I fumbled through my bag, intent on trying to locate my phone that lay beneath the pile of rubbish that was currently cohabitating my purse. Lissa would flip if I didn't call her straight away. She was the type of person who assumed that if I didn't call her when I said I would, it meant that I was lying lifeless in a ditch after being strangled to death by the not so-friendly-stranger I had hitched a lift with. She was a worrier. She was a dramatist. She panicked too much for my liking. In fact, it was kind of insulting. After all, I made sure not to get into vehicles whose drivers seemed like psychopaths.
Lissa had always frowned upon my decision to skip college and go travelling instead. Apparently, not only was I risking my life, I was risking my future. Not that that actually made sense; if I did end up being murdered on some lonely highway, I wasn't exactly going to be in a fit state to go job hunting. My best friend did not appreciate my sense of humour though. She just tutted at me from behind her textbook, before getting back to her studying.
Lissa and I were definitely opposites. She was a straight A student who actually liked being in school. She liked having her home comforts. She liked being sensible. She even had a five point plan for the future. I, on the other hand, hated school. I wasn't really that materialistic. I definitely wasn't sensible. And I had no clue what my future entailed.
No, I much preferred being on the road, travelling from town to town and exploring the world. Well, when I say world, I really mean country, because no matter how much of an explorer I wished I was, there was no way I could afford to leave America. I couldn't even afford a plane ticket to freaking Canada.
Instead, I went from town to town, taking any job I could to pay my way. I stayed for a few weeks to a month, meeting people and making new friends and awesome memories before hitchhiking to the next town, never looking back on the places I had passed through. It was a system I was quite fond of. It was a system I was happy to live by for the rest of my life.
But before I could move on, I had to phone Lissa and inform her that I was still alive and kicking. I swear, that girl acted more like a mother towards me than my own mom did. Whilst I highly doubted that my mom even knew what state I was currently in, Lissa demanded to know my every movement.
It was like a lucky dip, searching through my bag. I had no idea what I was going to pull out, and all I could do was pray that it wasn't something embarrassing. My idea of packing consisted of throwing my worldly belongings into my luggage without much thought of organisational skill, and so I had no idea what was currently living in my handbag. I just hoped that I wouldn't pull out a bra or something even more embarrassing, because I highly doubted that the good people of Missoula, Montana, would appreciate me whipping out my undergarments in the middle of their high street.
Triumphantly though, after a few failed attempts, I managed to locate my phone. I pulled it out of the depths of my bag slowly, grinning like an idiot when I realised that not only had I managed to find my phone, I had also managed to locate my half eaten Mars Bar that was currently stuck to the screen of my cell. I checked the chocolate bar carefully, making sure that there wasn't anything funky living in the creamy caramel before happily munching on it.
After I had finished eating my snack, I wiped to remaining caramel off of the screen, before scrolling through my contacts. Over the past year and a half, I had acquired numerous numbers from the many people I had met on my travels. Although at the time I promised to stay in touch, I never did. It was near impossible. I had met hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Not only that, but the whole point of my journey was to carry on moving. I didn't have time to keep in contact with everyone. Plus there was the fact that in every new town I went to, there were always people more interesting and more caring to replace the last bunch of friends I had made.
I dialled Lissa's number, praying that she was in lectures and unable to answer. It was always awkward having this conversation with her, because there wasn't much to say other than 'I'm here and I'm fine'. At first, I used to leave long and descriptive messages depicting my bloody, but fictional, murder. Yet again, Lissa hadn't been impressed with my humour. She never was impressed with my humour, to be honest, although I liked to think I was a comic genius.
My call went straight to her answer phone. I glanced up, listening to Lissa's pre-recorded message and scanned the high street, trying to find a hotel that I could crash at whilst I was in town. Luckily, there was one straight across the street.
"Hey Liss, it's me. I'm here. I'm fine. Give me a call later. Love you," I barked off dutifully, before hanging up and stepping out into the road.
I was more focused on my phone than the road. I was more focused on getting a room and sleeping on a bed that was actually a bed. For the last few nights I had been slumming it on a bus terminal's floor. All I wanted was a good sit down and a nice, warm shower. I was preoccupied, I admit it.
Plus, who actually had time to check the road before crossing? I was a free spirit. I lived in the moment. I was reckless and careless. I didn't exactly do road safety.
But that didn't mean I didn't swear loudly when the sound of a horn blared vociferously and a car hurtled towards me. It wasn't as if I was expecting to be nearly run down on my first day in town. That sort of thing tended to happen just as I was leaving, when the locals got fed up with my excessively annoying behaviour and wanted me to leave straight away.
