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Rain was coming down in sheets, the road ahead of her was impossible to see through the walls of rain pouring from the sky. It pounds against the windshield of her car, and the internal debate of pulling off onto the shoulder until the storm passes was a feisty one, especially with no end in sight and her desperate need to be as far away from California, from everything , was winning.
A drawn out warning beep pulls her mind out of the gutter, eyes landing on the gas meter and blinking engine light. She was toeing the line of E, the car sputtering and gasping, pushing itself as hard as it could and keeping itself from hydroplaning in the ponds of water that have formed on the cracked road.
There were no towns or civilization in sight, the car was almost empty, she had a duffle bag of clothes and a backpack full of two years worth of law school textbooks sitting in her backseat, and the realization she would be trapped out here in the cold, the pouring rain, with everything she owned sitting in her car hit her much harder than it should have, because really, why is she here?
Sally doesn’t even know what state she's in, what towns she’s closest to.. She doesn’t know how long she’s been on the road, and only now does she realize the empty feeling clawing at her stomach, the dryness in her throat, and the feeling of utter dread pulsing a headache in her temples.
The car sputters again, the speedometer jumping from seventy to fourty-five in barely a second. Tears well up in the corners of her eyes, blurring the road even worse than the rain ever could. It refuses to speed up, instead beginning a sudden decline in speed until it stops in the middle of the road and stalls. It didn’t even receive the mercy of running out of gas, rather the battery chose to die.
Now the only sound is her ragged breathing, turning into hyperventilating, and the rain slamming against her car at a hundred miles an hour.
There were no streetlights, no headlights, no warm glow of a town in the distance, just her and her car in the middle of nowhere.
Sally isn’t afraid to let those tears fall now, bawling as loud as she can muster, she presses her back against the seat and slams her fist into the steering wheel.
“F- FUCK! God DAMN IT.” The horn doesn’t even beep, and that probably means she’s especially fucked. She grips the wheel as tight as she can and relaxes, letting her forehead fall against it.
There have been many times in Sally’s life where she hasn’t known what to do, but she’s always managed to find one way or another to get herself out of it. This time, she doesn’t think she’ll make it.
She twists the keys in the ignition and it doesn’t even attempt to start, her heart is pounding in her chest and her hands are blurry from the tears in her eyes. The rain doesn’t seem to be letting up, she doesn’t have an umbrella, and she’s too terrified to sleep because the doors won’t lock.
It’s turning out to be the worst day of her life. She shouldn’t have left, she thought she was better than this.
The cold air is already settling into the vehicle, sending shivers up her spine, and the longer she sits there staring blankly at the dark road ahead, the rain seems to be falling even harder and faster.
It’s to the point where the power lines that run parallel the road, only a few feet away from the shoulder, are impossible to see. It’s a torrential rainstorm and she’s trapped in the middle of god knows where with no gas and no map.
A knock on the window tears her from the internal pity party, fear becoming a driving force up her spine as her hand slams down on the door lock and her head snaps up to look at the person outside. A flashlight is being shone through the window, and instead of a serial killer, she’s met with the face of a worried looking police officer, who’s drenched in rain but doesn’t seem to mind.
He looks older, grey hairs peeking out from underneath a typical southern sheriff’s hat and a mustache. He looks nice.
Sally stares for a minute before cautiously unlocking the door and opening it. As soon as she does, thunder rolls overhead for the first time in over forty five minutes.
Rain soaks the inside of her car, but she doesn’t care. If there’s an officer here, that means there's civilization nearby, and that means she’s safe.
“You alright here young lady?”
It’s not a tough question. The answer is simple; no. No she’s not okay. But she can’t vocalize it. Instead, she takes in a shaky inhale, the words on the tip of her tongue, but instead she shakes her head and breaks down into tears all over again.
“Did your car break down?”
Sally nods.
“Alright. Don’t worry,” he reaches out his free hand, “come on with me, we’ll get a tow truck and get you somewhere comfortable to stay the night while it gets all fixed up. That sound good?”
She takes his hand and nods, and he assists her out of the car. As soon as she’s on her own two feet she’s pulling away and crossing her arms over her chest in that comforting self-hug kind of way, cold rain mixes with warm tears to create a burning feeling that dances across her cheeks.
The officer leans into her car and pulls out the keys, putting them in her hand and shooting a sympathetic look her way. “Do you have anything in the back seat or trunk?”
“Yeah.” She chokes out, and he silently nods, pulling open the back door and grabbing her duffel bag and backpack.
“Is that it?”
“Yes.”
