Heidi leaned for­ward at the waist to inspect the dark pur­ple bruise on her left cheek. Underneath her eye was puffy, with a small cut in the cen­ter. Smoothing her makeup on to cover it, she winced at the pain of her own feath­ery touch. The liq­uid foun­da­tion was cool against the burn­ing sen­sa­tion of her skin. She replaced the cap to the foun­da­tion, and pulled her makeup bag closer.

“What are you still doing here?”

Makeup flew in all direc­tions, Heidi’s heart speed­ing up at the sound of the sud­den harsh voice behind her. “Ryan.” She gasped. Turning around she placed her hips firmly against the bath­room counter. “I didn’t think you were still home.”

“I for­got my watch.” He lifted his arm up to show her the large gold watch, its face catch­ing the light and glint­ing into her eyes.

She blinked in the light. “You have a spare at the store, I thought.” She looked him over. He didn’t seem upset; he was lean­ing casu­ally against the door frame. He had a smile on his face for once, but his arms were now crossed over his chest and his hands were in fists. He wore baggy jeans, a black t-shirt, and a skull cap. He wore black boots, and dia­mond earrings.

Ryan’s face was an oval with a pointed chin that was indented to look like inverted horns. His eyes were a pale blue and set close together, giv­ing him an indef­i­nite glare. He nar­rowed his near invis­i­ble eyes at her. “What are you still doing here?”

Heidi turned around to gather up her makeup. “I have a later start time today.” She stuffed all the tubes, bot­tles, pen­cils and tools into the small blue bag they had fallen out of with shak­ing hands.

“You’re not dressed for it.”

True. She was wear­ing just a pair of old jeans and a plain white t-shirt. “We’re rear­rang­ing the office today.”

“Don’t they have peo­ple for that?”

“It’s kind of last minute. We couldn’t get the same guys as last time.” Heidi took a deep breath, not meet­ing Ryan’s eyes. Lying didn’t come easy. She saw him check his pre­cious watch out of the cor­ner of her vision. He sneered at the time it displayed.

“I’m going to be late.” He stood away from the door­frame and turned to leave. “Don’t for­get that the guys are com­ing over tonight. We need beer and pizza by six.”

“Okay.” Heidi called as he slammed the door shut behind him. Her body slumped against the wall. “But it’s not going to be me who gets it this time.” Heidi grabbed her makeup bag and tooth­brush on her way out of the room.

In the bed­room, she didn’t glance at any­thing other than the suit­cases she was tak­ing with her. One by one, she loaded them on the dolly Ryan used to store his col­lec­tion of DVDs on. The movies she tossed on the bed and left there. She quickly left the apart­ment build­ing and ran down the hall to the ser­vice ele­va­tor at the back.

She piled her suit­cases into the back seat of her lit­tle car and slammed the door shut. Looking around to make sure she wasn’t seen by any neigh­bors, she got in and started the engine. She backed her car, loaded with every­thing she owned, out of her space and headed for the main road, the high­way, and finally another state.

“Drive 17 miles and take exit, right” the mechan­i­cal voice of her GPS unit broke in over the song. Heidi rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and yawned. She frowned as rain­drops started to pat­ter her wind­shield. She reached for­ward to turn up the radio. Tapping her fin­gers on the steer­ing wheel she drove the last stretch of the trip in a daze, a slight ache build­ing behind her eyes. She turned when the friendly voice told her she was at her exit and fol­lowed the instruc­tions as it led her down a main road. She turned again at a side road and drove down a quaint street lined with houses and trees. At the end was a cull-du-sac with three houses. There was a van in the dri­ve­way of the one to the right, its bot­tom half cov­ered in mud. The one to the left had no lights on, vehi­cles or other signs of occu­pa­tion. The lit­tle red flag on the screen sim­ply stopped in the cen­ter of the road.

Frowning, Heidi decided to take the cen­ter house option and fol­lowed the curve of the road to park along the curb in front of it. She put the car in park after mak­ing sure that her trailer wasn’t over­hang­ing the dri­ve­way, took off her sun­glasses and looked over at the house. It was white, with wooden steps at its front door. Unlike the other houses on the street it had a longer dri­ve­way that led to a garage. It looked to have two sto­ries. From where she sat at the curb, it looked like the front door was open.

