Surviving Valentine (14 page)

“They seem nice.” Scarlet said. I’m glad she liked them, and they obviously liked her. I always said if my friends didn’t like you then there was something wrong with you. After what seems like forever, the blue eyed seals made their way back to me, they found no signs of Fox anywhere. Could I have imagined it?

After the party was over everyone but Scarlet and I parted ways to their own homes. It was a long day and I needed my Scarlet in boots time.  When the last person left I scooped her up and took her upstairs to have my wicked way with her.

The next day went by in a flash. Work. Dinner. Movie. Hot sex. It was a fantastic way for you days to go.  Tomorrow would be Valentine’s Day, and we would be on the way to the mountains. I was going to put Fox and everything else behind me and just let loose. I decided I was also going to man up and tell Scarlet how I felt tomorrow to. I can’t wait.

Chapter 17

Scarlet

“I’m so excited! I haven’t ever been snowboarding before!” I was squealing as Darien and I set off after having a late lunch for Ross’s cabin in West Virginia.  I did pretty well by only packing 1 big snow jacket ,2 duffle bags of stuff, and my bathroom bag; Darien shook his head as I pulled those bad boys out to my SUV. He only had a medium size duffle and a Snowboard and boots to go with it.  Little did he know I packed a few of my nerdy costumes in there for him. He admitted he had a dream about me in a princess Leia costume once. So I figured for Valentine’s Day I would surprise him in that costume that I just happened to own once we got there and found alone time. I laughed to myself, It was going to be an awesome Valentine’s Day!  He wanted to drive; he said something about how I was a woman, and driving on snow. Pish Posh to that asshole! But I decided to let him drive.

I brought my trusty book Obsidian to keep me company if need be. Today had been a really cold day, and we looked on the weather channel earlier to see that it looked like we would get a snow storm once up there. So that would be nice to see some snow falling. As long as it wasn’t like a blizzard or anything. I guess we will just have to see. “Snowboarding can be fun but it is a little hard, you might end up switching to skis but it’s ok if you do.” He said while switching lanes. We were already into hour 3 out of a 5 and a half hour drive, and we were coming up on 4:30 in the afternoon. “We are going to have so much fun; do you know when Ross and Candace left?” I asked. I texted her this morning but she didn’t get back to me yet. “Yeah, they left early this morning. I guess they wanted a little alone time in the hot tub before we get there.” My nose scrunched up at that, ew I was so not getting in that hot tub. Gross.

I was enjoying the change in the scenery, beach to hills and mountains again. There was already some snow dusted on the ground as we passed by. I sometimes missed living in the mountains, but definitely not enough to move back. No way in hell. But it was nice to visit.  We started making our way up the main mountain. It always made me nervous because the roads were narrow and well there was nothing but a guard rail and then the side of a mountain. It was scary, especially with snow. Then I suddenly heard my jam! I reached over and turned the volume up. Nervous feeling was gone.  I started belting out lyrics. “ WHYYYYYY, MY CAR IN THE FRONT YARD, AND I’M SLEEPING WITH MY CLOTHES ON, CAME IN THROUGH THE WINDOW, AND YOU’RE GONE, GOONNNEEE.”  I loved this song, my own worst enemy. I looked over at Darien, he was smiling at me, yeah I probably looked like a goof, and then he started joining me in singing the lyrics. Which made me smile even bigger. I loved a guy who I could sing and dance around with, It was nice see a man like him letting loose like that.  We were goofing off with all the songs that were coming on the radio after that.

Then BAM someone hit the back of my 4runner. “Oh my god, Darien!” I was scared shitless I looked back and saw a black mustang gaining speed towards us.  What the hell was going on? I looked at Darien; he was very focused on driving, and constantly checking the mirrors. His jaw was locked, he looked dangerous.

He pressed the gas, and maneuvered my SUV like it was a sports car going up the zig zags of the mountain. I looked behind us again and the mustang was about to hit us, when Darien jerks the SUV to the left to avoid it. The mustang drove up next to us, I tried to get a good look at who was driving but the windows were tinted so dark I couldn’t see inside. I was trying not to freak out, but I was super close to having a heart attack.I mean we were on the side of a mountain for Christ’s sake!

The mustang slammed into us making us hit the rocks on the side of the mountain. I screamed.  I am going to die! I Did the first thing that came to mind. “Darien I’m in love with you!” I screamed out. I didn’t want to die and he not know. That would be like some unfinished business for me. He looked at me and cursed.  Well that wasn’t what I was looking for. I mean he might not love me back but cursing after my confession definitely wasn’t what I thought would come out of him. His jaw locked up, a little muscle started twitching there.

