My Keeper My Dying Heart

Summary

In the heavy, gasoline-scented air of the highway-adjacent service station, I stood in my grease-stained blue coveralls. My head was bowed, fingers blindly tracing the step-by-step instructions I had painstakingly written in black Sharpie on my left cuff.

Suddenly, a flawlessly dressed couple walked toward me. The sharp, rhythmic click-clack of the woman’s stilettos against the oil-slicked concrete cut through the ambient hum of the highway.

She stopped right in front of me. She looked down, her gaze sweeping over me with a sneer that didn't bother hiding its venom.