"Whataya think?" I asked with a smile.
Ralph grinned at me before handing me back the ring. "Boy, ya dun right this time."
I held the small ring between my big fingers. It was a simple, silver ring with a small circle cut diamond in the middle. It wasn't much, but it was all I could afford. "Ya think she'll like it?" I asked Ralph.
Ralph laughed. "She'd like it plenty if ya gave her a ten dollar ring."
I smiled. I put it back in the box and put it in my pocket. "I'm gonna ask her tonight."
Ralph smiled. "Yer a fine kid."
"I gotta get home and change. I'll see ya Monday." I told him, heading for the truck.
I fired it up and trucked on home. I climbed out and was surprised to see Merle's bike in the driveway even though pop's truck was gone. I opened the door to see Merle on the couch.
"Baby brother!" He yelled and I could smell the hops oozing out of his pores.
"How long ya in town?" I asked as he came to give me a hug.
"Long enough." He smiled. "How's that sweet little piece of ass you got?"
"Emma's fine." I told him, kicking off my shoes.
"How come ya never bring her 'round?" Merle asked.
" 'Cause you're in town every time ya ask." I told him. I was dead set against Emma meeting Merle. That was the last thing I needed.
Merle laughed and slapped me on the shoulder, going back to the couch to watch whatever game was on.
I headed up the stairs and made sure he hadn't followed me before stuffing the ring box in my pillow. I wasn't taking any chances that Merle might find it. I hopped in the shower and washed off as much dirt and grease as I could before drying off and dressing in nicer clothes. I put the ring box back in my pocket and was glad it was easily hid there.
I went back downstairs and loaded the picnic basket I'd bought with stuff for sandwiches and a box of snack cakes. I didn't even give Merle time to ask where I was going and I was already in my truck, backing out of the driveway.
When I got to Emma's house, I turned off the truck and climbed out. I put the ring box in the basket so it wouldn't show through my pants and headed up the walkway.
She opened the door before I could knock and I was frozen in place. She had a gorgeous little white sun dress with these little red flowers on it and her hair pulled back away from her face.
I grinned at her. "Ain't you a pretty lil' thing?"
"You're not so bad lookin' yourself." She smiled at me.
I held out my elbow for her. "M'lady."
She smiled, taking my arm. "Why, thank you kind sir."
I led her down to the truck and opened the door for her before climbing in behind the wheel. I pulled away from her house and we ended up in the middle of a field. I put it in park and as I climbed out, I grabbed the picnic basket and a blanket. I stuffed them under my arm, taking her hand.
We walked for a short ways before I put down the basket and threw out the blanket. She smiled at me as she sat down. I pulled out the stuff for the sandwiches to make sure she didn't see the ring box. We'd finished dinner and were just sitting there in the quiet when I decide it was as good a time as any.
"Emma. Can I ask ya somethin'?"
"Of course." She said.
I nodded, trying to think over how to word my request. "Ya know I love ya, right?"
I saw concern dance across her face. "Of course, Daryl. I love you too." She said, takin' my hand.
I nodded again, biting my lip. "I know I never asked you out proper and I apologize for that. But I love ya more than my own life. 'Cause my own life don't mean jack if you aren't in it with me. I wanted to know if you'd be my wife." I told her, pulling the ring box out of the basket and opening it.
Her hand covered her mouth and for a split second, the fear of God was put in me. I didn't know if she was gonna say yes or no. Her eyes shined as the sun went down behind us. She nodded her head. "Yes." She said, with a smile. "I will."
I felt like my grin went from ear to ear. I pulled the ring out of the box and slid it onto her ring finger on her left hand. "You make me the happiest man in the world." I told her, wrapping my arms around her.
I sighed. It'd been almost a month since I asked Emma to marry me. But lately, it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. No, lately it was fights. It'd been three days. Three days of non-stop fighting. Each day was somethin' different and it was startin' to piss me off. First it was because she was headin' off to college. I didn't care that she was goin' to college. I was proud of her. But my dumbass said something wrong and now I was in trouble.
The second day, it was because she said I was flirting with my old girlfriend. I wasn't flirting with her. I was bein' civil, like she kept tellin' me to be. I didn't even like that girl no more. I knew she'd slept with Merle at least twice and I wouldn't have touched that with a ten foot pole.
Today it was because she'd finally met Merle. She'd stood up to Merle from the get-go and I was damn proud. Most girls either swooned over him or crossed the street to avoid him. Emma stood there and told him to stop bein' a damn pig. I almost kissed her. But then she turned on me and said I was doin' the same damn thing.
I couldn't win for nothin'. I was battin' damn near a thousand.