He turned the car back towards the mustang. The mustang pressed the breaks. Thankfully Darien corrected it, and we didn’t go off the side of the mountain. I felt a rush of relief. Then BAM the mustang hit us in the left taillight making the front of the car go towards the guard rail again, this time the screeching of the metal rail and the car was ringing in my ears. Darien looked in the mirror towards the mustang, and looked me dead in the face. There was pure panic in his eyes. “Scarlet hold onto something!” He yelled. I grabbed the Oh Shit Handle on the ceiling.

I barely had time to grab it when BAM the mustang hit us again and we went through the railing. This was it; my worst fears of going over the mountain were coming true. We rolled over, and over. Part of the SUV hit trees, rocks, and just kept going. Like a pin ball in a machine. My head hit the window; glass was shattered and I could feel it going everywhere, I felt a severely sharp pain in my right side, that wasn’t good. A warm liquid started coming down my face from my head. I was so going to die. I was losing consciousness when I think the SUV stopped rolling. I wasn’t sure. There was numbing feeling all over. Everything was quiet, no loud crunching noises of the car, nothing. My eyes closed, and I faded into the blackness.

Why am I feeling pain? Dead people don’t feel pain. I felt warm, strong arms cradling me, I felt weightless, like I was floating. Was an angel carrying me? I drifted back into the black again. 

                  I felt warm; feverish would maybe be a better word for it. I started to feel a lot now, before I felt numbness, now I felt aches all over and sharp pains stabbing at me all over my body. The whole right side of me felt broken. It was painful, but I have had worse. Christ, there is no way heaven could be this cruel. Somehow I managed to stay alive through the crash I guess. Darien! Oh no Darien where was he? Was he ok? I slowly opened my eyes. Where am I? I wasn’t in the 4runner. The angel! I must have been carried from the SUV to this, somewhat of a campsite. I tried to call out for Darien, but my voice was very soft. Maybe from screaming so much before? My chest hurt to breathe but I tried again; my voice was laced with panic. Oh god no one was answering. Please let Darien be around here somewhere, and not some crazy, hermit West Virginian mountain man that rescued me.  “Darien!” I yelled as best as I could again, it felt like my ribs were bruised. Damnit.  I tried to get up, a really sharp pain shot through my arm and shoulder. “FUCKING HELL!” I yelled. I looked down and there was a makeshift splint on my right arm all the way up to the shoulder joint. It looked like some of my scarves wrapped around a couple of hard sticks.

A crack of a stick came from the right, my head whipped towards the noise. Please don’t be a bear, or some dangerous creature. My breathing increased, my heart was pounding so hard I thought it was going to bust through. I tried my best to slowly move away from the noise while keeping my eye on it. It hurt to move, but survival came first. The noise of someone walking came closer and closer until finally a silhouette of a person came into view. The sun was almost gone so there wasn’t much light, but I recognized that silhouette. Darien. “Scarlet” he said so soft I’m not sure if he meant it to come out. He dropped the stuff he was carrying and came over to me. Very slowly came down to his knees in front of me and raised the back of his hand to graze my cheek. Tears sprang free from my eyes as it hit me we survived a horrible accident I was so certain we would die from. I tried to move my arms to hug him but I couldn’t get the right one to move, I circled my good arm around him. I sobbed into his chest, as he held me.

After what I would guess would be a half hour, my sobs finally started to cease. He pulled back, and cradled my face with his hands as he brought his lips to mine. He kissed me with everything he had. This kiss was like none of the others, so much love, desperation, and need. He broke off the kiss but rested his forehead against mine. “Scarlet, I was so scared. I thought I was going to lose you.” I tried to shush him, to let him know it didn’t matter because I was here but he wouldn’t let me. “No, Scarlet. I could have lost you.” He pulled his head back so he could look me straight in the eyes. “I love you Scarlet.  When you yelled it out to me earlier, a piece of me died. I couldn’t believe you would love me too, and I was about to lose you after finally having you. You mean everything to me Scarlet. Everything. You own me completely.” His eyes were dark, and very serious. I took a deep breath. My lips seeked his out like a heat seeking missile, I needed him, like I needed my next breath. I grabbed him everywhere I could with my good hand. He was everything to me. I was so happy we survived the crash, so happy I still had him, and happy we were together.

We kissed until it was necessary to break apart and breathe. I realized I was so focused on how happy I was to be with him, I hadn’t gotten a good look at him. I peered back at him, but sadly I could barely see him. “Are you ok?” I whispered at him, trying to feel my way around him to see if there was anything broken. “I’m a bit banged up here and there, nothing like your arm and shoulder there. I need to get a fire going; it is going to get real cold tonight.” He softly gave me a kiss and then went to work on a fire.

