Wednesday July 8th
6:35am
After the unfortunate incident of getting us both lost, something I still haven't admitted to, I was surprised that Lydia actually opened up to me. I was horrified by what she told me. Not at what she did, but what her so called family did. For the life of me, I didn't understand why they acted the way they did. They didn't think about the psychological damage they did to her.
She was sleeping beside me in the tent as I glanced down at her. She was resting on her back, her injured foot still elevated with a fresh ice pack I just put on it. Her head was to the left, facing me. Her loose brown hair was splayed out in every direction. She was resting her hand by her face, leaving the scar she showed me visible. Even though I knew she still doubted it, I didn't judge her for it. If anything, I understood it.
After my parents died, there was more than one drunken occasion when I thought joining them would be a good idea. I never attempted anything, but I did experience those thoughts a few times. The pain of losing them sometimes overwhelmed me.
A strand of hair fell over her face as she shifted. I reached forward and tucked it behind her ear. She really is beautiful, I thought before she woke up from my touch.
She looked up at me and smiled before stretching. "What time is it?"
I glanced at my watch. "It's 6:45."
She sat up and winced as she tried to move her foot. "It's still sore."
"Mind if I take a look?" I asked.
"Yeah, thanks."
I moved to position myself by her feet. I removed the ice pack before I started unwrapping the gauze.
I lifted her foot gently while examining it. "Well, the swelling has gone down, so that's good. Tell me if this hurts," I said as I pushed lightly around her ankle.
"Fuck me!" She yelled.
I couldn't hold back my laugh as I looked up at her. "Definitely sprained. Okay, I'm going to rewrap your ankle. Then, I'm going to pack everything up and we got to try to get in cell phone range. Hopefully I can call somebody to come and help us get back."
I was halfway through rewrapping her foot, when she asked, "Why are you doing this?"
"The compression of the bandage will help with-"
"No," she said, interrupting me. "Why are you doing this? You've done so much to help me. You barely know me."
My hands froze at her question. How did she think that? "Lydia, I don't think I would have been able to make it through the anniversary of my parents death without you. I'm so grateful to you for that. We've been helping each other these past few days. It's not one-sided." I glanced away before meeting her eyes again when I said, "I know you, Lydia. Just like you know me."
Something unfamiliar passed between us in that moment. Clearing my throat, I got to my feet.
"I'm going to pack this stuff up. Then we can get out of there and get some food. I'm starving."
She let out a small laugh at that and started getting her things together. Once we were all packed up, she seemed to have trouble walking.
"Here," I said as I walked up beside her, "lean on me so it doesn't get worse."
She slid her arm around my shoulders as I slid mine around her waist. I wanted her to go to a doctor to get this looked at. But, I'm going to wait to mention that until we're back in the car.
"There you go, slow and easy."
"How far do you think until we get into cell phone range?" She asked.
"Hopefully not too far. Let's go towards that clearing."
It took us awhile to get to the clearing, Lydia was having a lot of difficulty putting any weight on that foot. When we finally got there, she sat down while I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket.
"Anything?" She asked as I held it up trying to get at least one bar of signal.
"Yes!" I explained, quickly dialing the number for the park ranger. I explained our situation to him, and where I thought we were.
When I hung up the phone, she was throwing me a sly smile.
"What?" I asked.
"You finally admitted that we were lost."
I rolled my eyes at her as I took a seat next to her. I stretched my arms out behind me, leaning back. "Yeah, yeah."
"So, where's our next adventure?"
"Well, it's about an eleven hour drive from here to New Orleans. So, I was thinking we can drive about seven hours to Montgomery, Alabama to stay the night. Then we can get up early, have breakfast, and should be in New Orleans by lunch time."
She had a giant smile on her face excitement to overwhelm her. "This is going to be awesome! We can get coffee at the Café Du Monde and we can get dinner in the French Quarter. We can see Bourbon Street!"
I couldn't help but smile as she went on and on with different things you wanted to do there. I don't think she realized how much she's changed since the night we met. Seeing her like this, full of life and excitement, is one of the best feelings in the world.
It took about two hours for the ranger to find us and give us a ride back to the main entrance at the park. Luckily, it gave Lydia some time to rest her foot. After, we were all loaded up we started heading back towards New Orleans. We were about two hours from Montgomery, Alabama and she was pondering what she wanted for dinner.
I brought up the topic of taking her to a doctor earlier and just like I assumed, she shot me down. I was able to persuade her to let me get her a boot, that way at least it would help keep a lot of the pressure off while she was healing.
"So, have you made up your mind about dinner?"
"No, I can't decide. You pick," she said as she let out a long breath.