Luckily for me though, the driver had seen me in time and applied his brakes, hard, leaving me to look like a total idiot stood dumbstruck in the middle of the road. He got out of his car and walked towards me. "Are you okay?" he asked in a concerned voice, a sultry accent that I couldn't quite place lacing his words.
All I could do was stare in awe at this godly creature standing in front of me. The guy might have just nearly killed me, but that didn't matter. In fact, I was pretty sure that he could do whatever he wanted with me and I wouldn't particularly mind. He was hot. No, he was a swelteringly one hundred degrees of hotness. I could feel myself getting a tad bit excited just looking at him.
"Ma'am? Are you alright? Are you hurt?" he asked again, peering down at me. He was tall. He was like a statue towering down on me.
Again, I didn't answer him. Instead, I looked up at him and started laughing hysterically. He was probably around his mid-twenties, so a good few years older than me, and for some reason I found it extremely funny that he was referring to me as 'ma'am'. I was definitely not a 'ma'am'. I was definitely not some respectable woman.
He frowned, obviously worried that I had gone into some sort of shock. He muttered something about going to get help and started to walk away, but I grabbed hold of his arm and stopped him. "Did you seriously just call me 'ma'am'?" I asked him, in between my giggles.
He nodded slowly, probably regretting his decision to stop his car before it hit me. His day probably would be a lot easier if he had killed the crazy woman standing in the middle of the road.
"I'm Rose," I said, offering my name as I smiled brightly at him. "And I'm fine, by the way." To be honest, this hadn't been how I had pictured my first day in Missoula, but I wasn't going to complain. After all, life was an adventure, and I supposed nearly being killed was sort of an adventure. Plus, the guy was hot. Very hot. So hot that I couldn't actually think of anything other than how hot he was.
He was tall, probably a good foot taller than me. He had one of those extremely irresistible chiselled faces, framed by brown hair that fell to the nape of his neck. I wasn't really fond of guys with long hair, but it worked on him. Oh my, it definitely worked on him.
"Are you sure?" he asked, as if not believing that I was alright. I smiled at him, slightly – and by slightly I meant extremely happy – that he was concerned about my wellbeing. Not that he had any reason to be concerned, because it wasn't like he had actually hit me. He had managed to stop his car about three metres away from me.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure my name is Rose," I replied quickly, making a joke out of the whole situation. Like I said, I was a freaking comic genius. He frowned at me, obviously not following my hectic train of thought. An awkward silence fell on us, and feeling like an idiot, I felt the need to explain my little joke. "I just told you my name and you asked me if I was sure about it..." I told him lamely.
"I know, I got it," the mystery guy replied, making the situation even more awkward. I tore my eyes away from him and glanced down at the floor, the high street and hotel, looking everywhere but him. "You know, you should be more careful. You could have seriously injured yourself," he informed me, as if I was unaware that getting knocked down by a car would hurt.
"I know, I get it," I parroted him, hoping that either this painful conversation would end soon or some other car would come and run me down, ending the conversation between me and this guy. Yes, he was hot. Yes, I could stare at him all day and fantasise about all the things I wanted to do with him. But this conversation we were having was just so excruciatingly uncomfortable. But, then again, to be fair, the things I wanted to do didn't exactly include talking. I had other things in mind for what our mouths could be doing. "Thanks for not killing me."
"It's, er, okay. I'm Dimitri Belikov, by the way," he said, playing with his car keys. I nodded and smiled, before taking a step back.
"It's been nice meeting you, Dimitri Belikov. Just try not to kill anyone else on your travels," I informed him lightly, still laughing at how bizarre my day had turned out. Without looking at him, I checked the road again, careful not to get nearly run over for the second time in a day and crossed the road, throwing one hand up in the air to wave at him as I made my way towards the hotel.
I knew he was still there, watching me walk away, which probably explained why I shook my hips slightly as I walked away. I laughed to myself, knowing that my time in Missoula, Montana, was definitely going to be interesting, especially if I ended up running into a certain someone again.
AN: I've been in a bit of a rut lately, and I thought the best medicine for that would to write some good ol' marshmallow fluff. So this is by first attempt at writing anything like this (if you've read my other story, Pillars of Sand, you'll know I'm quite into my angst) and I hope you like it. This is probably going to be 5-10 chapters long, so yeah...read and review =]
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN VA