Grabbing her purse and keys, Heidi climbed out of her car and walked around the back of the trailer. She arched her shoul­ders up against the rain. The lights were on in the down­stairs win­dows, show­ing that some­one was home. Taking a deep breath she walked up the dri­ve­way to the front door and knocked on the screen door. “Jon?” she called out.

“He’s not home,” a man’s deep voice answered.

Heidi heard rustling sounds as a dark shape made its way to the front door.

On the other side of the screen a strange man appeared, hold­ing a beer in one hand and a remote in the other. He was dressed in grey and green flan­nel pajama pants with a white under­shirt. He had a five o’clock shadow and a deep scowl. “Who are you?” His deep voice growled at her.

Heidi gasped and back ped­aled down the three steps lead­ing up to the house. Her hand went to her mouth as she looked up at the taller man. As he opened the screen and leaned out all she could focus on were the mus­cles of his shoul­ders, chest and arms. “Uhhhh–.” She blinked a few times, try­ing to find some­thing coher­ent to say but her mind was draw­ing a blank.

He stuck one sock-clad foot out the door and leaned out fur­ther. “Who are you?” He nar­rowed his eyes at her.

Heidi felt her heart­beat quicken as she looked up at him. She took another step back, and screamed as she felt hands touch her shoul­ders. She jumped up and spun around to see who was behind her, her heart racing.

“Heidi. Calm down, it’s only me.” Jon held his hands up in front of him. He looked at her with con­cern. She had never been this jumpy when she was little.

Heidi took a deep breath. “Oh, Jon.” she let out her breath as she threw her arms around him in a hug.

Heidi sat qui­etly at the kitchen table, star­ing at her empty glass. Jon stood at the sink talk­ing angrily into his cell phone. “You can’t be seri­ous.” His voice was deeper, grum­bling at who­ever was on the other end of the line like a bear woken from its nap.

Noah walked into the kitchen to throw away his empty beer bot­tle and retrieve another one from the fridge. He stood, lean­ing the side of his hip against the dish­washer, watch­ing Jon’s back. He was frowning.

“No of course not.” Jon grabbed an old sponge from the sink and started rip­ping bits of it off. “I have some­thing else planned to do tonight.” He tossed back his head in agi­ta­tion, shak­ing out his hair like an angry lion shak­ing out its mane. “No it can’t wait. That’s why I planned it for tonight.” Jon ran his hand over his face and lis­tened to the voice on the phone. He was silent for a while. “Fine. Just fine.” He closed his phone and tried stran­gling it with both hands.

Being plas­tic, it didn’t work. He took a few deep, steady­ing breaths and turned around to face Noah. “Look Man, I’m sorry, but Jean-Julian needs me tonight for some func­tion of his.”

Noah drained the last of his beer. “Dude, I have to go tonight. Tomorrow’s too late.”

“I’m sorry; I tried to get out of it.” Jon shrugged. He looked at his watch. “Shit, I need to leave soon, too.”

“Fine.” Noah sighed. “Look, I know Jean’s a prick. This just sucks, you know?” He tossed his beer bot­tle in the trash.

Jon frowned, and walked out of the room not say­ing any­thing more. Noah kicked the dish­washer with his heal and folded his arms. Chewing on his bot­tom lip he nar­rowed his eyes at Heidi.

Wondering, what he was think­ing. Heidi flashed a fake smile at him. “I’m Heidi,” she said.

He nod­ded at her. “I know who you are.”

“I wasn’t sure what Jon had men­tioned. I thought I’d intro­duce myself properly.”

“He didn’t. He did say you were stay­ing here now.” Noah stood absolutely still, glow­er­ing at her.

She nod­ded. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not my place.” He crossed his legs at the ankle.

They lapsed into an uncom­fort­able silence. Heidi fid­geted under his intense state.  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He still didn’t move or speak. “What do you do for work?”

“None of your business.”

She turned to look at him at the gruff tone of voice he used. She raised an eye­brow in chal­lenge. “That may be true, but I wa–”

He shook his head, inter­rupt­ing her. “But nothing.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Then what field do you work in?”

“Why do you care?” he poured milk over his cereal.

