Page 11 of Driving Me Mad (Sanity 1)

I reach over and take her hand. “Hey, you’re forgetting something pretty important.” She stares and waits for me to continue. “It’s not always going to be like this.” It’s what I keep telling myself, too. Before I can keep talking, she interrupts.

“It’s not always going to be good either, Trace. How am I supposed to handle the bad days? I doubt an employer will be understanding.”

“One day at a time.”

The waitress comes with our soups. The moment she steps away, Brittany says, “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Particularly because you look like you want to give me a lecture, which means you’re in therapist mode, and we don’t want to go there. So.” She takes a deep breath. “Bec and I are planning to do that, and hopefully, it’ll work out. My parents have offered to help me out until I land a job. Sometimes, I wonder how I managed to get so lucky in the parent department. Is your dad supportive too?”

I shift uncomfortably in my seat. How am I supposed to tell her? To buy time, I eat another spoonful of soup. It seems I’ll just have to say it because I don’t know how else to do it. Clearing my throat, I say, “He probably would be if he knew.”

“What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t know.”

“Why?” She looks perplexed. I can’t blame her.

“My problems started while in college. I didn’t have to tell him and I never did.”

Her eyes are full of sadness. “Trace,” she whispers.

“Don’t,” I interrupt, my voice firm. I know that tone. That’s the exact same tone I use when I say Britt.

“But he should know.”

“Why? It’s not like I’m dying; I have trouble living sometimes, Brittany. I know how to take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for quite some time. I don’t want to tell him and I don’t have to, so I won’t.”

“Then who is your support system?” she pushes.

I sigh. “Leave it alone.” There’s more to the story than me not wanting to tell my father because I don’t want to worry him and because I don’t like talking about my problems. That is not something I want to get into today with her, though.

Brittany nods, but I know she isn’t happy about it. Now, more than before, I’m ready to go home and crash. We finish our soups and I pay our bill. When we walk outside, snowflakes are steadily falling. Brittany tilts her head back, her eyes closed as the fat, fluffy flakes fall onto her face.

“I didn’t know it was going to snow,” she says.

“Me either.” We’re downtown, and thanks to not really wanting to do what I originally had planned, I decide to come up with a new plan. “Let’s walk.”

She wraps her arms around my arm, leans her head against it, and we begin to walk. “Is this what you had planned? Walking around town in the snow? Sounds lazy and uncreative,” she teases.

“We’ll do what I had planned another day,” I promise.

We walk silently, the coldness slowly seeping back into my bones as the snow sways to the ground. Every so often, we’ll stop as Brittany does a little window shopping. The ground quickly gains a layer of snow.

“We should go before the roads get bad,” Brittany suggests, turning us around to walk back toward the restaurant. For North Carolina, the roads are already bad. They were considered bad with the first snowflake in the sky. “Are you okay, Trace?”

“Yeah.”

“Ready to get home, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” This time, I sigh. “But I’m still enjoying being with you.” We stop on the passenger side of my car and Brittany faces me, tilting her head back to look at me. Her eyes betray her worries while her cheeks, nose, and lips are red from the cold. I wrap my arms around her and tug her against me to help warm her up. “Stop whatever you’re thinking.”

A wry smile stretches her lips. “What makes you think I was thinking?”

I laugh. “Because I know you better than you think I do.”

Her lips purse, drawing my attention. “Then what am I thinking now?”

The same thing I’m thinking. Without a word, I lean down to press my mouth to hers. Our cold skin is oddly a bit of a turn-on, especially when the longer I kiss her and the deeper the kiss goes, the warmer we get. I’ve been thinking about this girl for a long time. I’ve wanted her and didn’t have her for far too long. Brittany lifts onto her tiptoes, her arms snaking around my neck, but it’s the way her body brushes against mine that causes me to groan.

A strong, frigid gust of wind causes me to pull away from her.

---