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Story: The Invitation

Don’t tell him!“That I was falling for you!” I scream, letting loose, releasing my emotions. Jude retreats, his face dropping. My tears come, mixing with the rain pouring down my face. “Was that part of your fucked-up game?”
He says nothing, a pathetic excuse of a man standing before me, mute.
“Don’t ever come near me again,” I say over an infuriating sob, backing up, making sure he doesn’t come after me. “I fucking hate you.”
I turn and walk, my tears pouring as hard as the rain, the pain in my chest unbearable. My sobs are racking my body. I can’t breathe properly. Everything hurts. I look to the heavens and yell my anger as I walk on, feeling deranged, like I want to smash things apart, destroy everything in my path.
“Why?” I yell, reaching for my hair and pulling, punishing myself for being so fucking dumb.
I make it to the gates, soaked to the bone, holding my phone to the air to try and catch some service. I can hardly see through my tears, my screen slippery and wet. “Please,” I whisper, walking up and down. Nothing. “Shit.” I stumble down the road on the verge, praying for that one magical bar to give me the power to get the hell out of here. A sharp pain flares on my leg, and I look down to see a scratch from a nearby thornbush. I ignore the trickle of blood mixing with the rain soaking my leg, concentrating on finding some service. The verge becomes more overgrown, the weeds and brambles reaching my knees, my heels sinking into the soft ground. “Fuck.” I lose a shoe and turn to retrieve it, searching the mess of branches and leaves in the darkness. Impossible. “God damn it.” I abandon my lost heel, my need to get out of here more important. I remove the other, throwing it into a bush ina temper before trudging up the country road on bare feet, eventually finding the service I need.
I call an Uber, sobbing at my screen when I see it’s going to be two hours. “No,” I whisper, dropping to my arse on the verge, crying.
I cry so hard.
But he will never hear me. No one will hear me.
Because the pounding rain drowns me out.