She shrugged. “Making conversation.”

“Well, don’t.”

“You’re being very stub­born.” Heidi crossed her arms over her chest and met his cold stare as he looked up at her. No more was she going to be pushed around, and if this turned into an argu­ment, so be it. He did not have the right to be rude to her when she hadn’t done any­thing but say hi. She stood from her chair, want­ing to leave the room.

“You’re being nosey.”

“I’m being polite.”

He laughed and rolled his eyes at her. “You women are all alike.”

“What’s that sup­posed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. You don’t like that some­one may not like you, so you have to go out of your way to be nice.”

“I was being conversational.”

“You were being nosy. What I do is my busi­ness. You’re not my girlfriend.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” She scoffed at him, sud­denly real­iz­ing that her pulse was rac­ing, her cheeks were flushed and she had the over­whelm­ing urge to go for a run.

His facial expres­sion hard­ened at her com­ment. “That makes two of us.”

“I was try­ing to engage you in con­ver­sa­tion, but you had to go and ruin it by being rude.”

“That’s life.”

Heidi rolled her eyes. “You’re impossible.”

He smiled. “I try.”

“Look, I’m liv­ing here now. So we’re going to have to get along.”

“Not nec­es­sar­ily. I just have to resist the urge to throw your things onto the lawn.”

“You arro­gant jerk.” Heidi growled and stamped her foot, the heel clink­ing loudly on the tile. “I’m try­ing to be nice here.”

He grinned at her frus­tra­tion. “I see your ‘I’m try­ing to be nice’ and raise you two ‘I don’t care’s.”

Heidi snarled and threw her hands up in dis­gust. “Just,” she paced a cou­ple times before stop­ping and star­ing at him straight in the eyes with her hands on her hips. “Just. Fine. Be that way.” She turned from him and snatched her purse off the back of the chair as she stalked out of the room, point­edly ignor­ing the chuck­les com­ing from the man behind her as she left.

She got halfway into the liv­ing room before turn­ing around and stalk­ing back into the kitchen. “Get in the damn car, I’ll drive you where you need to go, you arro­gant prick.”

 

Heidi clutched the steer­ing wheel in shak­ing hands, star­ing straight ahead at the dark road. They had been dri­ving for half an hour on back coun­try roads. Noah sat slumped in the pas­sen­ger seat, not talk­ing at all. She had looked over at him to glare a few times, but kept her mouth shut.

Noah sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Heidi didn’t respond. He glanced over at him quickly before focus­ing back at the wind­ing road in front of her. She con­cen­trated on keep­ing her breath­ing even and steady, lis­ten­ing to her own blood rush­ing past her ears.

“I shouldn’t have been such a jerk but Mar–” He stopped. “Never mind. I was stressed and lashed out at you. Thank you for div­ing me to pick up my things.”

“It’s help­ing Jon. He felt bad for hav­ing to back out on you.”

Noah nod­ded. “He’s a good guy. Jean’s an ass.”

“Is Jean his boyfriend?”

Noah laughed. “Not hardly. His boss.”

Heidi nod­ded. “That’s good.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Just think­ing. Jon deserves bet­ter than some­one like that.”

“You’ve met him?”

“No, but I can guess.”

Noah seemed to accept that as he lapsed back into silence.

Heidi drove around the curves of the road squint­ing against the dark­ness. Her head­lights picked up a shape in the road. On instinct she swerved to avoid it, her wheels slip­ping over a pud­dle, and swing­ing the back end of the car around to get stuck in the mud of a ditch along the side of the road.

“Great.” Noah muttered.

Heidi let go of the steer­ing wheel she had been clutch­ing and looked out the win­dow of the car. A slow mov­ing skunk walked the rest of the way to the other side of the road and into some low brush. She flexed her fin­gers to regain cir­cu­la­tion in them.

Noah opened the car door and jumped out of his seat. He walked to the back of the car and threw up his hands. “Great. Just, great. We’re stuck here.”

“What’s wrong?” Heidi reluc­tantly climbed out of the car and joined him. In the faint light from the head­lights, she could see a flat tire. Walking fully around to the back of the car, she saw that the other one was flat, too. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. How could you be so stu­pid? What were you thinking?”

“I didn’t want to hit it!”