              My body was starting to shiver. I didn’t realize how cold I was until he mentioned how cold it was going to be. Thankfully by the time my teeth started to chatter Darien got a small fire going. The light from the fire spread about our little campsite. I could finally see his face. He had a cut on his left eyebrow. His left cheek was bruised with a little cut. He shrugged at me and set what looked like a bow made out of shoe string on the ground. I’ve seen people do that on TV shows. I think they called it a bow drill, where you would twist the wooden drill and use the bow to create friction.

Thank goodness I had him; I don’t think I would be able to do all of this. I took another look around. We were on the ground under a giant rock. Not a cave but like an alcove of some sort. He saw me looking around “I gathered as much from the wreck as I could.” He chuckled a bit. “Sorry but I don’t know how to tell you this. Your car didn’t make it.” Asshole… I already figured that one out. “Ass” I barked. I narrowed my eyes at him. I loved that 4runner. My poor baby.  He continued to speak “I found your cell phone, sadly we don’t get cell service on the mountain so it’s kind of useless, couldn’t find mine.” Well that sucked, you figure you have a phone for emergencies and you can’t even use it when you are in an emergency. “I also found one duffle of yours.” His expression grew comical. What was that about? “I’m not sure how useful a princess Leia costume will be to us, but I’m sure later on I could find some uses for it.” 

OH MY GOD! He wasn’t supposed to see that yet. So embarrassing.  “That was your valentine’s day gift.” I rolled my eyes trying to act like I didn’t care if he found my secret costume and lingerie stash. “It is still Valentine’s Day isn’t it?”  His question was more rhetorical than anything. He walked over into one of the bags and pulled out a bottle of wine. Hm I didn’t pack that; it must be one of his. He grabbed a pillow and one of the big blankets I had packed. I didn’t like using other people’s pillows. I always brought a pillow and blanket with me when on vacations. Turns out that was a good habit to have. He grabbed a few more things I didn’t quite see and came back over to me. “Here.” He wrapped the blanket around me, and place the pillow on the ground on a nice pile of leaves. With the fire going, the area started to heat up a little bit. It kind of felt like we were camping instead of having to do this stuff to survive. He opened the bottle of wine and handed it over to me, I grabbed it with my good hand. “Happy valentine’s day Scarlet.” He said.

I couldn’t express what this meant to me. I felt so emotional with love for him I thought my body was going to explode from feeling so much. It was unreal. “I’d put on my outfit for you but I think I would freeze, so another time you’ll get your gift.” I winked at him and took a swig of the wine. I let out a little whimper. It was so good. I needed a drink after this day.

After a few sips I gave it back to him. The alcohol took a bit of the pain away. I looked at the other things he brought over. I giggled a little. There was my iPod with the ear buds; he found my stash of sour cream and cheddar chips, a little bag of beef jerky, and a bottle of water. Perfect driving snacks and now a perfect valentine’s dinner. “Very romantic.” I commented, and he nodded in agreement. “Well it’s not over yet.” We ate a little, but tried to save some for later and tomorrow. We talked about what we were going to do, obviously we wouldn’t be going anywhere tonight, but tomorrow, Darien was going to climb up the side of the mountain we fell down and try to flag someone down for help. If no cars came by, we were about 30 minutes drive from a little town, so maybe like an hour walk. I would get to hang out here, and wait for him to get help.

After we discussed our plans Darien grabbed the iPod and helped haul me up to my feet. My body felt unstable standing, and my head starting spinning. He gave me a few minutes to adjust then he placed my feet on his. Just like my dad used to do. I started to tear up. What was he planning? He placed one of the ear buds in my ear and the other in his. He rolled his thumb around trying to find a song. I wonder what he would choose. He started to dance, holding me and moving us both with my feet on his. Music filled my ears and the tears that were hanging back rushed over onto my cheeks. It was Kiss me by Ed Sheeran. I looked into his eyes through the tears. “This was my song for you. When I heard it, I thought it was like someone wrote that for me.” He said tenderly. More tears ran down my cheek. He was too perfect. “I love you Darien, I thought the same thing when I heard the song. It was so perfect for how I felt. I knew then that I was falling in love with you.”  He smiled and crushed my body against his more. He kissed me with such passion, such fever. He broke apart and spoke against my lips. “I knew the moment I met you, you were something to me. I figured it out that first night you claimed my nook that I was falling for you.”  I pulled back and looked at him. That was only a few days after we met!