Chapter 13

Many days had passed. She had driven far away. She felt humiliation seared into her. This was the lowest she felt since getting stuck in her car.

Her life currently was more cut off from people than ever. She had not checked her site, let alone considered posting anything new. She earned no money any other way and her increased dependence on socializing with her alliance buddies in her mobile game was waning.

The only thing she had been doing consistently was eating. The sensation of feeling full was at least a distraction from the feeling of depression which was engulfing her, plus the taste of food was all she had to look forward to.

Days kept going by. She traveled from drive through to drive through with nothing but the radio for company. Her sleeping patterns became more erratic so she learnt where 24 hour garages and takeaways were as she found new hidden places safe for day sleeping.

As she spent her time driving from place to place, she started neglecting herself and her car. empty packets and sticky paper cups built up in the passenger footwell, her hair turned greasy again, her face started to break out in spots, her back was beginning to ache from sitting in the same position too long.

Unphased tho she kept driving through the days and nights, looping the roads, trying not to think too much. She had started to like the rain, the sound against the windscreen were at least relaxing and helped her sleep well, but on dry nights she would toss and turn in the back of the car not able to get comfortable

A month had passed since she left Adam's house, not feeling much better. She parked up for the night, in a deserted public car park, not far outside of a town she had never been to before. She let the window down for fresh air and bit into a burger. On the radio was just inane chatting about recent political issues, current television shows and upcoming concerts. At this point She had become so disconnected from the real world that it was nothing more than background noise.

She dabbed sauce from her mouth with her t-shirt. The dull drone of middle aged voices was at least comforting enough to help her fall asleep, plus stations which played music had become so repetitive that it made her just feel irritable.

She threw the empty wrapper onto the passenger seat, into the pile which was now creeping higher and unwrapped the next.

She yawned and stretched her back and scratched an itch on her tummy.

Alone still, she stared into the quiet darkness and chewed her greasy burger and her thoughts started drifting towards one thing. She wanted alcohol.

It was a bad thought. It was illegal to drink in the car, but only dangerous if she drove. Maybe it would be worth trying to get, then spend the night somewhere very quiet.

There was no reason not to drink herself out of her slump. She had never been stopped by police in her car for any reason and was usually restrained enough when drinking.

The main problem was where to get it. Only a few petrol stations stocked alcohol and out of the few which did, most only sold a couple of overpriced wines and they probably wouldn't bring them out to the car.

She considered driving around rough areas of towns, looking to see if anyone would get her alcohol, but would probably mean handing her debit card to a stranger, so that was a bad idea.

At a long shot she searched to find drive through off licenses. There was one single result, about two hundred kilometers away at a ln isolated shop, which looked to service three or four tiny villages. Probably a waste of petrol, but the drive would at least pass some time.

She set the sat nav, backed out of her space and made a beeline towards the motorway.

A long and dull drive later, she arrived at the destination. The place was clearly an old barn jutting out of the side of a very old stone house, with two petrol pumps and a painted wooden sign showing it was actually a shop. She slowed down into the driveway towards an open stable door, with a cashier desk blocking the lower opening.

As she drove nearer a very elderly man leaned out and gave her a welcoming grin. She started lowering her window and tried to peek into the strange shop

"Hello." He said as she pulled up alongside the shop. "Now what can I get you today, my girl."

She scanned the room behind him. It was filled with racks, shelves and refrigerators. "Do you have alcohol?" she asked, feeling a little self conscious of her tone.

"This is a shop, isn't it?" He pointed behind himself at a shelf stocked with bottles with hand written price stickers on the side. "Have everything you need."

She looked closer. There were two types of alcoholic drink, naggins of whiskey and several bottles of one brand of red wine. She was not expecting much variety, but this was a far cry from a drive through off license, it was just a local shop which was too small to let customers in. "Do you take card?"

He nodded "We do, young lady. We live in the twentieth century out here too."

She blushed a little. "Can I just get a few bottles of the wine?"

"Eight euros each. Very nice wine, my wife says. Anything else?"

She looked at the rest of the shop as he began handing her three bottles through the drivers window. The tiny storeroom was half filled with crates of fresh loose vegetables still covered in dirt from the farms around here. The refrigerators mostly contained milk, butter and cheeses, with a few bottles filled with a brand of cola she had never heard of before. The final shelves had tinned food and long lasting packets of cakes, crisps and confectionery.

"Got cigarettes too." He said to break the silence

She shrugged. "Sure. Do you have matches?" She had never smoked before, but why not?

He pulled out a gray packet covered in Cyrillic writing. The old man was obviously not quite as innocent as she assumed. "Ten for the cigarettes and one for the matches."

She smiled and tucked them into the container between the seats. She kept looking at the food on offer, maybe she could find somewhere around here to hide for the night, it was obviously not somewhere police bothered to come and interrupt a quiet drink. "Can you maybe just pass over the swiss rolls, a couple of colas, some of those biscuits, few bags of crisps and a pack of mints?"

"I haven't heard about any party around here. What's the occasion?" He asked as he handed her all six swiss roll cakes from the shelf.

She blushed a little. "No party just doing a bit of shopping."

"Well, Im not one to judge."

She swiped her card, it came to sixty euros and she drove away.