heart over brain

Part 10

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Kindness and compassion only go so far for normal people – the elderly man kicks me out quite sternly after my outburst of crazy.

I sit down on the front porch of his house. Because I am a bit dizzy and because I don't have anywhere else to go. And I am thankful that the old man doesn't have a rifle to chase me away.

Max finds me.

I don't know how or how long I've been sitting outside before I see his figure stalking through the snow. A while maybe, my toes and fingers are frozen.

He stands in front of me and gives me the phone without a word. The battery is dead now, I put it in my pocket.

I don't look at him, I can't, it takes all I have not to cry, if I look in his eyes the damn will break, and my crazy emotions will flood me away.

"Why are you sitting here?" Max says.

"Because it's so nice weather, what do you think."

"You should have stayed at the diner."

Should have stayed at the diner, should have called the police, shouldn't have gotten in that car or ever left my flat last night.

Should have known better.

That one really hurts. Because I do know better. I have terrible taste in men, a total dysfunctional impulse to throw myself at the horrible ones, that don't want me anyway. It doesn't take a therapist to figure out why. I couldn't make my parents love me, but maybe I can convince a random stranger in a bar, totally logical, right?

I blink tears away.

Max stretches a hand out towards me. I refuse to acknowledge it.

Maybe I have learned my lesson this time.

I should have.

I haven't.

He steps closer, fishes my arm and takes my hand in his. Then pulls me up from the porch and after him.

I can't hold the tears in any longer. They break out of me in small, bitter sobs, that get swallowed by the snow. The wind burns in my eyes and freezes my wet cheeks. Everything is so blurry I can barely see where I am going.

"Stop crying," Max says.

Gee, thanks, haven't thought of that yet.

I try to take my hand back, but he doesn't let go. His warm fingers wrap around mine tighter.

A new wave of sobs breaks out of my throat.

We march the snow and darkness for a while, before we reach a small farm with a multitude of barns and shacks around it. Max steers us towards one of them, a miserable, crooked wood construction, that looks like it might give out below the weight of the snow any minute.

He opens the door a slit and hurls me inside.

When the door closes again, it is almost completely dark in the room. A lone window just below the roof gives only little light.

"This way," Max says quietly.

I can't tell where he leads me. Could be to an enchanted door into another world or down a fiery pit. I'd probably follow either way.

"Will you please stop crying already?" he says again. Something rustles, cracks. "People will hear you."

A sound like a car door opening, I squeeze my eyes and indeed, there is a dark lump in front of us, that could be an old minivan.