Billionaire’s Side Attraction

Javier Lorenzo

I was getting increasingly tired, and my grip on the steering wheel was getting stronger. I was driving at 20 miles per hour because the road was very free but also because I just wanted this trip to end as quickly as it had started. I know you might be wondering why I’d start a trip in the first place if I wanted it to come to an end so quickly. Well, let me introduce you to the source of my misery, Rosa Santiago, my girlfriend and the supposed love of my life who has been nothing but a pain in my neck. I was so lost in thought that I didn’t look at where I was driving, and then, bam! Something punctured the tires of the car and they burst.

I had to quickly swerve to the side of the road as I maneuvered the car to a stop in the middle of nowhere. All we saw were trees and a long lonely stretch of road ahead of us. I let out a frustrated sigh, Not now, not now! I muttered.

“What? Why are we stopping?” Jenny asked, and Mateo, the quiet one among us, finally looked at me.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Yeah, why are we stopping? We aren’t there yet,” Rosa, my girlfriend, asked again, as though I had not already heard Jenny the first time. They had all been preoccupied and so they hadn’t noticed when the tires got punctured.

I just got out of the car without answering them. I can’t believe I let Rosa get to me like that; she keeps getting on my nerves, and I sometimes let her get to me. I looked around the car and saw how badly damaged the tires were. Well, well, well, isn’t this just great?

How were we ever going to get to the West on time at this rate? That is where we were headed. Mateo walked up to me and said, “You look stressed; is the car okay? Why did we stop?” He watched my face for any expression, and I’m sure he immediately saw the frustration on my face. “The car just broke down because the tires burst; please call a tow truck,” I said in response to his question.

He immediately left my side to do as I said, even as at the same time, my girlfriend came over to confront me; she had heard what I said. “What? So that’s why we stopped! Gosh, Lorenzo! How could you be so irresponsible as to let this happen?” she scolded me, calling me by my surname as my homeroom teacher would. Did she think I was a child? “You were supposed to check the car last night. Why didn’t you do that? Hmm? And you knew we were taking it out today,” she complained.

What the hell was she saying? How could my checking the car the night before have prevented what just happened? The best I could have done would be to take a spare tire and even that would not have been enough as more than one tire was affected. All I could do was stare ahead as I sat on the bonnet of the car. She didn’t even care about how this whole thing was stressing me out too; she just kept yelling and complaining. “When was the last time you took the car for maintenance?” I spared her a glance. “What’s that look on your face? You don’t remember, ha! Haha! This one is on you, Lorenzo! How could you forget to take your car for maintenance?”

I averted my gaze from her face and decided to just be calm. “I’m sorry, Rosa,” I said calmly. This wasn’t worth my energy. There was no point trying to explain anything to her. For every little thing that she didn’t find to her liking, she would complain and yell endlessly at me about it. What made it even more annoying at that moment was the fact that she was choosing to do this right in front of our friends Jenny and Mateo. Why? Why does she keep treating me like I am nothing to her like I am some B-grade consolation prize? It made me sick just thinking about it.

“Really? Are you just going to sit there and do nothing? Have you even called the tow truck?” She asked, and for the first time gave me a chance to respond. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could do so, Mateo saved me from having to speak by responding instead, “I did; I called them, and they said it’s a little late, but they are on their way,” Mateo said and I gave him a brief smile to thank him for answering.

Rosa just scoffed in response before speaking. “Whoa, you are just so unbelievable; since when did he become an assistant that makes calls on your behalf? Are you now so irresponsible that you can’t make your calls anymore?” This was getting more tiring, and I was sure Mateo and Jenny were tired of it too. “I am sorry, Rosa.”

“Sorry? Sorry? Really? Will sorry get us out of this mess? Will Sorry fix the car? No. So keep your sorry to yourself, Lorenzo; I am highly disappointed in you.” She said as she cut me short once again.

I heaved a sigh as I hid my face in my palms. Was this the person I wanted to be married to? Could I be married to her for a long time? I began to question myself.

“Congratulations, Lorenzo; you’ve officially ruined this trip for all of us. Are you happy now? Of course, you are; you never wanted to be on this trip in the first place.” It took a while but I eventually opened my mouth to speak and surprised even myself by what I said. “You know what? I think I am done here; it’s obvious you don’t value me, and more importantly, I am done with you treating me like a B-grade consolation prize!” I stood up from the bonnet to my full 6 feet 2 inches height and pinched the bridge of my nose so I wouldn’t yell at her 5-foot frame.

“Yes, it’s over, Rosa. This relationship is over!” I said in conclusion. I was starting to yell a bit as I unburdened myself. I was tired to my bones of her maltreatment and her obvious lack of value for me. If we got married it will only worsen. I think I’d been holding out for a while in hopes that there would be an improvement but after such a long time, it was obvious that she had no such intentions.

She was shocked. I could see it all over her face, and even her friend Jenny was shocked too. I’ll bet they both didn’t see it coming, and I didn’t see it coming either. It’s not like I had any previous plans of breaking up with her; I just happened to be thinking about it, and I did it. Rosa looked at me incredulously, as if I had just told her a joke.

