right over. Love you too! See you tonight.”

I hung up the phone and for the first time that day, the tears started falling. I was surprised it took so long, but I was too busy being pissed off at Steve to realize how hurt I actually was. I gave myself a pep talk and told myself I was only allowed to cry until the text message with the address came through, and surprisingly, when the alert dinged on my phone, I felt myself begin to calm down.

After entering her address into my GPS system, I jumped onto the highway. Once again, the thoughts of Steve filled my mind and before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face once again. I’m sure I looked ridiculous to anyone passing by, but I didn’t care. I cried and cried, the tears not stopping until I needed gas almost two hours later.

The further I could get away from home, the better it would be. There were so many memories everywhere I looked. I relived many good times with him. I remembered all the years when he’d take me to the county fair and we’d play games and ride rides like we were big kids. I thought about when we were searching for the perfect house and when we found it, we both looked at each other and knew before we even went inside. I even thought about little dates he took me to when we would go to the movies or do karaoke.

Of course, not all of our times were good. Over the years, we had plenty of fights, but what couple doesn’t? The only thing I’d really been unhappy with was our sex life, and that was only in the past year or so. Of course, at the time, I had no idea why our sex life had changed so dramatically. It was all crystal clear at that point, though.

I filled up my gas tank, grabbed a soda and stocked up on tissues because I had a feeling I was going to be needing them many times over the next several days.

My sister lived in Farmington, Utah. I’d never been to Utah and even though the circumstances weren’t the best, I was excited to be able to visit. About an hour after I filled up my fas tank, my GPS announced that I was still a little more than four hours from her house.

It was beginning to get late and I’d been watching the temperature gauge in my SUV beginning to move upward. I hoped that it was just something wrong with the gauge itself, but I knew better.

If there was one thing Steve was good at, it was working on cars. For weeks he had been warning me about the faint knocking noise that was coming from under the hood. Instead of telling him when the knocking got worse, I dealt with it by turning the radio up louder to drown out the noise.

My mistake was realized when that knocking suddenly turned into a loud banging and my dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree. That was the last thing I needed and I was getting angry. I should have been angry at myself, but at that moment, I was pissed off at Steve because had it not been for him and his little fuck buddy, I wouldn’t be in the middle of a road trip.

I pulled into the slow lane as the top speed my vehicle would go was about 15 miles per hour and there was a steady stream of smoke coming from under the hood.

There was no shoulder on the highway and I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere. Pulling over didn’t seem like much of an option. In the distance ahead, there was a sign that said a town called Prescott was coming up. Unfortunately, it was still ten miles away.

I had my doubts that my car would last another ten-seconds, let alone ten miles. At the speed I was going, that would take me about 45 minutes. I didn’t think I had any chance to make it, but what other choice did I really have? I had to push it with all I had.

Close to an hour later, I limped my vehicle off the highway and onto a dark road with no street lights or buildings of any sort. I’d made it to Prescott, but was there anything actually there? Was I about to be stranded in the middle of nowhere?

The banging had gotten louder and it was becoming hard to see through the smoke to drive. It was even starting to come inside, which was causing me to cough and gag.

I was so grateful when I finally saw another sign that told me the Desert Motel and Bar was just one mile ahead of me. If I could just make it there, I’d be okay, at least for the night.