“Hit the damn thing next time, now we’re stuck out here!”

“I have AAA, we can get it fixed.” Heidi turned away to retrieve her phone from her purse.

While she was rum­mag­ing inside the glove box for her AAA card Noah opened the pas­sen­ger door and slid inside. He slammed the door and crossed his arms.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to go of the road. The tires hydroplaned, would you have rather I hit the skunk?”

“No. But I’d rather not be stuck in a ditch.”

Heidi pulled out the whole stack of papers from the glove box and started refill­ing through them. “When I find my card, I’ll call AAA.”

“What if it’s not in there?”

“It has to be, where else would I have put it?”

“You tell me. It looks like every­thing else is in there.”

“Service records. Manual. Registrations. Insurance cards.” she flipped through the papers. “And AAA cards but not the recent one.”

Noah rolled his eyes. “Wonderful.”

“It’s in here,” she insisted.

“Do we even have cell ser­vice out here?”

“Uh.” Heidi looked up. “I don’t know.”

Noah’s eyes widened and he pulled his phone from his pocket in a hurry. He thumbed on the power and swore. “Shit. No, we don’t.”

Heidi dropped her stack of papers and dug her phone out of her purse. She flipped it open and let her shoul­ders relax. “I have one bar.”

“Good. There’s something.”

“Found it!” Heidi lunged across the car to snatch the lit­tle blue and white card from stuck inside the grove at the back of the glove box. She checked the date on it and smiled. Flipping it over, she dialed the num­ber she found.

“Yes, my name is Heidi Johnson, I’m a AAA Plus mem­ber.” She paused. “Yes. I think I need a tow truck, my two back tires are flat.” She stuffed the card into her purse. “Yes, both of them.” She looked around. “I have no idea where I am. In the mid­dle of nowhere, no land­marks. Just trees.” She looked over at Noah. “Where are we?”

“You’re driving.”

“I don’t even live in this state.”

“We’re about 35 miles up Bog Rd. in Barrington.”

Heidi relayed the infor­ma­tion to the oper­a­tor. “Yes. I did say Plus.” She nod­ded a few times. “Great, thank you.” She looked over at Noah, who was grouchy in his seat. “It’ll be about an hour.”

“I doubt it; we’re in the mid­dle of nowhere. It will take that long for them to get here if they leave right away.”

“Exactly. That’s what I pay the extra money for. They have to get here in an hour, and tow me up to 99 miles and it’s free.”

Noah’s eye­brows went up. “Really?”

“Well, free for the tow, I have to pay a yearly fee, but if you use it once, it pays for itself.”

Noah nod­ded, impressed. “So, now what?”

“I don’t know. We wait.”

 

Heidi woke with a start to bang­ing on her win­dow. A man stood there hold­ing a crow­bar and wav­ing at her. Startled she backed away from the win­dow. She turned when she heard Noah open his door. In a hiss­ing whis­per she called after him. “What are you doing? He could have a gun!”

“Relax, it’s the tow man.”

Heidi looked behind her to see, indeed, a tow truck with all its lights flash­ing parked behind her. Heidi opened her win­dow a crack. “Yes?”

“Are you a Miss Heidi Johnson?” the man with the crow­bar read from his clipboard.

“That’s me.”

“My name’s Jim. I’ll be bringin’ you to safety tonight. Might I see your license, AAA card and reg­is­tra­tion, please?”

Relaxing at the man’s pleas­ant voice, Heidi opened her purse to bring out the required infor­ma­tion. Handing it over, she looked at the man. He wore the blue cov­er­alls of a tow truck dri­ver, with his name on a AAA patch where a breast pocket would be. He had a full beard, and bushy hair stick­ing out from under a AAA cap. He was prob­a­bly in his 40s, and a lit­tle over­weight. In the flash­ing lights of the truck, she could see that his clothes were stained with motor oil and other car flu­ids, and prob­a­bly some reg­u­lar dirt and grime too.

He wrote down all her infor­ma­tion and returned her things to her. “I’ll have to ask you to step out of the car, ma’am. Company pol­icy that you can’t ride inside while it’s being towed.” Jim backed away from the door and bowed slightly. “I’m just gonna move the truck around front here, and hook your lit­tle wagon right up.”