Again, he nods, taking both the bags without question and he starts towards the cruiser that’s parked a little bit away. Sally follows.
And then her shoe catches on a pothole she doesn’t remember running over with her car, and she’s falling. Her shins make harsh impact with the ground, concrete and rocks digging into her skin and an unfamiliar and agonizing stinging bolts up her leg from her left ankle.
The officer sees this, quickly tossing all her belongings in the back of the cruiser and rushing to help her up. Her hands begin shaking even worse, somehow, her chest constricts tighter, and breathing is so much harder than it had been before.
Everything keeps going wrong, and she doesn’t understand why.
“Oh. Uh oh.”
She looks down at her legs, where the mesh of her leggings has been torn and the skin is scraped to hell and back. Blood has already begun gushing out of her new wounds, and in the faint headlights of the car through the rain she can make out an ugly bruise and swelling forming around her ankle.
“It’ll be fine. We’ve got the best doctor in town, he can fix you right up.”
Everything is blurry, daggers bury themselves under her ribcage, and bitter anger starts rising to its boiling point. She doesn’t respond to the comment, she just stares dazedly at the rocks that are cutting into the palms of her hands until she’s being carefully pulled towards the car by the officer.
When her foot makes contact with the ground it screams in protest. A fiery pain shoots across the bone, and she stumbles. The car isn’t that far away, though, so she sucks it up and limps to the passenger side door. The sheriff opens it and helps her inside.
The cruiser is surprisingly warm. Her anger dissipates but her tears never stop falling and breathing doesn’t get easier. Despite that, being out of the cold brings a sense of comfort she can’t fathom.
Sally gives the inside of the car a once over. Tons of buttons cover the dashboard, a metal divider between the backseat and the front seats, and a on fashioned police radio connected to a walkie talkie. He gets in the driver's seat and picks it up.
“Mater?” He asks into it. She stares at the still rain drenched road ahead, on the verge of tears once again.
It’s a long minute before there’s a response. “Hullo..?”
“Mater. I need your truck out here quickly. We’re west of Radiator Springs, in the eastbound lane. Maybe six or seven miles out? ‘ve got a broken down Porsche and a young lady who looks like she’s in dire need of a few bandages and some rest. D’you think you can be quick?”
“Sure can do! Gimme a few minutes, I'll be there!”
“Sure. Don’t speed though. Don’t know what I'd do if I had to arrest you for breaking the law while trying to help someone..”
“Aw, shoot. Sheriff, you can always count on me to be a good driver and citizen!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Sally sees the sheriff shake his head, an amused grin on his face, “That isn’t what your record says about you.”
“ Psh. A record’s a record! Can’t change the fact that I'm the best darn driver there ever was!”
“You keep tellin’ yourself that. Are you on the way?”
“Yes, sir!”
He sighs, “Alright, good. Hey. Do you know if Doc is still awake? I’m gonna need him.”
“Oh, yeah! I think he was over at Flo’s hangin’ out with Fillmore and Sarge.”
“Alright, great. See you soon.” He places the walkie talkie back on its little holder. Then, the cruiser is engulfed in the uncomfortable silence that’s only interrupted by the consistent sound of rain outside and her occasional sniffles while she holds back more tears.
Her shins and ankle are aching, she’s exhausted, and she hasn’t stopped crying.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Sally.” She whispers through tears.
“What’re you doing all the way out here?”
She shakes her head, “I don’t know.”
Saying it out loud makes her realize just how ridiculous she’s being. She’s driven probably hundreds of miles for no real reason. Sally ran away from all her responsibilities on a whim and a mental breakdown, and she has nothing to accommodate for a new way of life in a new place. She is effectively screwed.
“Where are we?” Her voice is shaky and uncertain, peaking in the middle of her sentence through her distress.
“We’re just a few miles away from Radiator Springs, on Route 66.”
“Route 66.. What state?”
He looks slightly confused, “Arizona. Are you from here?”
“I’m in.. No. No, I’m from California.” Her sweatshirt gives that away -- a comfortable, navy blue sweater that she’s had for a little over two years, the name University of California; Berkeley embroidered on the front.
The officer sees that and nods, “Berkeley is a long while away, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s alright.”
Through the torrential rain-pour, the sight of a flashing orange light makes a break over the hill, reflecting off the puddles in the road and having a visible light stream outwards as it gets closer. Metal on metal is a clear sound emitting from the vehicle, and the sheriff puts down his window expectantly.
The tow truck pulls to a stop beside the cruiser, visible rust eating away at the doors and general exterior of the vehicle, with a worn teal paint across the doors that reads ‘Tow Mater Towing Service; Radiator Springs’. The man inside leans across the front seat and pumps down the passenger side window.
