Page 30 of Obeying His Rules

No, baby. You know I’m not! You don’t believe that.

I send the reply and race through the lot to where she parked her car. As I come around the corner of the lanes, I can already see hers is gone. I’m just about to turn and race for mine, but then something at my feet catches my eye.

It glimmers, catching the remaining daylight just right.

I reach down to pick it up and see it’s Jenny’s necklace–the one I just gave her for her birthday–only the clasp is broken. She must have torn it off her neck and thrown it down before she got into her car.

I kneel and pick it up, staring at the heart in my hand. The image shakes me, but I only have a moment before my phone buzzes again. I check it immediately.

You never loved me! You were just pretending all along! Goodbye!

I sprint for my car, and although I know she isn’t going to answer, I call her.

It goes straight to voicemail as I’d expected.

Baby stop this! Stop breathe and think. Calm down. I love you. You know that!

I text back as I climb into my car and floor it.

I speed home first, my heart racing, stomach knotting. I keep glancing at my phone, waiting for the response text to arrive, but it never does.

Seven minutes later, I pull into the driveway, but her car isn’t there. I immediately back out and call her dad, informing him of the situation. I don’t even know what to say to him–where to look for her or how to track her down–but I let him know that I’m headed by her old apartment next, and he says he’s going to call the police and see if they can do something about tracking her phone.

I’m like a racecar driver as I blaze through the roads as the rain picks up and the sun falls down over the horizon.

Two months of improvement to be hit by this.

And she was doing so well.

Five-minutes later, I’m at her apartment. But again, there’s no sign of her car.

“Fuck!” I scream, slamming my fist against my thigh, sending a dull pain up my leg that momentarily distracts me from the feeling of desperate futility threatening to overwhelm me.

There’s only one other place that she could be…

And I don’t want to believe it…

I whip my steering wheel and drive the pedal to the floor. The car spins around, and I zoom off into the night.

The bridge is my new and final destination.

Please don’t be there, Jenny. Please, don’t.

My palms are sweating, and my fingers aching as I grip the steering wheel hard, taking turns at twice the speed at which they should be taken.

I reach down for my phone and dial her number again, but it just rings and rings and rings.

“Come on, Jenny, goddamn it!”

I’m about to have a heart attack as I drive with everything I have inside me.

I’ve less than two minutes to the bridge now, and every terrible thought I have is racing through my mind–every horrible vision and image is assaulting me like an onslaught of toxicity that I can do nothing to defend myself against.

Deep breathing doesn’t help.

Focusing on other memories doesn’t help.

Telling myself she’ll be okay doesn’t help.

---