As Jason Hadley drove onto the Highway, rain was pelting down hard. The windscreen wipers of the rental car were hardly able to cope with the deluge of water. ‘Damn’ he thought to himself ‘it’s worse than I expected’.
Should he turn back and stop overnight at the airport hotel before going on to his mountain cabin as he had planned? No. He’s had enough of hotel living to last him for a life time.
While listening to the country and western music coming from the radio, he reflected on the chain of events that has brought him to this point.
Jason, a slightly built, handsome man, had just turned forty some days ago. His black hair and startling blue eyes were a heritance of a distant Irish ancestry. The slight grey starting to show at his temples only added to his physical appeal and he had always prided himself on being able to handle all life can throw at him, to be at the helm of all situations, to be on top of everything - until lately.
He had not always led a charmed life. Born into a blue-collar working class family, Jason had fought hard for a better life, better education. His reward was to achieve top honors at school, being in the top ten of his class, even in college.
Everyone had predicted big things for him and everyone was expecting a lot of him, what the heck, never mind everyone, he was expecting a lot of himself.
He had started his career at the bottom of one of the biggest advertising agencies and married his high-school sweetheart Shelby shortly after her graduation from law school.
Life was wonderful for the next decade, with him working his way up the corporate ladder to become one of the youngest executives in the agency, with Shelby, his beautiful and beloved Shelby by his side, herself now a successful career woman as a well-known lawyer and partner in a prestigious law firm.
They had the world at their feet.
Jason stopped the train of his thoughts to concentrate on his driving under this dangerous weather condition.
“Damn it” he said aloud “maybe I should have listened to the people at the car rental desk. They did warn me about this rainstorm”.
Lighting struck down from the sky like a flaming sword in front of the car, blinding him for a second. The loud clap of thunder that followed made him flinch and he opened the glove compartment to take out the bottle of bourbon he purchased at the airport and took a swig. The warmth shot through him right away and settled his nerves. He felt better immediately.
‘As long as I don’t overdo it I should be fine’ he mused and then ‘stop right there’. What was he thinking? Too much alcohol was part of the mess he is in now.
Jason rolled down the window, cursed at the rain pouring in and hurtle the bottle of bourbon as far as he could into the darkness beyond.
The radio kept on crooning about love lost and love found.
Life should be that simple and easy, Jason heaved a sigh and went back to his dark thoughts.
‘When did everything go so wrong’ he questioned himself for the hundreds of times ‘what did really happen?’
Maybe life was too good and he had considered himself to be invincible.
Thinking back now, he realised that while Shelby was getting more and more busy with her career, spending less and less time at home, he was spending more and more time having too many parties with too many wrong people, hangers-on, who called themselves ‘friends’ but who only wanted a slice of the good life in Jason’s wake, feeding on his success. He was listening to too many false compliments, starting to believe them.
He began to have a little affair here, a one night-stand there, after all this was the accepted and expected behavior in his new circles of ‘friends ‘. But then again most of them had already a couple of divorces under their belts, their present wives not minding them having affairs as they had their own.
That was not the relationship he had wanted for Shelby and himself, but by then he was on a rollercoaster he could not stop and it became an avalanche of events he could not control anymore.
‘Why’ he asked himself again ‘why, when I have a wife like Shelby, beautiful, sexy, clever and classy, did I have to put everything on the line for nothing more than to be ‘one of the boys’.
Shelby kept on warning him, wanted nothing to do with his new set of friends, but he was the “Golden Boy” wasn’t he, so why should he listen to the warnings of the one person who had his best interest at heart.
‘You bloody idiot’ he thought ‘how could you have fallen so deep so fast?’ He could not come up with an explanation or even an excuse for his stupidity.
It was all his fault! Who could blame Shelby for having put up an invisible barrier between them, a barrier he felt he was not able to penetrate.
