A Woman and Her Bear

I yawned, rolling over and slapping my alarm clock repeatedly until the dreadful beeping stopped. Letting out a big sigh and rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I climbed out of bed and grabbed my clothes and a towel. As I walked to the bathroom I heard my mom yelling at my stepdad downstairs. Ah lovely, another beautiful morning in this Hell House. I sighed again and closed the bathroom door, turning the water on and climbing in, trying to drown out the dread of this day that hadn’t even started. Every day was the same. Same screaming, same food, same people, same classes. Same rude a*s people at school too. God I just wanna go back to bed. I knew that wasn’t an option. I was two weeks from graduation and these two weeks were important, it was my final step to getting the hell out of this house and getting out on my own. Two more weeks June. Two more weeks. I got out of the shower, got dressed, and didn’t hesitate to make a run for the door, not even saying bye to anyone as I left. I climbed in my blue Toyota Tundra, and quickly turned my key. I had just made it to the end of the road when I realized, f*ck, my gas is at quarter tank. Time to go fill, and pull from savings. Again. Another sigh. Third one that morning and I’d been awake an hour, must’ve been a new record. I pulled into the gas station and saw a motorcycle at the pump in front of me. Without really thinking much about it, I climbed out and went inside. There was a massive man at the counter paying for gas as well. Must be the biker. He was gorgeous, there was no denying that. Heavily built, more muscle than man, the most piercing stormy grey eyes I’d ever seen, tousled chestnut brown hair you just wanted to run your hands through, standing at at least 6 foot 5. He was dreamy. He seemed to notice me gawking like an i***t and gave me the coldest, most immediately humiliating look I’ve ever seen. My cheeks flushed and I quickly looked to the floor. He walked out and I walked up to the counter to quickly pay for my gas and get the hell out of there. “That was one hell of a look he gave you. Wonder who p*ssed in his Cheerios this morning,” the cashier said, trying to lighten the mood. I gave an awkward laugh and simply replied with “yeah,” before quickly making my exit to my truck. As I walked out the large man stormed passed my truck, clearly angered by something, though it didn’t seem hard to anger him by now. As he was stomping past, his shoulder clipped my rear view mirror and took it clean off. Are you f*cking kidding me right now? God why can’t anything in my life just be non-disastrous for five f*cking minutes?! Another sigh. Fourth one in two hours, less than actually. He spun around and saw me just sadly looking at my mirror. “Thanks a*s wad. One more thing on my list of s**t I can’t afford. At the rate I’m pulling from savings I’ll never get out of this sh*thole,” I snapped, surprised at the venom in my own voice. Where the hell did that come from? His eyes widened. He looked almost sorry for a second. Then his eyes went dark, and as I directed my disgusted expression toward him, I picked up my mirror, and without giving him a chance to respond I simply said, “You’re f*cking lucky I’m not the type to make a scene. Hope the temper tantrum was worth it.” And with that, I left.