Hunter Hill University: Reaching Rose Part 20

"Rose, you're not drinking, are you?"

"I wouldn't...I wouldn't drink...and...drive."

"You don't sound okay. Are you driving?"

"No...the car is off."

"Start the car, Rose. Am I on speaker?"

I put the phone on speaker and lay it on the seat. "Yes." I do as he says and start the car, but all the crying has exhausted me and I feel like I'm going to fall asleep.

"Now head home."

I step on the gas and go forward in search of a wide enough s.p.a.ce to turn around.

"Are you on your way home?" Ben asks, intruding the silence.

"I...I...no. There's nowhere to turn around."

"Ro...Ca...Back."

I can't hear him.

"Rose...find a...out?"

"You're breaking up."

"Ro..."

Stepping on the brake, I pick up the phone from the seat. No service and a blinking "Charge Battery" message. Instead of continuing forward, I try a k-turn right on the trail. As I put the truck in reverse, it dies. "No no no no no." I start it again, it goes. Thank G.o.d.

I press on the gas, it dies again.

Oh my G.o.d.

I try one more time, but I'm on a slight incline and the truck won't start. Frantically, I search the glove compartment for a flashlight.

Nothing.

"Daddy," I call out in the dark. "Come on."

Under the seat, in the cus.h.i.+ons, under the dash. I search everywhere and find nothing to light my way back home. In the woods, it's pitch black. The light of the moon can't penetrate through the thick blanket of trees. I've traveled these trails so often in my past, but without a light, there's no way I'd make it home.

Alone without even a coat to keep me warm, I lie across the seat and decide to sleep until the sun comes up.

No sense in fighting the darkness.

22.

BEN.

I drum my fingers on the steering wheel all the way up to Wantage. Rose has me worried sick. She's in the woods with no phone. Common sense tells me she found a place to turn around and she's home safely in her house. My gut tells me she never got home. My overactive imagination tells me she's lying in a ditch somewhere dead.

Odds are, common sense has won, but what if?

That's why I am racing up Route 23's two-lane highway at double the speed limit. Kudos to my Honda for breaking a hundred miles per hour.

When I pull up, every light in the house is on, including the front porch light. My panic has me rapping on the door harder and faster than I should, especially since with my other hand, I'm ringing the doorbell.

"I'm coming, I'm coming." The voice on the other side sounds just as panicked.

"Ben," Rose's mother cries as she opens the door.

Even before I ask, I know the answer, but I ask anyway. "Mrs. Duncan, I'm just making sure...is Rose here?"

"No. No."

We're bombarded at the door with the rest of Rose's family...and, "Holly?"

"Ben?"

"Do you know of any trails around here where Rose would go?" I ask quickly.

"Trail?" the man, who I gather is Rose's father, asks. "Do you know where Rose is?"

"She called me from some trail. Her phone died and...and I have this feeling."

"Come with me, son." The man grabs a set of keys off a hook on the wall and leads me off the porch. "I'm Bruce, Rose's dad."

"Ben, sir. Rose's friend."

We get into a huge F350, and Mr. Duncan peels out of the driveway.

"You sure she said trail?"

"Yes. And she didn't have room to turn around. Then her phone went dead."

"Hopefully she's where I think she is. We didn't know where she went. She wasn't answering her phone. I mean...we weren't worried at first, but then my wife saw her purse was still in her room and I knew there was no gas in the old Chevy. I don't know why she took that clunker and not this truck, or her mother's car, but..." He glances at me. "Sorry, I couldn't get a word in edgewise in the house with my wife yappin' it up. Sorry."

"No need to apologize, sir."

"Call me Bruce. Please."

We turn up a dark road paved only with what seems to be huge rocks and small logs. Rose would have had to have taken a truck to pa.s.s through this. My car would never have made it.

About two miles up the trail, we spot the truck. Both of us make a run for it, because from where we are parked, it looks like no one is inside. The doors are locked when we get there, but when Bruce s.h.i.+nes his flashlight in the window, we see Rose curled up on the seat, sleeping.

Bruce bangs hard on the gla.s.s. "Rose," he yells. "Rose."

The banging startles her awake, thank G.o.d, and she unlocks the driver's side door. "Daddy," she says when he opens it.

I'm standing to his side and she doesn't see me yet.

"What the h.e.l.l, Rosebud?" He's half yelling, half laughing.

"I'm sorry, Dad. I ran out of gas and my phone died. It was too dark to walk, so I...Ben? Ben, what are you doing here?"

"Thank G.o.d he is here," Bruce answers instead. "He's the one who told us where to find you."

"I'm sorry."

"Come on, let's get you home. I'll come back in the morning to get the truck. No one'll be driving up here tonight."

"Do people actually drive up here normally?" I ask as Bruce helps Rose out of the truck.

"I'm good, Daddy," Rose says, climbing out of the truck herself.

"Not normally," Bruce says in answer to my question. "Unless of course you're my daughter."

I open the pa.s.senger-side door and Rose says, "I can't believe you came. Thank you."

"I was worried."

She hops up using her right leg and slides in to the middle of the bench. My hand not-so-accidentally grazes hers, but it's so cold, I reach for her other hand and hold both inside mine. "You're so cold."

"Not too much." But I see her straining to keep her teeth from chattering.

"Why, Rosebud?" her dad asks while backing his way off the trail. I like his nickname for her.

"Ironically, I didn't want to run out of gas."

"But you did."

"That's why I said ironically, Dad."

"Sorry they all ganged up on you before. I shouldn't have let it get that far."

"It's okay."

Her father keeps glancing our way after he's found a spot to turn around, and I can tell he wants to say more, but my presence is probably keeping him from it.

"You warming up?" I ask Rose quietly.

She nods and her fingers move inside my hands. I squeeze tighter, a.s.suring her they're just fine where they are.

"I still can't believe you came," she whispers, sounding amazed.

Trying to keep my voice low, even though I know her father can hear me anyway, I say, "You call me, crying alone in the woods, and then your phone dies. That's a scene right out of a Stephen King novel. What did you expect me to do?"

"Yeah. I guess that would sound scary," she says above a whisper, "but I used to ride Cloud up here all the time. I know these trails like I know my own house. It's just..."

"It's just pitch black here in the winter, and you can't tell your a.s.s from your eyeb.a.l.l.s out here," her father finishes, making no sense but causing us to laugh despite that.

"Yeah. That," Rose deadpans.

We're back at her house, walking up the stairs, when she asks her father, "Are they all in there?"

"Your sisters or your friends?"

"My...my friends?"

"Only Holly. The others left when they found out...that you ran out."

"Didn't she get my text?"

Her father shrugs. "She didn't mention no text."

Rose bows her head and stops before we go inside. "So everybody knows I had a hissy fit."

"No, bud. Everybody knows you're struggling. That's all."

"But Patti...did she, like, tell them..."

"No. I wouldn't let her bring that up again."

Rose nods and looks at me. "I'll tell ya later."

Her father leads the way in.

In the kitchen, standing around the island where Rose made me the ham sandwich, Holly, Rose's mother, and Rose's three sisters are chopping things.

"Hey." Holly's the first to run over. "You mind I'm here?" she asks before squeezing the s.h.i.+t out of Rose.

"No, I'm glad you're here. You didn't get my text before though?"

"No. I didn't. What did..."

"It doesn't matter," Rose says, practically into Holly's shoulder.