I sighed, leaning my head against the steering wheel. She'd just gotten out of the truck and slammed the door behind her, huffing up her walkway.
Quickly, I got out of the truck and ran after her, catching her just before she got to the door. "Mere." I told her.
She stopped and turned back around. "No."
I sighed, closing the distance between us. "What?"
"What do you mean, what?" She spat.
I rolled my eyes. "Stop beatin' 'round the bush. Tell me what's wrong."
"If ya can't figure it out, I ain't tellin' ya!" She said, her accent getting thick.
My blood was boiling. "Goddammit it woman. You best stand there and tell me what you damn well want to tell me."
"Or what?" She asked venomously.
"There ain't no goddamn or what. Say what you fuckin' wanna say!"
"I hate you!" She shouted.
"Then you best tell me why!" I shouted back.
She narrowed her eyes. "You're exactly the same."
I sighed loudly. "As what? Exactly the same as what goddamn thing?"
She turned around to walk away from me. I grabbed her arm, pulling her back to me. She spun around and knocked my hands off her.
I stood there in shock.
"Don't you dare touch me." She said through her teeth.
"I'll touch you as I damn well please. You're the one who wanted to take my name." I told her loudly.
Her eyes showed fire and I'd obviously said the wrong thing to turn this conversation around. She took the ring off her finger and threw it at me.
I let it bounce off my chest and land on the ground.
She went to walk away from me again and I grabbed her arm again. She spun around, hitting me square in the chest. I tried to grip her tighter without hurting her as I pulled her close to my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and grabbed my own wrist to hold her tight against me.
"Let me go!" She screamed, thrashing against me. "Let me go!"
"Not until you calm your ass down and we talk about this." I said in her ear.
Another minute of thrashing and she all but deflated in my arms. I sank to my knees and pulled her into my lap as she started crying. I rubbed circles on her back, shushing her.
"I don't want to leave you." She said through her tears.
"I know, baby." I whispered.
She shook her head. "I don't need school."
"Yes you do, baby girl. You wanted this since I met you. You're gonna go." I told her, rocking her back and forth.
"I can't leave you, Daryl." She said.
I felt my heart breaking in two pieces. "Yes you can."
"Come with me." She said suddenly, like she'd just thought of it.
I'd thought about it so much, I already knew my response. "I don't have enough money, baby. I gotta keep workin'. Then I'll have enough to buy us a house and a playground for our lil' Dixons." I told her with a soft smile.
Her eyes were bright and a tear spilled over. I wiped it away with my thumb.
"You know you gotta go on and get. I'll be here when ya get back." I told her with the best smile I could manage.
The tears overtook her again and I pulled her close to my chest, rocking her back and forth on her front lawn.
I sat in my truck in front of her house. I didn't think I could do this. I couldn't just let her leave, let her walk away like this. But I knew I had to. She opened the door and watched me through the screen door. I took a deep breath before I climbed out of the cab.
I wasn't this strong. I couldn't do this. But I squared my shoulders and walked up her drive with my hands in my pockets.
"Hey." She said quietly.
"Hey." I said, unable to look in her eyes.
"You alright?" She asked.
I nodded. "Yeah."
"I uh… I wanted to give this back to you." She said quietly.
I looked up enough to see what was in her outstretched hand. There, glistering in the midday sun, between her fingers was a simple silver band with a lone diamond in the middle. I cleared my throat to push down the lump. I wasn't no pussy ass bitch. I wasn't gonna cry like one. I just shook my head.
"Daryl. Please." She said, sounding like she was pleading.
I took a breath and reached out to close her hand around the ring. "You best keep it. If you come back to me; it'll still be yours. If you don't and ya ever get in trouble, it's good for a couple hundred bucks."
She shook her head and her eyes were shining. "I can't keep it, Daryl. It's yours."
I knew if she started crying, I'd break. My resolve would crack and I'd be done. I took another breath, pushing my nerves down. "Nah, darlin'. It's yours." I told her, kissing her forehead and turning tail, heading back for my truck.
From the driver's seat, I glanced back at her one more time to see her duck her head as her tears started. And this time, this one time, I couldn't ease her pain.
It felt like it was burning a hole in the back of my pocket. Merle had gone out to get the mail today and brought it back in. He laughed and called me a fairy for getting mail from a girl.
I told him to shut the fuck up and I took the letter before he had a chance to open it. She'd be finishing up with her school year pretty soon. We hadn't talked much, just once in a while. It was hard to talk to her without saying 'I love you' or 'come back home.'
I knew she had to do her own thing. I was makin' good money at the garage, so I had no reason to leave. We'd never officially broke up, but I thought of it as when we started dating. We never said the words out loud, but we both knew where we stood.