“Heya, Sheriff!”
“Mater. Could you tow that car to Ramone’s?” He points at her car, and Mater nods.
“Sure can do.”
“Perfect. Will you be alright out here? I’m gonna head back, hopefully we catch Doc before he heads off to bed.”
“I’ll be alright! You go on without me, I'll be right behind ya’.”
“Thanks, Mater.”
Sheriff puts the window back up, Mater leaves his down, allowing the rain to continue soaking the inside of his vehicle. He doesn’t seem to care though, contently driving away and pulling a U-turn in the middle of the road to back up to her vehicle.
They sit there for a few minutes and watch him get out of the car and begin the hooking up the car to the hook process, by then her tears have stopped flowing and her mind is trapped in a state between exhaustion and immense disconnect from reality. Every minute that passes by makes this situation feel more and more unreal. Why is this happening to her?
Again, she’s pulled out of this mindset by the sound of the cruiser’s engine revving, and the officer pulling the same U-turn Mater had, except this time he starts down the road carefully, avoiding the ponds and puddles of water that sit only a few feet away from one another. The car is silent the entire drive. Sally occasionally flinches at the sound of water being run through the wheel wells -- an unpleasant sound that makes her ears ring but never pulls her out of that daze.
Twenty minutes later and they’re going over a hill, revealing a soft glow from a town just a few hundred meters ahead. It brings some sense of reality and comfort to her knowing that sleeping in her dead car in the middle of a desert isn’t going to be her tonight. She’ll stay at a hotel or a motel, or anywhere with a bed, and maybe have real food for the first time since this morning.
Her face is still sticky with tears, cheeks warm and uncomfortable and her clothing is soaking. Her legs feel like someone is poking them with pins and needles, and in her head she makes the promise that she won’t say a word unless completely necessary, because the last thing she wants to do is upset any of the people that have shown her so much kindness already.
The rain is letting up, and they reach the town only a few minutes later. To the left is a junkyard, a tacky sign of a tow truck admitting it to be Mater’s place. Beside that is a rundown motel with closed off doors and an off sign. Pylons block the driveway and it doesn’t look liveable, but it’s really cute and she finds herself with an idea of what it’d look like if it was still in use.
They pull to a stop in a pump of a gas station with a cute, blue painted building, a large sign with only a little bit of neon working that reads ‘Flo’s V8 Café’ on top of it. The sheriff gets out of the car and Sally follows suit, wincing as soon as her feet hit the ground and pain shoots across her shins and ankle.
Walking into a café with a police officer, a tear stained face, scrapes down both her shins, and a really uncomfortable posture is a certain type of humiliating that she hates as soon as she steps foot inside the restaurant. It’s cozy inside, warm lightning and vintage paintings hang from the walls, newspapers in frames and an old fashioned jukebox, lit up with teals and pinks emits a quiet song in the corner.
There’s not many people inside, in fact, the only people that are inside are all sitting in a booth against the wall, laughing and chatting comfortably with one another. One of them glances over at the sound of the door bell ringing and immediately stands with worry crossing her expression.
The woman is in a dress and an apron, hair up in a puffy bun and a gentle but concerned look on her face. She makes her way towards the two.
Sally doesn’t look all too graceful. She’s limping, face scrunched up in pain, and the edge of her skirt and her mesh tights are both soaked in blood. She can already assume that her hair is messy from the rain and her cheeks are red and blotchy from crying.
Someone else stands up behind her. An older man, maybe around the same age as the sheriff, dressed in a navy blue shirt and black jeans. He follows the woman to where they’d stopped.
“Who’s this?” The question is directed at the sheriff, but she’s looking at Sally with worry and sympathy.
She answers anyways, voice breaking as soon as her name comes out of her mouth, “Sally.”
“Oh, honey. You look like a mess.” She says softly, “Can I get you somethin’ to drink? Eat? Anything you’d like.”
She thinks about it for a minute, because god, she never realized how hungry and dehydrated she was until the woman mentioned it. “Yes, please.”
Her voice isn’t loud, she’s nervous around new people and she’s overcome with worry that she’ll rub them the wrong way and she won’t have a place to stay.
The man that had followed the other girl over approaches the sheriff, quickly looking Sally up and down as he does. His eyes linger on the scrapes on her knees, the hardened expression he dawns changing into a softer, more accepting one.
“Hey, Doc.”
“Sheriff.”
“I think she needs a little bit of fixing up, tripped in a pothole and twisted her ankle if ‘m not mistaken.”
