Page 26 of A Taste of Vanilla

“I’m sending my location,” I whisper.

“Good. Lock the doors. We’re coming.”

The call ends, and I send my location.

I sit there on the shoulder of the road, ringless and stranded, watching as cars fly past me toward places where people presumably still believe their lives make sense.

My phone buzzes.

Oliver.

I answer it before I can overthink.

His voice comes through, flat and calm. “Most people spiral inside city limits.”

I can’t help but laugh. “I was trying to be mysterious.”

“You ran out of gas near a Wawa.”

“It feels liminal.”

“It’s a popular exit.”

I wipe my face with the sleeve of my cardigan.

“Oliver?”

“Yeah?”

I swallow. “He cheated.”

The line goes quiet. When Oliver speaks again, his voice is different.

It’s not dry or grumpy or funny. Just there.

“We’re coming.”

three

. . .

Exit Twenty-Five

HALSTON

There are somany humiliating places to cry. The bathroom at work after your employee drops an entire batch of laminated dough you’ve spent hours making, for instance.

The fitting room the second you take off your clothes and the lighting is so terrible that you see every single vein in your body.

The frozen food aisle of the local grocery store… While holding a family-size bag of pizza rolls and wondering whether emotional collapse counted as family.

Your car outside of your ex-fiancé’s office after discovering he was using his desk for activities definitely not listed in his job description.

But crying on the shoulder of the road off exit twenty-five, within sight of a Wawa sign glowing red like some sort of convenience store lighthouse for women making poor escape decisions ranks unfairly high.

I sit in my car with the doors locked, my hazards blinking, and my forehead pressed to the steering wheel. Every few seconds a car flies by fast enough to rock me despite the signdirectly in front of me saying the speed limit is 30 miles-per-hour. At some point, someone honks.

“Thank you, sir,” I whisper after it startles me so aggressively that I swear my spine jumps. “Your feedback is much appreciated.”