To be honest, I wasn't really up to going out to eat tonight. It's been a long fucking day. Thinking back to our time in Atlantic City, I got an idea.
"What do you say about ordering pizza and watching a movie at the hotel?"
I could feel her surprised expression before I even turned to look at her. When she didn't answer right away, I added, "If you want."
"Does pepperoni work for you?" She asked with a little nervousness in her voice.
I couldn't help but smile at the same question she asked me in Atlantic City. So, I replied with, "Pepperoni is perfect."
The rest of the ride went by in a comfortable silence. I concentrated on the road and she started reading a new book. I'm glad she liked to read, honestly. I've always been an avid reader myself and the type of books someone reads tells you a lot about them.
After finally arriving at the hotel, we got checked in and took our stuff up to our rooms, which surprisingly were adjoining. I had just finished taking a shower and put pants on when there was a knock on the adjoining door.
"Come in," I called as I looked for a shirt.
Lydia came through with a smile and a pizza. "Hey, the pizza just-"
She paused, taking in my appearance. "Oh, uh-- sorry. I got, um-"
"Lydia, it's okay," I said with a laugh and threw on a t-shirt.
She appeared deep in thought before she looked down at the pizza. "Right! Okay. Yeah, let's eat."
I sat beside her on the bed as I asked, "Did you decide on a movie?"
She took a bite of her pizza before lifting up The Mask. I frowned as I shook my head at her. "I can't believe you brought that." Before we started our road trip, we were at my apartment and I told her to grab some movies to bring along. When she asked me if I had any suggestions, I told her no, that I trusted her judgment. A statement I now regretted. Personally, I preferred DVDs over Netflix. So, we brought my DVD player along.
She made the same puppy dog pout face, which resulted in me saying, "Alright, put it on then."
Hearing her laugh to Jim Carrey was an added bonus to the deliciously satisfying Pizza. With everything she's been through, she needed it.
We got about half way through the movie when she said, "I'm exhausted. I'm going to head to bed."
When she unconsciously stepped onto her bad foot, she lost her footing. I jumped up from the bed, quickly grabbing her waist so she wouldn't fall. It wasn't until after she thanked me that I realized how close we were.
She had her hands resting on my biceps as she met my gaze. From her expression, I could tell she was just as confused as I was. I pulled her closer to me and she didn't seem to mind. I had the urge to kiss her as my heart started pounding in my chest.
I bent my head down, bringing my lips closer to hers. They were a breath away when the hotel phone rang. We both jumped at the interruption and the intimate moment was gone.
"Sorry, I should get that," I said as I answered the phone. While I tried to concentrate on what the hotel manager was telling me, my eyes seemed to focus on watching Lydia as she cleaned up our dinner.
"Yeah, I'll be right down," I said as I hung up the phone. "They said they need to see me at the front desk."
"Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, I think so. I'm going to go down and find out.
She started for her room, saying, "Well, I'm going to go to bed. It's been a long day. I'll see you in the morning?"
"Same time, same place," I said with a sly grin.
After she disappeared into her room, I made my way down to the front desk. My heart was racing at the memory of feeling her in my arms. I honestly don't know when I started developing these feelings for her. If that near-miss kiss was any indicator, they definitely surpassed friendship.
As I approached the hotel check-in counter, the manager greeted me saying, "Mr. Williams. Thank you for coming down."
"What seems to be the problem?" I asked.
"We have your assistant, Anne, on the line for you. She said she's been trying to reach you and it's urgent. We would have transferred the call to your room, but we've been having some technical difficulties with our phones."
"It's no problem. I'll take the call."
The hotel manager handed me the cordless phone and I walked away from the counter to get some privacy. "Anne? Hey, it's Sean." Through my travels I've been updating her with my location, so I wasn't surprised she knew where I was. What I was surprised about was why she didn't call my cell phone.
"Mr. Williams, I'm so glad I reached you. I tried calling your phone but it went straight to voicemail."
I frowned as I pulled out my phone. Yep, dead battery. "Sorry, Anne. Looks like my battery died. What's up?"
"The concierge from your building called me to report that a woman, Amy Winslow, went by your building again. They called the police, as instructed. They stated that she was distraught and claimed that she saw you leave your building with a brunette a few days ago."
Holy fucking shit. I had a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. CRAZY Amy just got promoted to PSYCHO. "We need to get a restraining order on her immediately."
"Already done, Sir."
That's why I always give Anne a giant bonus every year, I thought. "Good. Thank you, and Anne? I want you to call the police and try to have them locate her in the city. She seems to have a way of being able to find me." If she was obsessed with me to this level, somehow finding me with Lydia won't be a good thing.