Climbing out of the cab, I laid the envelope on my seat, figuring I could read it at lunch or on my way home. Work was slow all day. We had an import come in for a tourist who thought he was the shit. We shut him down real quick, fixed his rig and got him on his way again. He cussed us out, sayin' he wasn't ever comin' back.
It wasn't no loss in our book. We were all glad to see him go.
I sighed, climbing back into the cab of the truck as the sun fell. I saw the letter and sighed. I might as well get it over with. I took out my pocket knife and cut the fold open. I pulled out the piece of paper and read it in the receding daylight.
For all intents and purposes, I knew what the letter was going to say, or so I thought. But what came with the letter burned me to my core. She told me how she missed being my friend, missed seeing me. But she'd found somebody else, some jerkoff from the city.
I wasn't too surprised as far as that went. But holding the wedding invitation in my hand, I felt anger and betrayal.
A goddamn wedding invitation. Like I could ever sit there and watch her take another man's last name. I got back out of the truck and leaned against the bed. I hadn't expected news this bad or for it to hit me this hard.
Automatically, my fingers found their way around a silver shaft of metal and I tugged the lug wrench out of the bed. I could feel the anger building. I gripped the wrench like a bat and swung as hard as I could at the truck. Again and again and again…
I fell to my knees, feeling deflated and limp. I hung my head, breathing heavily.
"Ya aight Daryl?" Jesse asked tentatively. The guys in the shop knew well enough by now that when I was mad, ya left me the hell alone.
It took me a minute to gather my voice. "She's gone, Jesse."
"Whatchu mean, gone?" He asked.
"Goddamn wedding invitation." I told him, struggling to my feet and handing him the embossed blue paper with my left hand, as I couldn't feel my right anymore.
He glanced over it before handing it back. "Ya going?"
"Fuck no, I ain't goin'." I told him, crumbling up the nice paper and throwing it into the cab.
"The fuck are you watchin'?" I called to Merle from the kitchen.
"Some freak ate a dude's face off in New York." Merle called back.
I picked up two pieces of pizza onto my plate and returned to the couch. "His face?"
"Yeah. Guess he was all hopped up on them bath salts or somethin'. Nobody's got a clue." Merle said, taking a swig of his beer as I placed one of the pieces of pizza on his plate.
"Bath salts." I scoffed.
"Hey. Wonder if it's them walking dead types. They eat faces." Merle said, seeming to agree with himself.
"Merle, ain't no walking dead types. What's dead stays dead." I told him, taking a bite of the pizza.
Merle was right. I'd never tell him to his face, but he was smug enough to know what I wasn't sayin'. We sat in my pickup on the I-75 south, heading towards Atlanta. I had no clue how far we were, but traffic was at a stop. Had been for nearly an hour.
The news told us it was a virus of some kind. I hadn't heard of anythin' that was of the face eating kind, but Merle was damn smug about it. So we both packed a bag and his motorcycle into my truck and headed towards Atlanta. They told us it was safe there. But here Merle and I sat, on the outside lane of a divided highway. I climbed out of the cab and slammed the door as hard as I could, making the truck rock a little bit.
"Easy, little brother. You're gonna flip the damn thing." Merle said with a smile.
Damn his arrogance. I'd sock him square in the jaw if I didn't know he was damn right.
"I'm sick of sittin' here. We ain't goin' nowhere." I told him, pacing.
"Have you heard anything?" An old lady asked, from the car I was pacing next to.
"Would I be pacin' like a goddamn caged dog if I had heard somethin'?" I snapped.
She looked startled and rolled up her window.
Suddenly there was a little convoy type of cars driving on the grassy shoulder of the road, heading in the direction we came from. I stepped out in front of them, waving 'em down. An old motorhome was the lead of the convoy. It slowed down and a blonde girl with long hair popped out of the passenger side.
"Where the hell ya'll goin'?" I asked.
"There's a group of us going down to the quarry to camp for the night so we don't have to be stuck in this traffic jam." She informed me.
"You and your friend are welcome to follow." The old guy in the driver's seat said over the girls' head.
I nodded. "Think we'll do that then." I told him, going to get back in my truck.
"What the shit they think they're goin'?" Merle asked, watching the cars pass us.
"Ol' rock quarry. And we're followin' 'em." I told him, turning the ignition and backing up.
"Why the fuck we followin' 'em?" Merle asked.
"You wanna sit your sorry ass here, I'll pull over and you're pussy ass can get out." I told him, pulling out onto the grass.
"Fine. But I bet we could rob 'em blind. Might have some nice stuff in that RV of theirs." Merle said, shrugging like he came up with the idea.
I shook my head at him, following the line of cars down to the rock quarry.
