Make You Mine by K.T. Quinn

2

Charlotte

I made it ten miles outside Savannah before I finally broke down and cried.

“Dang it, no! Stop!” I told myself, but it was useless. Once the dam broke there was no stopping the flood. The rain on the windshield matched my face as I drove west on I-16.

I hated girls who cried. They seemed so weak to me, reacting to every little thing with an emotional outburst. It was the stereotypical thing to do. It was the kind of thing people expected from a twenty-four year old woman when things didn’t go her way.

But the week I’d had would’ve brought anyone to tears.

My cell phone rang on the console, sending a shot of fear up my spine. If it was him calling, I didn’t think I could answer. I wasn’t emotionally ready.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that it was someone else. I waited two more rings to collect myself and then put the phone to my ear.

“Hi, Momma.”

“Oh, sweet pea,” my mom’s soothing voice said. “I got your message! What happened?”

I told her everything I’d kept from her over the past month. How my boyfriend Scott had told me he wanted to take a break four weeks ago. Which would have been fine, except we worked together in Savannah. No, that was an understatement. We’d started our own business—a food truck—together. Which meant the last four weeks had been the two of us working together, and living together, in a weird pseudo-partnership where I didn’t know where we stood or what was going to happen.

Scott was a good guy. I thought some time would help him figure things out. And then we could get back together.

I was so naive.

“We were at a dinner with the editor of a food magazine,” I told Momma. “Scott’s phone was on the table, and he got a message. I glanced at it.”

“Oh, honey…”

“I couldn’t help it! Some girl named Tammy was asking if he would be able to come by her place for drinks.”

That wasn’t entirely accurate. The exact text was:

TAMMY: Hey baby, let me know if you’re coming over for COCKtails. I need something to stir mine with.

She’d capitalized the COCK in cocktails, and ended it with an eggplant emoji. The sluttiest of the emojis.

But if I told Momma that on the phone I’d probably start crying again.

“What’d you do, Charlotte?” she asked.

The rain was coming down so hard on the windshield, thundering against the glass and hood of my car, that I could barely hear her. “I excused myself to the bathroom, took an Uber home, and packed my bags as quick as I could.”

Some mothers might have tried to look on the bright side of the situation, or insisted that maybe it was all some hilarious misunderstanding. But my Momma was a realist. And she didn’t raise her daughter to be a fool.

“I’m sorry, sweet pea,” she said. “You’re on the road now?”

“Should be home in three hours. Sorry this is all last-minute…”

She made a dismissive noise. “I’ll have fresh sheets on the bed and a warm pie in the oven.”

I stifled a sniffle. “I love you, Momma.”

“Love you too, sweet pea. Be safe.”

I felt a great deal better after talking to her. Saying the words out loud took the sting away: Scott and I were done. In my head the words could fester, but out loud they had no power.

The interstate ahead was closed for construction, so I followed the orange cones down the exit and toward a detour road. A speed limit sign said 35 MPH, so I immediately slowed down. A few moments later, I passed a billboard:

Welcome to Eastland

Population: 944

Next to it was a strange piece of metal art. Like the skeleton you’d find in a biology classroom, but made of rusted metal, all twisted and warped. It gave me the creeps as I drove past.

I hadn’t been single in a long time. Scott and I dated through college and then moved to Savannah after graduating. We started a business together, lived together, and worked together day-in and day-out on the food truck. I didn’t know what to do with myself now that I was single.

I never thought I’d be so co-dependent, I thought.

Having a supportive family helped. No matter whatever happened, they’d be on my side and help me get back on my feet. And God help Scott if he tried crawling back to me. Momma would beat him senseless with a rolling pin if he showed his face within a mile of our house.

I was starting to feel better about my situation when police lights flashed in my rear-view mirror.

The sudden lights caused me to jerk the wheel before steadying out. The small road had a sizable shoulder, so I pulled over and prayed he was just flashing his lights so he could pass.

No such luck. He pulled onto the shoulder behind me and stopped his car.

“Crap. Crapola!” I cursed. Then, realizing I was alone and nobody could scold me, I muttered, “Shit.” The satisfaction only lasted a few seconds.

I grabbed my car registration out of the glove box and pulled my license from my purse, then held them both on the steering wheel. The rain hammered the roof of my car while I waited, my vision filled with alternating red and blue light.

Everything’s fine, I told myself. He’s probably just making sure I’m okay.

It took the officer a while to get out of his car. He wore a long rain jacket, slick and shiny with moisture. When he reached my car he shone a bright flashlight through my window, temporarily blinding me.

Tap tap tap, went his knuckle on the window.

I rolled it down and ignored the rain that immediately blew inside. “Hello, officer—”

“License and registration, ma’am,” he said in a thick Georgia drawl.

I shoved the waiting documents in his direction. He shone the flashlight on them but made no attempt to take them from me. If anything, he seemed annoyed that I had them ready. The cone of his flashlight swept to the backpack on the passenger seat, then at the three suitcases in the back.

“Going somewhere?” he drawled.

“Yes, sir. Home to Atlanta. Well, a little town south of Atlanta, but no one’s ever heard of it so we always just tell people Atlanta to make it easy.”

The rain pattered on his jacket. “You picked a heck of a night to do it.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, since I hadn’t really picked the night at all. “Can’t choose the weather,” I said with a hopeful smile.

His head whipped toward me. “Excuse me?”

“I—I was making a joke. Sorry, officer.”

“You in a hurry?” He demanded. His entire demeanor was suddenly hostile.

“No sir—”

“Then why are you on my road on a night like this, driving like the devil’s chasing you?”

I frowned. I knew I had slowed down when I exited the highway. If anything, thanks to the crazy rain, I’d been driving under the speed limit.

But this cop looked like he was upset at having to work on a night like tonight, so I chose my words carefully.

“Officer, I’m certain I wasn’t going above—”

“Step out of the vehicle,” he ordered.

I wanted to argue, but I had a sinking sense of dread that this was escalating beyond my control. I opened the door and stepped out into the rain. I was still wearing the high heels and black-checkered skirt from the dinner meeting with Scott and the food magazine. The officer looked even more pissed to see that.

“Hands on the car.”

I gave him my most disarming smile. “Officer, I want to apologize if I said anything to upset you. I know you don’t want to be out here on such a nasty night, and whatever I did—”

He grabbed my arm and spun me around, shoving my face against the car window and giving me a view of my suitcases in the back seat. Everything I owned in the world crammed into three shabby rectangles.

No, I thought. No, no, no…

“Officer, what have I done?”

“Operator,” he said into his shoulder radio, “My ten-thirty-eight just became a ten-thirty-six. Taking her into custody.”

“Taking me into custody?” I shouted.

Handcuffs tightened painfully on my wrists, and then he turned me back around. He didn’t bother patting me down, for which I was grateful. He stuck his face very close to mine. He was older. Bitter.

“Ma’am,” he said in his thick Georgia accent. “If you keep yappin’, I’m gonna keep findin’ things to write up.”

As he led me to the car, which said Eastland Sheriff’s Department on the side, I was grateful that the rain hid my tears.