Of course, she would think that way. I mean, our relationship had been on for 6 years now. Anyone would think I was joking. She asked me to repeat myself, and I gladly said, “It is over between us, Rosa; I want nothing to do with you or this relationship anymore.” She saw the seriousness on my face, and she immediately knew I wasn’t joking. Why would I joke about something like that?

She huffed and puffed, and when she saw I wasn’t changing my mind, she flared up in anger and walked away from me. I didn’t even spare her a thought much more than a glance, I wasn’t trying to appease her either. I just went back to the driver’s side of the car and sat down; it was getting pretty chilly out there. Mateo and Jenny, who were equally standing outside with us the whole time, rushed inside to sit in the back seat with me. I guess they realized how cold it was getting outside. I checked the temperature, and I saw it was below 23 degrees.

Why was it so cold this early in the morning? I thought, but before I could continue my line of thought, Jenny interrupted me, saying, “Are we just going to let her leave like that? She is going to be in danger, plus it’s freaking cold out there.” I looked at her via the rearview mirror but chose to ignore her. I had made up my mind; I wasn’t going to make any attempts to appease Rosa. If she got cold, she had every right to get into the car. And with that thought, I continued playing the game on my phone.

Mateo cleared his throat, saying, “I know you are upset, but please, can you go talk to her? Please beg her to come back; she is putting herself in danger.” I saw from the rearview mirror the eye contact Jenny and Mateo exchanged with each other, but I chose to ignore it and stayed quiet. Mateo spoke up again, saying, “Javier, please, we are in a remote area with no other cars, and it would be difficult for Rosa to leave; please consider that and go bring her back.” I finally put my phone down and turned a little so I could look into his eye. Once we were seeing each other eye to eye, I said, “I’m not going after her; she has to take responsibility for her actions.”

“But-” Jenny was trying to defend her friend, but I cut her short, saying, “Don’t but me; she is a 30-year-old woman. Just because she isn’t so tall or she looks 16 doesn’t mean anything. She should know what she is doing.” Not long after I said that we saw Rosa walking towards the car. Mateo and Jenny came down from the car to embrace her, but she only gave them a side pat as she quickly shoved them aside.

I snickered; a little glad that she had come back to her senses on her own because if she hadn’t, there was no way I would have gone after her. She knocked on the car window, signaling for me to come out. I scoffed, wondering what she had to say to me. I got out and sat on the bonnet, ready to listen to what she had to say. She came to stand in front of me while Mateo and Jenny decided to stay beside the booth, which was farther away from us. “Tell me, why do you want to end this relationship?” She asked; she didn’t ask me for an apology, and I was glad she didn’t because there was no way in hell I was apologizing to her. “Answer me, Javier Lorenzo, why did you break up with me?”

“Well, since you decided to ask nicely, I’ll tell you.” I took a deep breath before giving her a long, cold, hard stare. “It’s because I was tired of being blamed like this, of constantly arguing and fighting with you over every little thing,” I concluded, and she just scoffed in response. I wasn’t even fazed by her reaction. I saw it coming because I had had to deal with it for six years. “Seriously? What’s your reason? You feel that way because you are truly at fault; if not, you have no right at all to feel that way and break up with me like that.” I sighed. Here we go again, starting another round of arguments over my feelings.

“It’s best you tell me what you did wrong now that I am in the mood to forgive you. And you should be grateful for this; hmm, cos I’m not always this forgiving.” Her arms were folded across her chest, pushing her boobs forward. I looked away; not even her body interested me right now. And I don’t think it ever will again.

“Damn it, say something, Lorenzo! Don’t you want me to forgive you after all your mistakes, including not taking the car for maintenance? Gosh, you are so stubborn!” she said. She continued to prove my point, leading to more and more arguments. I couldn’t take it anymore at some point; it was over between us, and I wouldn’t let her just talk me down like that. I snapped my face back to hers, interrupting her as I yelled in anger, “Stop It! Okay! Just fucking stop it! Stop blaming me for everything! … Look, you are free, okay. You are a free bird now, and I don’t need you to prove anything to me. It’s over between us; we have now broken up and that is the end of the story.” I made sure to keep my face hard, making sure all my pain and anger were visible in my eyes. She was staring right back at me, so I was sure she saw it. She looked flushed, but because of the cold wind, I couldn’t tell if it was a result of the cold or my words.

“Fine then, no problem, if that’s what you want. But let me warn you: don’t ever think of coming back to me, or I would humiliate you so badly you will wish you were dead!” She yelled that last part at me, wishing I would probably be fazed by the fact that she could humiliate me; like it was an achievement. I was more than determined to end things with her, and never in my wildest dreams would I ever want to reconcile with her. Not in this life, not in the next. Just when I was about to end this nightmare of a western road trip by calling a tow truck one more time, I noticed a red Jeep flashing its light at us. It stopped completely when it got beside us, and seconds later, we were all staring into the eyes of the driver. She wore an apologetic smile as she asked,

“Need help with that?”