Page 140 of Finding Fate

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Finding Izzy

She had been driving for hours now, an act that normally would help her to think clearly, but her mind was still racing, everything running together in an agonizing mix, too confusing to sort.

There were a few times when she had considered stopping, but the only places she wanted to go, she couldn’t let herself. They would only unleash more hurt on her already too sorrowful soul.

It was the first time in weeks that the numbness completely evaded her, and her emotions felt strong and raw now that they had their chance to surface. Occasionally, Isabel would scream out at the frustration of it, when it felt like too much to bear, but mostly, she just drove.

She really wasn’t going very far, but the urge to take those unknown roads was there, a temptation to escape the hurt that waited for her back home. She wasn’t ready to go back to that.

But she was chicken to do it, to leave. It was a hazard of living the small town life where everything had always been familiar. So instead, she kept driving through her familiar, hoping that, at some point, the sting in her emotions would ease so she could think and feel like a rational human being. If that could ever be possible again.

At some point, the white noise of the old engine’s roar started to fade and the truck began to slow, drawing her attention. At first, she was confused, but when she looked down at the dash lights behind the wheel that was clutched tightly in her left hand, fury flashed for herself.

She pulled off to the side of the road just as the truck slowed to a stop and smacked the wheel with her hand in frustration, causing the horn to sound abruptly in the otherwise silent night.

“No, not here,”she inwardly begged. It was too close to there.

How dumb was she for not watching the fuel gauge? How many gas stations had she passed now? And not once had she even considered she might need to stop.

“Now, I have no choice but to call someone, go back home. Or brave it,”her mind added at the end.

She shuddered. The thought was crippling. She didn’t want to go back yet, didn’t know if she could handle it, or handle here. Avoidance was the whole point of the driving.

She decided to wait a bit. Just sit in the truck cab. At least, it was warm here. She lay her head against the wheel and let her thoughts continue to spin out of control.

Eventually, the warm air that had filled the cab’s interior began to fade, the heater no longer able to run. She shivered at the wintry temperature the space had taken and debated, reluctantly realizing it was time to give in and call for someone.

Her hand searched the seat for her purse, but it was empty. She looked over, expecting to see it lying on the floorboard, but that was bare, too, aside from a magazine and a pair of her sister’s flip flops.

“Perfect. Just perfect,” she groused to herself. Hadn’t enough gone wrong without her having to deal with this, too? She struggled to push the confusing mess of thoughts aside for a minute so she could think what to do, but her brain just wasn’t cooperating.

This new dilemma annoyed her to no end, and the idea of sitting in the stationary vehicle the rest of the night just about drove her mind over the edge. So with reckless abandon of everything she’d been warning herself, she threw the driver side door open and hopped down to the mixture of grass and gravel-like tar below.

She almost regretted the act when she felt the cold, piercing wind bite into her face and arms, but she slammed the door shut, choosing to ignore it. The cold was nothing compared to the raw emotion that tumbled around inside her.

* * *

The roads were more deserted than Tucker expected them to be with people out celebrating the New Year, but then again, it was nearly three in the morning now. Most people had probably already made their way home.

He looked closely at the parked cars and the few moving ones as he drove through Bentonville, watching closely for any vehicle that could pass for the twins’ beat up truck. He’d driven past just about every building and road that he thought might have had any kind of significance to Izzy, but there was no sign of her.

He wasn’t going to let himself grow discouraged, though. He would find her. He had to make things right.

“So, where else could she be?”

A stroke of genius hit him then that he was surprised he hadn’t thought of long before. He pulled a wide U-turn in the middle of the empty street and drove.

Stopping his truck without even pulling into a parking space, he jumped out, and almost not bothering to reach out and shut the door, he weaved through the stones spaced in rows along the ground, running as fast as he could to the place that even he had yet to go.

Winded, he came to a stop before his daughter’s grave, her grandfather’s right beside her. Izzy wasn’t there, but he dropped to his knees, not from the pressure in his sore ribs, but from the ache that tore at his heart. Forcing himself, for her, he lifted his gaze to the small headstone.

DESTINY JUNE PATTERSON

DECEMBER 12, 2019

SWEET DAUGHTER AND GRANDDAUGHTER

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