The Alignment by Kay Camden Read Free Book Online Page A

come. Not only have I become lazy and careless, but I’m growing stupider by the day. And if that DOOR AJAR doesn’t disappear, I’m going to explode. I lean over her and yank her door closed. She freezes and remains that way until both my hands return to the wheel.
    “You could have asked me,” she hisses.
    “You failed to do it the first time.”
    If she continues this attitude, she’s going to be a lot more than just sick to her stomach. She offers me some peanuts, and I ignore her. She seems jubilant in her discovery, satisfied at hatching this idiotic explanation of the pattern she’s built in her mind. Her body language suggests a better mood due to this. I think I prefer it when she’s in a bad mood, so I start thinking about things I could say to make her mad. When she pulls out her book, I put it to rest and try to concentrate on the road stretching out in front of us.
    The drive drones on. The flipping of pages in her book mark the time. We make a few short stops to give her a break from her “sickness” and I humor her, unconvinced it’s me causing it. Every noise she makes, every movement, combines to create my own customized torture. The more time that passes, the worse it gets. Her breaks become mine as well, allowing respite from the treatment so perfected I pray it remains secret. If my enemies could reproduce this, I wouldn’t last a day at their hands.
    By the time we stop to eat lunch at a fast food place, I want to strangle her. I lost count of how many exits we passed before agreeing on where to eat. I finally give up and give in—I’m so hungry I could eat my own arm. Even a simple routine like eating lunch has to be a difficult, complicated ordeal with this woman.
    In the restaurant, we pretend not to know each other and choose tables at opposite ends of the room. It’s a seamless arrangement, like we had the same idea. She finishes before me and goes back to the truck without a glance in my direction. She must be ready to get this trip over with too. Thank god it’s only one way.
    When we return to the road, every familiar creak and rattle of my overworked ten-year-old truck adds to the mounting tower of pressure ready to blow. Although the noises never bothered me before, I doubt I’ll be able to drive this truck again without them reminding me of the soaring aggravation I feel now with her a foot away from me. The sound of the tires on the pavement could be the sound of sandpaper on my skin and I wouldn’t be any more bothered by it. The atoms making up every object around me merge into a microscopic army specializing in my personal persecution.
    “What?” I blurt, caught off guard by a question fired my way.
    “It would be nice to have some background music.”
    Too consumed with my discomfort, I don’t bother answering. Her loud, disgusted sigh in return almost runs me off the road, murder-suicide style.
    “Fine.” I pound the stereo knob with my fist. It comes on to pure static. I punch each preset until something comes in.
    “That wasn’t too hard, now was it?” I can sense her snotty expression. I don’t need to see it to know it’s there.
    The music does nothing but apply another layer of agony onto my hell. I wonder how it would feel to kill an innocent person. A helpless woman. There are so many ways I could do it, right now. I wouldn’t have to stop the truck for some. My buried conscience whispers a warning that I would regret it once I was removed from this situation. Being here now, regret is hard to imagine. When we enter the Missoula city limits, I can already taste the relief I will have when she’s out of my truck and my life.
    My mechanic is his usual talkative self, and I nod and agree to everything he says while eyeing Liv as she looks her car up and down. If she makes one complaint, I will surely snap. I can’t expect her to notice the four new tires she got out of the deal—tires she should have bought a long time ago. She returns to us, visibly