The Road Washed Out

A little note before the story.

I think a lot of us reach a point where we start wondering whether the best parts of life already happened.

Maybe the marriage ended.

Maybe the person we loved is gone.

Maybe we stayed too long in something that stopped feeling like love years ago.

And then one ordinary day, somebody looks at us a certain way.

A conversation lasts longer than it should.

We laugh harder than we have in months.

For a few minutes, the future feels open again.

That is what this story is about.

Two people who thought they were finished with first kisses.

A storm.

A washed-out road.

And one night neither of them expected.

I wrote it for anyone who still wants love, even if admitting that feels a little embarrassing.

I hope you see some of yourself in these characters.

And maybe a little of what could still be waiting for you too.

- Jezebel Rose 🌹

PS: Thank you for the amazing pictures Lacey Rhimes

The first time I saw Daniel, he was looking at my legs.

He noticed me watching him and snapped his attention back to the stream so fast that I laughed.

“You’re terrible at that,” I called.

“At fishing?”

“At pretending you weren’t staring.”

He glanced over again. Silver hair showed beneath an old canvas hat, and his sleeves were rolled past his elbows.

“I was hoping you hadn’t noticed.”

“I noticed the second time.”

“There was a second time?”

“There were four.”

He laughed and shook his head.

I stood ankle-deep in the stream with my sandals hooked over two fingers and the hem of my dress gathered in my other hand. The current slid around my calves. Smooth river stones pressed into the bottoms of my feet, slick enough that I had to curl my toes around them to keep my balance.

The water was cold despite the heat. Every few seconds, the current found a new strip of bare skin and made me shiver.

Cottonwood leaves clicked together above the banks. The air smelled of sun-baked earth, cottonwood bark, and cold water.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Daniel.”

“Jezebel.”

He looked at me again.

“That’s really your name?”

“It is now.”

“I’m not sure what that means.”

“It means you’ll have to know me longer than five minutes.”

“That sounds promising.”

“Was that flirting?”

“I think so.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“I haven’t done much of it lately.”

He reeled in his line. The hook came out of the water bare, dripping onto his boots.

“I couldn’t tell,” I said.

“That bad?”

“Worse than the fishing.”

I liked the way he laughed. He tried to hold it in at first, then gave up and let it out.

Thunder rolled across the hills behind us.

I felt the vibration through the stones before I understood what I had heard. The sun was still touching the stream, but dark clouds had climbed over the mountains while we were talking.

The breeze turned cooler against my wet legs. Dust lifted from the bank and carried the smell of rain before the first drop ever reached us. It was sharp and mineral, mixed with dry grass and hot stone.

Daniel looked toward the sky.

“You parked near the crossing?”

“Yes.”

“You should probably head back.”

“You think I’ll melt?”

“I think that water rises faster than people expect.”

A large drop struck my shoulder.

Another landed on my cheek and ran to the corner of my mouth. It tasted faintly of dust.

The rain came down hard before I reached the bank.

It struck the stream in thousands of little bursts. The surface flattened beneath it, then turned silver. Within a minute, my dress was stuck to my legs and water ran through my hair, over my eyelashes, and down the center of my back.

Daniel grabbed his tackle box.

“There’s a cabin upstream.”

“I have a car.”

“So do I. Neither one will help if the road goes under.”

We climbed the bank and followed the narrow path beside the stream. Mud squeezed between my bare toes. Small stones bit into my heels whenever the rain washed away the loose dirt beneath them.

Daniel walked ahead, then kept turning to make sure I was behind him.

The temperature had dropped, but the ground still released the heat it had held all afternoon. The rain striking it created a thick smell of wet dust and crushed plants. I breathed through my mouth while climbing a steeper section and could taste the storm in the back of my throat.

By the time we reached the crossing, brown water was already pouring over it.

My car sat on the other side.

Branches spun through the current. A plastic bottle rushed past us and vanished around the bend.

Daniel stared at the road and muttered a word I won’t repeat.

“How long?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“That sounded reassuring.”

“I could lie.”

“I’ve had enough men do that.”

He looked at me, unsure whether I was joking.

“I wasn’t,” I said.

His expression changed, but he didn’t ask.

The cabin was tucked behind a row of cottonwoods. It had a screened porch, one main room, and a faded blue truck parked beside it. Rain drummed against the metal roof hard enough that we had to raise our voices.

Daniel unlocked the door, then pressed the key into my cold palm.

“You can lock it from inside.”

“What about you?”

“I have the truck.”

“You were planning to sleep out there?”

“I was planning to let you decide.”

Rain ran from his hat, along his jaw, and off his chin. His shirt had turned dark across his shoulders. He looked cold, uncomfortable, and unsure what to do with me.

“You can come inside,” I said.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“I had to ask.”

“I know.”

The cabin smelled like old wood, stale coffee, and last night’s cooking. The windows had been closed all day, trapping the heat inside. My skin prickled as the warmer air met my wet clothes.