Heidi grabbed her purse, and keys from the igni­tion before look­ing around the car to see if there was any­thing else she would need. Not see­ing any­thing, she joined Noah on the side of the road. She crossed her arms. “Where are we gonna go if we can’t be in the car?”

“Cab of the truck, I guess.” Noah shrugged watch­ing Jim drive the truck up the road and back up to be level with Heidi’s car. He got out and started low­er­ing the tow mechanism.

“Won’t it be cramped?”

“You’re thin, we’ll survive.”

“Where are we going to have it towed? Do you know of any tire places open this time of night?”

“There’s one near Mar– where we’re headed.” He checked his watch. “If we hurry, we should make it. They close at ten.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. I used to work there.”

Heidi nod­ded. “Okay.”

They watched Jim work for 15 min­utes to bring the car up onto the bed of the tow truck, secur­ing every­thing, check­ing and recheck­ing before he walked back over to them. “Well, she’s all set.”

Heidi nod­ded, “Okay then. We’re going to.” She turned to look at Noah. “What’s it called?”

“Brooks Tire Warehouse on Pine Street in Farmington. It’s about 40 miles up the road that way.” He motioned the way the truck was facing.

Jim nod­ded. “Sounds good then, come on up.” He turned and climbed back into the cab of his tow truck.

Heidi fol­lowed Noah. He opened the door for her, and gave her his hand to bal­ance with as she climbed up into the cab. Jim sat up straight from clear­ing papers off the seat and stuff­ing them into the glove box below the pas­sen­ger seat just as she climbed in. “Thank you,” she said.

“Not a prob­lem, Miss.” He started the truck as soon as Noah was inside, and had closed the door. “Seat belts, please.”

Heidi looked around her hips for one, and found them stuffed deep inside the cush­ion. They looked unused. Settling back, she clipped hers together and looked over to see Noah scowl as he clipped his in over his shoulder.

Jim sig­naled and pulled onto the road. The truck road bumped its way along the road, and Jim started to hum. “It’s not often I get such a pretty lady in my truck.” He pat­ted her knee before tak­ing his hand away to shift gears.

“Um, thank you?” Heidi smiled, scoot­ing over closer to Noah.

Noah glared at her.

 

They arrived at their des­ti­na­tion unharmed, with just enough time to pur­chase two tires from Brooks and have them installed. With the car good as new, Heidi walks out of the shop with her keys. She smiled at Noah. “Just in time. Where to now?”

Taking a deep breath, Noah gets up from the pic­nic table he was sit­ting on. “To hell.”

Heidi stopped walk­ing, one foot in front of the other. “Can you give me directions?”

Noah laughed. Continuing to laugh he stood up, hold­ing his side and walked around to the pas­sen­ger side of the car. Inside he calmed. “Take a left when you leave the park­ing lot.”

Heidi nod­ded, smil­ing slightly. She backed out of the space she was in, waved to the owner of Brooks Tire Warehouse, and straight­ened out to leave the park­ing lot. She turned left at the exit and con­tin­ued down the road. “What next?”

“At the stop sign up ahead, take a right.”

Heidi nod­ded and at the stop sign, did as she was told.

Noah looked over at her with an odd expres­sion. They didn’t talk the rest of the way to their des­ti­na­tion, but she fol­lowed each of his instruc­tions with­out ques­tion. When they pulled up to a two story house, she turned off the car. Noah didn’t move to get out. “Is this not it?”

“No, it’s it.”

“Okay. Do you need to go in?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Heidi turned off the car and tucked the keys in her purse.

“I’d like you to stay here and wait for me.”

Heidi nod­ded. “Okay. How long will you be?”

“I don’t know. Not too long, I don’t think. I just need to pick up a few things and to see.” he stopped. “There’s just some­thing I’ve got to do.”

Heidi nod­ded. “Okay.”

Noah looked over at her incred­u­lously. “It’s that easy?”

“What?”

“I tell you how to get here, and you do what I say.”

Raising an eye­brow, Heidi looked at him still con­fused. “Um, yes? You know the way.”

“But no argu­ments, no alter­na­tives, no questions?”

“Um, no?”

“And now, you’re will­ing to wait here while I go inside and not tell you what I’m going to do?”