But still…. And then came the day when Shelby finally had enough…
He remembered with shame the one night he got home, fresh from the bed of one floozy or another, something he had never done before, but he was drunk out of his mind and there she was, Shelby, gorgeous, sexy and his wife. It was her wifely duty to give him his dues, wasn’t it? Or so he thought at that moment and demanded to have sex with her, right there and then, right in the living room. When Shelby had tried to calm him down and appease him by letting him have his way, the ultimate nightmare happened. He could not perform and with his mind being befuddled with alcohol, he had lost control.
‘Oh, fuck, fuck, I don’t want to think about it anymore’ but the images how he had attacked her verbally, calling her an Ice Queen who would turn any man impotent and no wonder he had to find solace in the arms of other women and that even the cheapest whore could give him more satisfaction than she ever could …. would not go away.
He had carried on and on, ranting and raving not hearing or listening when she begged him to stop, until she was silent, tears running down her face quietly.
But he was not finished with her, oh no not him, not yet. Not being able to get any other response from her, he had lifted his hand and slapped her hard across the face.
He will never forget the disgust and something that looked a lot like disappointment and hurt in her eyes.
And oh, the shame he felt when she just got up without giving him another look, went into the bedroom and locked the door.
He had sobered up quickly enough and standing outside the closed bedroom door, tried to apologize again and again, begging her to forgive him once more, promising to change his life around to the way it used to be. Trying to explain that he had not been himself, that he did not know what had happened to him, what got into him. But he was talking to a locked door, with the love of his life on the other side not wanting to have anything to do with him anymore.
The next morning, early, he packed a few things and left their home. He was so ashamed, how could he have expected her to look at him if he could not even face himself in the mirror?
For the next couple of weeks he had tried to make amends, tried to contact Shelby, win her back, but the damage he had inflicted on their relationship was too great and hurtful, he understood that. She needed time and distance.
And there was bloody Ben Franklin, her partner in the law firm, always around, always attentive and protective towards Shelby.
That’s when he decided to give him and her even more space, before making a final decision about their relationship and to move to the cabin in the mountains for a few days to clear his mind, to plot a course to win Shelby back and win her back he had to – life without her was worthless.
The plan was to contact her in a couple of days and invite her to join him at the place they had spent so many wonderful times together and made so many special memories. What better venue to put their marriage back on track and show his wife that he was again the man she had fallen in love with, the man she had married.
‘And here I am, in this bloody mess of a rainstorm in the middle of nowhere. Can life get any worse?’ Oh yes, it could. A future without Shelby would be infinite worse than some rain on a Highway. Shame about how low he had sunk washed over him again. If it takes the rest of his life to atone, so be it.
‘Stop it’ he thought ‘you have to stay positive and watch out for the turn-off to the road leading up the mountain and to the cabin’.
Squinting through the windscreen, he saw a flashing light in the middle of the Highway.
‘What the fuck’ he tried to get a clearer view through the rain washed windscreen, ‘what idiot is standing out there in this downpour? Must be some poor bastard whose car broke down and who needs help’.
Jason rolled slowly to a stop, not knowing what to expect.
The light came closer and he could see the Stetson and yellow slicker of the police officer who knocked on his window.
“Yes officer what seems to be the problem” opening the window and getting rainwater all over himself, Jason asked, turning his head not to let the officer smell the alcohol on his breath.
“Drove my car off the road in this pissing rain and I need a lift” a rough sounding voice replied.
“What about your radio, can’t you call for assistance?”
“Radio is bust and there is no signal for my mobile out here, just open your door and stop asking questions, I am already soaking wet”.
Jason had a bad feeling about this, but after all here was a police officer who needed assistance, so reluctantly he opened the passenger door and the man slid in, dripping water all over.
“Where are you going” he grunted, keeping his face shadowed by the Stetson.
“To my cabin about ten miles up the mountain, but I can keep on going to Arrowhead and drop you off at the Sheriff’s station”.
“Turn up the mountain road and keep going” was the gruff reply.
“What …” Jason turned his head to question the man further, when he saw the gun pointed at him.