"It's not you, it's me," she said as she leaned in close to my cheek and kissed me for the last time. I held her tight and breathed in the scent of rose water and autumn that always seemed to get wrapped up in her hair and let her go.
She hopped out of my pickup truck and sauntered into the house never once giving me a look back. For my part I took a deep breath and put the Beast into first gear. I had made it to second before I had cleared her twenty-five feet of drive and was in third before I'd gone another forty yards. By the time I was at the end of the street I was pulling sixty and took the L curve on two wheels laughing like a madman.
I started feathering the pedal once the speedometer pegged at 85 miles an hour so that I could push a few extra miles out of that aging engine. The hills that had become so familiar to me over the last six months were flying past my window as I kept pushing the pickup farther than she was supposed to go. The joints were creaking as I took the hill before Brown Creek and landed on the following rise without ever hitting the bridge and she squealed as we hit the dam.
I spun the old truck into Briar's Pit Stop to fill her tank while the tires smoked and she cooled off.
After filling my tank I stepped into the Pit for a glass Sunkist and flirted with the girl behind the counter. It was good to be single again.
As I walked outside a Highway Patrol man pulled up behind me, flashed his headlights, and over the loud speaker he called, "Put your hands on the side of the car and kick your legs back as far as you can."
Fuck, I thought, I'm going to jail.
I stood there, splayed out with a pack of hot peanuts in my mouth, hoping that no one would see me in such a compromising position - I did have a reputation after all - when the officer got out of the car. I couldn't even look over at him as he came near but I could hear those boots of his grinding the gravel underneath each step.
"Now why," he said in a familar drawl, "would you ever walk in there without buying me a coke?"
I looked over and started laughing. Fuck Rooster, I thought you were getting ready to bust me.
"Oh? What 'cha been doing that I should bust you for, kid?"
Speeding Rooster. You know I've got a foot made of lead.
"And if I ever catch you, I'll put your ass under the jail."
We shot the shit for a while and I told Rooster about the breakup. He was real serious through the whole story, making all the appropriate facial expressions and gesticulations that I so clearly wanted. When my story was finished he lit up a cigarette and seemed to be contemplating whether he should tell me something.
Something on your mind Rooster?
"Yeah," he said as he let out a cloud of smoke, "I was wondering how long you were going to be pretending like you liked that heffer?"
I -
"Don't piss with me Charles," he said with a shake of his head, "we both know you didn't like her that much."
Yeah, I think I'll give it another fifteen minutes.
"That long?"
Yep. I've got a date with her sister in thirty.
