Patient Twelve

Chapter Thirty-One

 It was another long boring day stuck in the car together. I tried to switch the radio station every once in a while to try and find a station playing a news channel. Ben would reach over and change the channel. After doing this a few times, Ben switched it to a CD and glared at me. I sunk into the seat and crossed my arms over my chest.

Ben kept his hand on the top of the steering wheel as we drove down the highway. His hand would often drift over to the infected patch of skin. His fingers would graze over his shirt before he would put his hand back onto the steering wheel.

At lunch, he pulled through a drive-thru of a fast-food restaurant. He bought us a couple of burgers and paid with cash. I crossed my legs and dug into the bag as Ben pulled away from the restaurant. Ben grabbed one of the burgers. I pulled out the salty fries and ate them one at a time.

"Where did you get all of that money?" I asked.

"Bethany," he said. "She was a fan of drinking wine and leaving her bank cards lying around. I've been withdrawing money out of her account for a while now."

"Is that how you got the gun too?"

Mentioning the gun made my voice waver. I have never talked to Ben about the gun. My eyes always caught glimpses of it poking out from his waistband. It was always on my mind. It was the only reason I wasn't running out of the car. It was the only reason that I wasn't screaming for help any time we were in public. I was going to see my mom and Marcy again, and I wouldn't be able to do that if I was full of bullets.

"Bethany doesn't just have a gun lying around the house," he said. "I got it right after we got back from the Caribbean."

"I thought Bethany would have had you locked in the house after us embarrassing them at the dinner," I said.

"That didn't last long." He shrugged his shoulders. "I was able to persuade her to let me back outside."

"What? Did you sleep with her again?" I scoffed.

Ben whipped his head to the side for a minute and narrowed his eyes at me.

"What's with this attitude?" he asked. "I'm just trying to take care of both of us. Do you not want that?"

Ben's grip tightened on the steering wheel and his knuckles were turning white. I could imagine him jerking the wheel to the side and crashing the car into another car or a tree and killing both of us.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "It's just that you haven't really been telling me anything."

"You need to trust me," he said.

I rolled my eyes and continued to eat the fries out of the bottom of the bag. We drove for the rest of the day in silence. Ben found another small motel. He had his usual charismatic personality and charmed the woman working behind the desk. He threw the bag over his shoulder and kept his arm around me as we walked to our room. I've grown used to the odd pungent smell that seemed to be in all of these rooms.

Ben stretched his arms over his head before pulling clothes out of his suitcase. He held his hand out toward me.

"Come on," he said. "We're going to take a shower."

"Like together?"

"Yeah, sweetheart." He grabbed my hand and yanked me closer to him. He slid his other arm around my waist. "The last few days have been so crazy and we haven't been able to spend any time together."

"I just don't think -"

"What?"

The smirk across his lips switched into a scowl. I swallowed past a lump that was forming in my throat.