Stranded

She sat there, on the side of the road, stranded. What seemed like hundreds of cars drove by, their drivers glancing at her through their windows before turning again toward the road ahead. She sighed and wondered why she'd even left the house today. When she'd gotten into the car earlier and the tell tale red light popped up on the console, she should've just taken that as a sign. Of course, the biggest sale at her favorite store called out to her from the glossy black and white pages on the seat next to her and she'd let her better judgment go by the wayside.

She scoffed, 'All this just to save a little money. Now I'm out a car too.'

She wiped her forehead in the scorching heat. It was a hot, humid day which seemed odd to her given that the forecast called for rain and overcast skies. She should've known never to trust the weatherman and his sketchy foretelling of the weather.

'It's 50/50 either way and he always guesses wrong.'

She consigned herself to her fate, cursing her lack of judgment and lamenting the fact that she'd never seen the usefulness of a cell phone before this moment. She pulled the hood up on her little car and sat back in the driver's seat, subconsciously hoping that someone would notice her and pull over to help. Reclining back, she looked up at the sky and noticed the few clouds floating by carelessly overhead. A slight breeze started blowing, cooling off the intense heat that had begun to overwhelm the inside of the car. She watched the leaves on the trees overhead flittering in the breeze. At least she'd been lucky enough to be stranded in the shade.

Things could have been a lot worse for her if her car hadn't given up near the only stand of trees for miles around. With a little careful maneuvering she'd stopped underneath a huge tree that provided plenty of shade and could at least protect her from the rays of the sun. If she'd been out in the sun without shade the heat would've overcome her in no time and without a cell phone things could've turned catastrophic. She'd contemplated walking to the nearest business but she'd realized that would've also been a bad choice to make in heat like this.

'Just the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess.'

She'd always known that it was a bad idea to second guess herself but she didn't follow her own advice and now here she was in this place. She closed her eyes and leaned back into the seat. Hearing a slight crunching on the gravel behind her car, she cringed.

'Great, I'm hearing things. Is this an effect of the heat?'

The crunching of gravel came closer but she blew it off as her mind playing tricks on her. She'd been here for over an hour now and no one even slowed down to do anything other than look out the window.

"Need some help?"

She recognized the voice but it wasn't him, he was long gone. He'd been gone for months now, off to England or wherever his family was living now. It was just her mind playing tricks on her yet again, cruel as it was. Something warm and soft caressed her cheek, forcing her to realize that he really was here and this wasn't a dream after all. Her eyes shot open and she looked at him for the first time in what seemed like forever. He hadn't changed much, his piercing green eyes were still the same shade of jade and he still had that teasing tilt to his lips. However, there were deep shadows under his eyes, possibly from a lack of sleep, and there was a new maturity to his face that she'd not noticed before.

"Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Topaz eyes shot daggers at jade and she muttered, "Where the hell have you been, idiot?"

Helping her out of her car and back toward his, he chuckled, "It's a long story. How about I tell you on the way?"