| |
I didn’t know what to say to her, but the car was totaled. They had found it in the bottom of a pond. Hunt was silent as she took it in. I wanted to hug her, but I wasn’t sure she wanted to be touched. She is funny that way.
I knew that she was tough.
But I also knew that she was fragile.
I knew that I had broken her.
And I knew that it was up to me to fix her.
“What would you like to do, Hunt?”
She looked at me in surprise, almost like she had forgotten I was there.
“Is there anything we can do?” her voice was confused.
“We can try and see if there is anything salvageable,” I said.
I owner of the wreckage yard looked at me like I was a dip-shit. And undoubtedly, I was the biggest dip-shit on the face of the earth. But not for the reason he was supposing.
Hunt nodded slightly, “Let’s do that.”
I looked at the greasy old man, “Can you open it up?”
He shook his head and muttered something about ‘stupid kids’ but he got me a crow bar.
The smell when I pried off the car door was almost enough to make a grown man cry. Mold and dead fish would have been a vast improvement. There was mud and crap literally everywhere.
Hunter just stood there.
“Do you want to keep going?” I asked gently.
And she nodded, so we kept going.
For six freaking hours, we went through, mud, fish guts and shit. I’m not sure what we were looking for, but we looked. And when we didn’t find it, her face would get more and more upset. I thought my heart would rip in half.
“Do you want to keep going?” I had taken to asking this every few hours.
And she had taken to nodding. I wasn’t even looking at her when I asked. It had become a habit. But when she laid her hand on my arm, I immediately looked at her.
“I’m done,” she said.
“We can keep looking,” I didn’t want to let her down, not again.
“I want to go, Holt. It isn’t here.”
“Hunter, are you sure, I don’t want you to be sorry. I don’t want you to give up.”
It was then that I realized, if she gave up on the car, would she give up on me?
“We can find whatever it is, I can do this. Just tell me what you are looking for.”
Hunter sighed, “My mom had a small necklace that she gave me. I’m sure it’s somewhere at the bottom of the pond. It is silly to think that it’s still here.”
And all of a sudden, I remembered the small heart shaped necklace. It wasn’t real gold or silver, but it was something that she wore all the time.
“I am so sorry, Hunter,” I tucked a small strand of hair behind her ear that had come out of her ponytail.
“It’s okay,” her tired face said it all, this girl was used to life shitting on her.
“It’s not okay, I said gruffly.” I picked her up, and she squealed.
“What are you doing?” her eyes were wide, and she giggled.
“Sweeping you off your feet,” I said majestically.
“Why are you doing that in a junk yard?” she laughed.
“Why the hell not?” And I kissed her.
She tasted like the licorice from the vending machine she had eaten a few hours back. She felt like heaven. She was my forever.