Wanderlust Read Free

into
my digital pockets. But now I had forever in the outside world. I
could breathe in the colors, practically smell the vibrancy in the
air.
    A sort of exuberant laugh escaped me,
relief and excitement at once. Feeling joyful, I glanced toward the
neat row of semi-trucks to the side. Their engines were silent, the
night air still. The only disturbance: a man leaned against the
side of one, the wispy white smoke from his cigarette curling
upward. His face was shrouded in darkness.
    My smile faded. I couldn’t see his
expression, but some warning bell inside me set off. I sensed his
alertness despite the casual stance of his body. His gaze felt hot
on my skin. While I’d been watching the sunset, he’d been watching
me.
    When he suddenly straightened, I
tensed. Where a second ago I’d felt free, now my mother’s warnings
came rushing back, overwhelming me. Would he come for me? Hurt me,
attack me? It would only take a few minutes to run back to my
room—could I beat him there? But all he did was raise his hand,
waving me around the side of the building. I circled hesitantly and
found another entrance, this one to a diner.
    Hesitantly, I waved my thanks. After a
moment, he nodded back.
    “ Paranoid,” I chastised
myself.
    The diner was wrapped with metal, a
retro look that was probably original. Uneven metal shutters shaded
the green windows, where an OPEN sign flickered.
    Inside, turquoise booths and brown
tables lined the walls. A waitress behind the counter looked up
from her magazine. Her hair was a dirty blonde, darker than mine,
pulled into a knot. A thick layer of caked powder and red lipstick
were still in place, but her eyes were bloodshot, tired.
    “ I heard we got a
boarder,” she said, nodding to me. “First one of the
year.”
    I blinked. It was a cool April night.
If I was the first one of the year, then that was a long time to go
without boarders.
    “ What about all the trucks
outside?”
    “ Oh, they sleep in their
cabs. Those fancy new leather seats are probably more comfortable
than those old mattresses filled with God-knows-what.” She laughed
at her own joke, revealing a straight line of grayish
teeth.
    I managed a brittle smile then ducked
into one of the booths.
    She sidled over with a notepad and
pen.
    “ We don’t usually see
girls as pretty as you around here. Especially alone. You don’t got
nobody to look after you?”
    The words were spoken in accusation,
turning a compliment into a warning.
    “ Just passing through,” I
said.
    She snorted. “Aren’t we all? Okay,
darlin’, what’ll it be?”
    Under her flat gaze, I turned the
sticky pages of the menu, ignoring the stale smells that wafted up
from it. Somehow the breakfast food seemed safest. I hoped it would
be easier to avoid food poisoning with pancakes than a
steak.
    After the waitress took my order, I
waited, tapping my fingers on the vinyl tabletop to an erratic
beat. I was a little nervous—jittery, although there was no reason
to be. Everyone had been nice. Not exactly welcoming, but then I
was a stranger. Had I expected to make friends with the first
people I met?
    Yes, I admitted to myself, somewhat
sheepishly. I had rejected my mother’s view that everyone was out
to get me, but neither was everyone out to help me. I would do well
to retain some of the wariness she’d instilled in me. A remote
truck stop wasn’t the place to meet people, to make lasting
relationships. That would be later, once I had started my job. No,
even later than that, when I’d saved up enough to reach Niagara
Falls. Then I could relax.
    When my food came, I savored the
sickly sweet syrup that saturated my pancakes. It would rot my
teeth, my mother would have said. Well, she wasn’t here. A small
rebellion, but satisfying and delicious.
    The bell over the door rang, and I
glanced up to see a man come in. His tan T-shirt hung loose while
jeans hugged his long legs. He was large, strong—and otherwise
unremarkable. He might have come from