“Are you going to kill someone?”

“No.”

“Then, yes.” Heidi set her purse on the emer­gency brake between their seats and reached down to recline hers.

Noah shook his head. “Amazing.”

“What?”

“Never mind. But thanks.” Noah opened his door and stood up. He stood, star­ing at the house for a long time before clos­ing the door and walk­ing up to it. Heidi saw him use a key and dis­ap­pear inside before a light turned on in the room.

Noah paced in front of her like a caged ani­mal. “I can’t believe it. With Joe? How could she.”

 

Heidi sat on the hood of her car, again in the mid­dle of nowhere. They had pulled over onto the side of the road when Noah had started punch­ing her airbag with both fists. Rather than have to call another tow truck, she let him out to blow off steam. He’d been rant­ing gib­ber­ish for about an hour. From the bits and pieces of intel­li­gi­ble words, some­one named Mary, who was appar­ently a colos­sal bitch, was preg­nant and had cheated on Noah with some­one named Joe.

Noah had kicked at rocks, thrown sticks, and scat­tered enough dirt around, that the tar was cov­ered in a three foot arc around him. He was a grown man throw­ing a tem­per tantrum. Heidi was slightly amused, and slightly concerned.

But she wasn’t scared, and was sur­prised at that.

Noah stopped pac­ing and stood still for a while. He turned slowly and walked with con­trol over to Heidi. She looked up at him as he approached.

He stopped at her knees and looked at her intently. “Tell me why you’re liv­ing with us now.”

Heidi leaned back, watch­ing his fists that were at his sides. “I left my boyfriend.”

Noah’s eyes nar­rowed. “Why?”

“That’s not really your business.”

Noah leaned toward her, his arms still at his sides. “Tell me or I won’t get in the car.”

Heidi closed her eyes and leaned far­ther back. “Please don’t make me.”

Noah stood up. “You cheated on him?”

Heidi opened her eyes in shock. “No. Never.” She blinked a few times as she felt tears welling up.

“Liar.”

“No!” Heidi jumped off the car. “You’re not the only one that’s hurt­ing. So shut up and get in the car!”

“Not until you tell me the truth.” Noah grabbed her arm and pulled her closer to him. “Did you cheat on him?”

“No!” Heidi screamed. Wrenching her arm from his grasp, she stum­bled over her feet and landed in the road on her bot­tom. “Leave me alone. Don’t touch me!”

Noah stood up, star­ing down at her. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“Because you’re still mad at the lady you were yelling at.” Heidi stood up and brushed the dirt from her backside.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.” Heidi’s shoul­ders dropped. “Fine. You don’t believe me? Fine.” She pulled her hooded sweat­shirt off to show that she was wear­ing a white tank top under­neath. She stormed back to the car and pushed her keys into the igni­tion, before turn­ing on the head­lights. She walked in front of the car to where Noah stood wait­ing and glar­ing at her. She lifted up her hair. “Here. Look.”

Noah stepped closer to see dark pur­ple bruises on the back of her neck. There were four on one side, and a larger one on the other. He stood up in shock when his hand when up to touch the marks and he real­ized the pat­tern. It was a hand print.

Heidi turned in the light. There were more bruises on her shoul­ders. She lifted up her tank top to show her stom­ach, and another dark one on her side. “Satisfied?”

Noah blinked at her, his jaw open. “Oh.”

Heidi let her hair fall down and quickly pulled on her sweat­shirt. She crossed her arms. “Can we go now?”

Noah nod­ded. As she turned to head back to the car, he caught her lightly by the shoul­der and pulled her back to him for a hug.

He stood straight at first, his arms around her, but not touch­ing her. Sighing, Heidi wrapped her arms around his torso. He tight­ened his grip on her. He was much taller, and his arms ended up wrap­ping around her shoul­ders. She closed her eyes and let him, not won­der­ing why.

Noah took a few deep breaths before he let go. As he stood back, Heidi saw him wip­ing his eyes. She rested her hand on his fore­arm. “You okay?”

He nod­ded. “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t know.”

“For everything.”

She nod­ded. “Ready to go home now?”

“Yeah.” He fol­lowed her to the car. They drove home in com­fort­able silence.