A bed stood against one wall. A narrow couch filled most of the other. The floorboards creaked beneath our weight.

Daniel opened a cupboard and pulled out two towels. Mine smelled of laundry soap and cedar from the shelf.

“I have a clean shirt in my bag. I haven’t worn it.”

“I assumed that was what clean meant.”

He looked at me for a second, then laughed.

“I’m nervous.”

“I noticed.”

“I’m trying very hard not to make this strange.”

“You invited a wet woman named Jezebel into a cabin during a storm. Strange arrived before we did.”

He left the shirt outside the bathroom door.

The bathroom was barely large enough to turn around in. My dress made a wet peeling sound as I pulled it away from my body. Cold fabric dragged across my stomach and thighs. I wrung water from my hair into the sink and watched it spiral down the drain with streaks of New Mexico dirt.

His shirt was worn cotton, clean but faintly scented with deodorant and the inside of his travel bag.

The hem reached the middle of my thighs.

When I opened the door, Daniel stood at the stove with his back to me.

“You can look.”

He turned.

His gaze dropped to my legs before he caught himself.

“You’re still terrible at pretending.”

“I’ve stopped pretending.”

“That’s better.”

Daniel took dry clothes into the bathroom while I watched the rain through the window. He came out in faded jeans and an old gray T-shirt, his wet hair pushed back from his forehead.

He made coffee on a small propane burner. The blue flame hissed beneath a battered metal pot. Soon the cabin smelled of scorched grounds.

The first sip was bitter enough to dry my tongue.

“This is awful,” I said.

“I didn’t expect company.”

“So this is the coffee you make for yourself?”

“That sounded worse than I intended.”

“It should.”

We carried our cups to the porch.

The screen kept out most of the rain, although the wind pushed a cold mist through it. Drops collected on my bare knees and ran slowly down my shins.

The storm had swallowed the hills. The stream rushed past the cabin, thick with mud, broken twigs, and leaves stripped from the trees.

Daniel sat at the far end of the bench.

“You don’t have to sit over there,” I said.

“I’m trying to be respectful.”

“You look like you’re waiting outside the principal’s office.”

“I spent thirty-two years sending students there. I know the posture.”

“You were a teacher?”

“History.”

“That explains the hat.”

“What’s wrong with the hat?”

“It has opinions about the Civil War.”

He took it off and examined the worn brim.

“My daughter hates it too.”

“You have children?”

“Two daughters. Both grown. Both convinced I need supervision.”

“They may be right.”

“They definitely are.”

We stayed on the porch until the coffee was gone and the rain had erased everything beyond the nearest trees.

Daniel had retired the year before. His marriage ended three months later, although he said it had really ended years before that. He and his wife had slept in separate rooms for twelve years.

“Thirty-seven years married,” he said. “I still don’t know what I’m supposed to call her. ‘My ex-wife’ sounds like I hate her.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

He ran his thumb around the rim of his cup.

“We became miserable together. I don’t think either one of us planned it.”

“Why did you stay?”

“At first, because I thought it would improve. Later, because leaving seemed humiliating.”

The stream struck something large below the porch. Wood cracked, followed by the scrape of a branch being dragged over stone.

“I spent years telling myself that being unwanted wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to a man,” he said.

“What changed?”

“I realized I was making a life out of proving it.”

“What about you?” he asked.

“I left.”

“I gathered that.”

“I was married for fifteen years.”

He waited.

“My husband didn’t like being told no. He didn’t like me visiting my family either. The last time I asked to spend a few days with my mother, he put me on the floor, sat on me, and hit me.”

Daniel drew in a breath through his nose.

His mouth opened, then closed.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“That’s better than most of the things people say.”

“What do they say?”

“They ask why I stayed. They tell me what they would have done. Men usually tell me what they’d like to do to him.”

“I was about to do that.”

“I know.”

He rubbed a hand over his wet hair.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For nearly saying exactly what you expected me to say.”

I shifted closer on the bench.

Our bare knees touched, and Daniel stopped moving.

“You’ve gone very still,” I said.

“I’m trying to decide whether you did that on purpose.”

“I did.”

“All right.”

“That’s all?”

“I’m thinking.”

“You’ve had thirty-seven years.”

“Most of those weren’t useful.”

I laughed and moved my knee against his again.

His eyes lifted to mine.

“I don’t know what you expect from tonight,” he said.

“Neither do I.”

“I don’t want you to think the cabin or the weather means you owe me anything.”

“I don’t.”

“Good.”

He nodded and looked toward the stream.

I waited.

He kept looking at the stream.

“Daniel.”

“Yes?”

“You can look at me now.”

He did.

“I thought you were going to kiss me,” I said.

“I’ve been considering it.”

“How much longer do you need?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting to get this far.”

I stood and moved between his knees.

His hands stayed flat on the bench.

“Still considering?”