I pulled into a gas station when my vision blurred past the point of seeing the road clearly. After putting the car in park, I flipped the visor down and stared at my reflection, finding nothing appealing. Red-rimmed eyes with black circles underneath. Lips chapped and swollen from chewing them with worry. Cheeks hollowed due to the lack of appetite lately. Hair limp and unkempt. Whatever sickness Pa had seemed to have infected me too. So gradual that I’d not noticed, and Vance certainly hadn’t just now. No, he was too busy focusing on his fancy friends’ needs to have noticed anything about me.

Slapping the visor shut, I rested my head on the back of the seat and let all the bitterness of hurt and disappointment wash over me. The venom much more potent than the snakebite I’d endured two years ago. Bone-deep, this was a painful admission of defeat.

I was tired from searching for hope. For the first time, while parked in a strange parking lot, I experienced a new symptom of Pa’s illness. It was the symptom of wanting to end it all. I cracked one eye open and then the other to get a better look at the bridge up ahead, but I could only see the car plunging off the side of it. It was a thought with a brief flash of comfort, finally making me understand why Pa kept chasing that fleeting moment of peace before his attempts. The idea of having a way to make it all stop, the pain, the grief, the frustration, the hopelessness . . .

A loud tap on the driver’s window pulled me from the dark idea. “Ma’am, you got car trouble?” a burly guy in a cowboy hat asked loudly through the closed window.

I reached a trembling hand over and sent the window down halfway. “No, sir. Just needed a minute . . .”

He bent slightly to get a better look at me. “You need some help?”

I needed a lot of help, but nothing the cowboy could offer. “I’m fine. Thank you for checking though.” I sent the window up, making it clear we were done. He seemed to not buy that. How was my dismay so clear to a stranger yet Vance overlooked it? He stood by the window for another beat before tipping his hat and walking off.

I closed my eyes to regain the comfort I found in the image of the car plunging into the water. Instead, the faces of Boss, Peg, Raleigh, Charlotte, Nash, and Knox formed. Even Pa’s face. Just as quickly as the symptom of suicide formed, it dissolved. There was no way I could do that to my family. They needed me. Yet there I was, on the side of the road, because I’d selfishly gone seeking comfort from my boyfriend. Talk about a reality check.