Page 25 of Faking Forever
“Let me grab some food before it all disappears.” She pivoted away from Fern, before hesitating and turning back. “Fern…thank you. For-forthis. It means a lot.”
Fern smiled, her eyes filled with warmth and understanding.
“I meant what I said earlier, Kenny,” she said, her voice filled with gentle vehemence. “If you ever need to talk, or just a sympathetic ear, please reach out.”
Kenny clamped her lips between her teeth and nodded.Afraid to speak in case she humiliated herself by bursting into tears.
She was taken aback by how much Fern’s offer meant to her. She wasn’t the type to ever confide in others. But knowing Fern cared…
The lump in her throat made it hard for her to even swallow and she took a moment to compose herself before joining the cheerful throng milling around the buffet Gideon and Beth had set up. The last thing in the world she felt like doing right now was eating.
But skipping lunch would raise even more questions and concern from her family.
She wondered if Smith was finding this all as difficult as she was. Or was he happy to finally be rid of her? Considering what he’d said about none of his friends and family liking her, they must be ecstatic for him.
Was he celebrating his liberation from her with them at this very moment?
The thought was galling and painful and she shoved it from her mind. It wouldn’t help her get through today. She needed to get her shit together, put on a less miserable face for her own family, and try to salvage the rest of this day as best she could.
Chapter
Five
It was nearlysix in the evening and the day hadn’t cooled down at all. The temperature still hovering around the thirty-three degrees Celsius mark.
Kenny surveyed her inhospitable surroundings apprehensively, convinced that she must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. With the red sand, sun-scorched shrubbery, and mostly dead trees from the last bushfire that had ravaged the area, this place could quite literally be described as hell.
This was what she got for insisting on doing this drive alone. She’d mistakenly believed that the nearly seven-hour long drive would somehow give her clarity. Help her mentally prepare for what was to follow once she reached her destination. But all it had done was make her even more apprehensive and cement her fear that this was a colossal error in judgment.
She didn’t enjoy driving. She didn’t like traffic. And now that she found herself on this dusty, gravel road in the middle of nowhere, she questioned her very sanity. Surely only a madwoman would have set off to parts unknown, in anunfamiliar car, with an uncertain and likely hostile reception awaiting her at the other end of her foolhardy journey.
She stopped her car in the middle of what could barely be described as a road, and curled her hands around the top of the steering wheel, before resting her forehead on her knuckles.
Her air conditioning had died just past Mossel Bay and she’d spent the last hour slowly broiling in this overpriced, useless hunk of metal. Driving with the windows down had become a necessary evil. As a result, Kenny was not only hot but also windblown, had probably swallowed a fair few tiny winged creatures, and now, thanks to this nightmare of a road that she’d been rattling down for the last twenty minutes, she was also covered in a fine layer of red dust, which was turning to mud on her sweaty skin.
“Fucking fantastic,” she muttered, lifting her head to glare at the road that still stretched ahead of her, without any end in sight.
She should’ve let Paul drive her. But she’d wanted to prove…something. She wasn’t even sure what anymore. Whatever it was definitely wasn’t worththis.
She glared at the car’s infotainment screen. The map had disappeared completely now, leaving only the blue line of her route on a white screen.
She stared at it in disbelief and horror before even that line disappeared and a No Signal sign popped up in its place.
“Oh myGod,” she yelled at the screen. “You’re literally leading me to my death, you bastard!”
Recalling way too many horrific stories of people continuing on in situations like this before winding up stranded and/or dead, Kenny eyed her petrol gauge and then cast a look at her one bottle of water, before swearing and putting the car in reverse.
No way was she going to continue on without water, and ononly half a tank of petrol. Better to get back to the highway, where at least she had signal, and regroup.
She reversed until she reached a suitable spot on the narrow road to execute a three-point turn. She managed that pretty efficiently and was about to pat herself on the back when the rear right wheel dipped and the car just…refused to move an inch farther forward.
“Oh no…come on, man! What the hell?” She revved the engine but the wheels simply spun, kicking up dust and debris which flew in through the open windows, caking Kenny and the car’s formerly pristine interior with even more of that annoying red dust.
She got out of the car, slamming the door shut behind her, frustrated beyond measure. A quick walk to the back of the car confirmed her worst fears. The right back wheel was stuck in a pothole filled with what looked like fine, loose sand.
She planted her hands on her hips and glared at the tire, before kicking it and then yelping when her big toe screamed in agony.
She hopped around on one foot, swearing like the proverbial sailor, while feeling like a beleaguered cartoon character. After a few minutes of more futile swearing while the throbbing in her toe lessened—that would teach her to kick at tires while wearing flip-flops—she glared at her car for a long moment, before looking up and down the road in the vain hope of seeing a car approaching. Or at least the dust trail of one in the distance.
