know,” he says.
“The whole point was to get here and to get the money.” I continue.
I feel my voice getting urgent and tense. It’s mirroring what’s happening on the inside.
“I’m going to figure something out.”
On the outside, he doesn’t seem fazed by any of this. Hardly even bothered.
It’s either that or I haven’t gotten a good sense of his moods. Perhaps, he’s just distant. Not entirely here.
“Is something wrong? Why don’t you think that this is a bigger deal than it is?”
Frustrated, he gets out of the car and slams the door in my face.
I’m losing control.
My heart is beating out of my chest.
My palms get sweaty. I try to calm myself by getting out of the car, closing my eyes and pointing my face toward the sun.
I take a few deep breaths with my diaphragm and feel a little better.
I’ve never tried to meditate, but I wonder if this is what it’s like, just standing here and shutting the world out and not letting it in, no matter what.
A few minutes later, I follow Tyler to the front desk. I’m supposed to be doing this. We’re supposed to be careful, but neither of us are thinking clearly right now.
Luckily, the clerk out front has her nose buried in her phone and barely bothers to look up once.
“Usually, the normal check-in is at two, but you’re in luck,” she says. “We actually have a room for you.”
“Thank you,” I say. “We really appreciate that.”
When we get to the room, it’s not even ten a.m.. I know that we’re lucky to get in so early, but I don’t feel lucky at all.
Two more nights and we will have to start sleeping in the car. Or we’ll have to take that couple of thousand dollars that Tessa offered and forget about the rest, at least for a while.
But how long will that last? And then what?
“I need to talk to you,” I say, turning to Tyler after we drop our bags on the floor.
“Not now,” he mumbles.
“No, yes, now,” I insist.
“What do you want me to say?” Tyler asks. “You heard everything that she said.”
“You have to insist. You have to make her. She’s lying.”
“No. Tessa is many things, but she’s not a liar. She’s going to pay us back. She just doesn’t have the money and that’s not an excuse.”
“Well, I don’t know, but we have to do something. We can’t just do nothing, right?”
“Yes, we do have to do something.”
I wait for him to continue, but Tyler just shuts down. He plops on the bed and turns on the TV. I hate the way that he is ignoring me but there isn’t much I can do.
I start to talk again, I try to push him to say something… Meaningful, but nothing comes out.
“I just don’t understand how you can let her treat you like that,” I blow up.
The rage that has been boiling up within me from the time that Mac showed up and then Maggie showed up, suddenly comes spilling out.
The frustration feels like impotence. And it’s difficult to describe.
“I’m not letting her do anything,” Tyler says calmly. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“No!” I yell.
“I’m not going to talk to you while you’re angry like this.”
“Don’t you get it? My anger isn’t going to get better with time. It’s not just going to disappear. It’s going to get worse. I need an answer.”
He says, “Stop,” and flashes his eyes at me.
He narrows them and a coldness that I haven’t seen before washes over them.
“This isn’t up to you, Isabelle. This has nothing to do with you. This is my money and this is my problem. If you don’t want to be a part of my life anymore, then you can just go home.”
“Well, I’d love to!” I yell. “But the problem is that I fucking can’t! I don’t have any fucking money!”
My body tenses from all the anger as it courses through my veins.
I grab my purse and keys and slam the door behind me.
Maybe Tyler is right, I do need some space. At least some time away from him to figure out how the fuck to get back home.
I take the car and drive around for a while, but the stoplights and the other cars just make me feel angrier and more out of control.
Luckily, when I pull onto a small road going toward the hills, I see a sign for a trail. I turn and it leads me to a parking lot in front of a trailhead.
I