- Aperture: f/9
- Focal Length: 35mm
- ISO: 200
- Shutter: 1/1000 sec
- Camera: NIKON D80
Wayside, Kansas
The summer sun glinted off scarlet fingernails, newly polished. The approaching heat of the Marlboro’s glowing tip dragged her attention from the desolate Kansas landscape back to matters at hand. Damned smooth talking cowboys anyway. Flicking the spent butt to her feet, she ground it beneath the heel of her worn ostrich boots. Should have stopped one Cuervo short. She’d be in Amarillo now instead of this God-forsaken Topeka cornfield.
But there was no hurry really. She knew he wouldn’t follow. Even if he wasn’t suffering the same cotton-mouthed, dry heaving misery. Even if he wanted to. Truth of the matter was, he was too damned cocky. Just as stubbornly proud. Just as ruthlessly determined. Her knuckles were scraped and bloody, but there were no bruises on her knees. Never would be, nor would there be on his.
The scorching wind whipped her skirt around her ankles and jangled the silver earrings pleasantly. She’d best be moving on. There was nothing here. Slowly, deliberately, she placed another cigarette between her lips and flipped the Zippo open and shut in one fluid motion. Case closed. Smoke in the fucking wind.
“Say. You’re. Sorry,” she whispered, the words strangling in her throat. “Say you were fucking WRONG.”
But the horizon stretched long and empty. The rearview mirror was void of all but a few hazy reflections — same scenery, different day. Slamming her car door and punching the accelerator, she forced the eight-cylinder into a low growl, determined to widen the distance between her tears and his smirk.
“I’m still not talking to you, cowboy,” she spat. “My game. My rules. You don’t know one goddamned thing about me.” And with a steely flint of determination, she smiled a self-satisfied smirk of her own and pointed her car towards Independence, Kansas.
Music: Don’t Come the Cowboy with Me by Kirsty MacColl (lyrics)