Page 99 of Flipping the Script

Sebastian: okie dokie

He sent me the emoji with the flat lines for eyes and a mouth.

I tossed my phone onto the dash and leaned back in my seat. This was going to be a long hour and a half.

Crack.

“Ow!”

I rubbed my knee where I’d bounced it off the steering wheel and blinked groggily.

Had I fallen asleep?

The soft patter of rain on the windshield helped clear the last of my daze.

It was raining? And it was getting dark? How long had I been asleep?

Blearily, I grabbed my phone off the dash and hit the home screen.

Nothing happened.

“No, no, no, no, no,” I muttered, tapping the button a half dozen times like that would somehow recharge the battery. “Fuck.” I tossed the phone back onto my dash and looked around.

It was dark, but not just because of the rain.

It was nearly nightfall.

“Shit.” Scrambling, I threw my car door open and nearly fell out, my feet getting caught up under the pedals in my haste.

Cool rain pelted my skin and soaked into my clothes as I stood beside my car, scanning the area for any sign of Jesse.

I’d called him just after six, and it didn’t get fully dark until almost nine at night this time of year.

That meant almost three hours had passed.

Realizing I wasn’t accomplishing anything except getting wet, I got back into my car and closed the door.

Was he okay? Had something happened to him?

Maybe he’d texted that something came up or that he couldn’t make it, and I hadn’t seen it before my phone went dead?

A flash of lightning lit up the sky and the interior of my car.

“One, two, three, fo?—”

Crack!

I jumped, even though I’d been waiting for it. That was close, and louder than the thunder that had woken me up.

The sky was rapidly darkening, going from steel gray to midnight blue to black as the last few minutes of twilight faded and night fell.

Nervously, I peered through the window of my car. I loved the woods and had never been afraid of the dark, but I also had an incredibly vivid imagination and could easily scare the piss out of myself if I let my thoughts wander.

“Okay, think about this logically,” I coached out loud to distract myself. “You’re stuck in your car with no cell. You’re five miles from anyone, you can’t drive, and it’s storming.”

The rain came down harder, falling in thick sheets as the sky seemed to go pitch black in an instant.

A flicker of irritation cut through my panic. I’d checked the forecast after work, and it said there was a thirty percent chance of rain. It hadn’t said anything about a storm.

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