“Yeah, I can take care of it.”
“Okay well, can you bring the stuff over here?” The woman calls, and Sally finally catches a look at her name tag. Flo. “She looks like she needs a drink and a warm meal, you can handle wrapping her up over here so she can catch a break.”
Doc nods, waving Flo off and grabbing the umbrella by the door to make his way outside. Flo leads her to the bar, pulls out a stool for her, and motions for her to sit. She then walks around to the other side of the counter and washes her hands.
“Alcohol? Or something simple?”
“Oh, no.. I’m too young for alcohol.”
It’s a bullshit excuse. Her first year of university she spent partying and making bad decisions, including a tattoo across her lower back that quite frankly isn’t as cool as she thought it was when she was drunk out of her mind with her best friends. In fact, it wasn’t cool the next morning either. She’s considered removing it but that seems too pricey, maybe one day she’ll cover it up with something cute -- change it from a tramp stamp to a nice looking, classy tattoo. But, this wouldn’t be her first time drinking alcohol, so maybe she’s just a hypocrite.
Flo shrugs, “Suit yourself! So what’ll it be then?”
“Water is fine.”
“Of course! Food?”
“Um. Do you have any snacks..?” She’d feel awful if she made the woman make food for her this late, but Flo shakes her head no.
“Don’t feel guilty about wanting real food! I’ll make you anything you want, hun!”
Sally frowns, staring down at her hands on the counter, “I’ll have a sandwich if it’s not too much trouble. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize! Anything specific, or do you want me to choose?”
“Uh, whatever is easiest for you. I don’t mind.”
“You got it!” She slides a glass of ice water across the bar counter and gets to work on making a sandwich.
Sally is overcome with guilt -- these people have been so nice to a complete stranger, and asking anything of them feels cruel. She swivels in her chair to survey the surroundings, eyes landing on the table that Doc and Flo had been at previously, and where the sheriff has now made himself comfortable, chatting with a few other people who she can only assume are his friends.
Just then, the bell above the door rings once again and Doc is coming inside with Mater in tow. He has a bottle of disinfectant alcohol in one hand and a small bag in the other and he doesn’t wait to drop the umbrella by the door and make his way over to her.
Doc sets the bag on the counter, opens it, and pulls out a few wipes to which he puts some of the alcohol on. He makes small conversation with her.
“What’s your name kiddo?”
“Sally.” This time she can finally say it without her voice breaking or falling into tears.
“Doc.” He sits down and points at one of her legs, silently asking her to bring it up to his level. She catches on and obeys, and he dabs at the wounds with the cloth. It stings, but she should have expected it.
“Fitting name for a doctor, I guess.” She observes, following it up with a nervous laugh.
“Yep.” He shifts, pulling out a roll of gauze and a pair of scissors. “Is it alright if I cut these?”
He points at her tights with the scissors, and although they do mean a lot to her, she doubts she’d be able to fix them from the damage the road caused.
“I guess so.”
Doc starts cutting through the fabric just above her knee. “It’s not typical we get many visitors out here. How’d you find yourself here?”
“I don’t know. My car broke down and here I am.”
“Seems about right. Where were you headed?”
For some reason she doesn’t feel apprehensive to talk to him. Maybe it’s his vibes -- he seems like the type of person you could talk to without judgment, sort of like a dad.
“I’m not sure, if I’m being honest.”
“Oh?” He puts the end of the gauze against the back of her knee, starting the process of carefully wrapping it around and down her leg. “Interesting. Was it a split second decision?”
She takes a drink and lets out a half fake laugh, “I guess so. I threw all my things in a bag and left. On a school day, too.”
Doc just shrugs, taping off the wrap right above her ankle with a thick layer of medical tape, “Sometimes that’s the best way to end things.”
“True. Much easier than telling someone about it.”
He doesn’t reply to that, just motions for her to bring her other leg up and he starts the same process all over again. Cleaning the wounds, cutting the fabric, wrapping it in bandages, very methodical and careful so as to not hurt her any worse than the road did.
Eventually Flo slides a sandwich across the counter. It looks professionally made, and it looks amazing. Her stomach aches for food just looking at it, but she doesn’t touch it until Doc is finished cleaning up her injuries because in her eyes, that would be rude.
When he does finish up, he puts his supplies back in the bag and leaves without another word. She’s fine with that, she feels herself falling into a daze all over again from the pain and hunger, there’s no way she can keep up a lively conversation with the amount of distress she’s in.
Halfway through eating, Flo approaches her.
“We don’t have a hotel in business here anymore, would you wanna stay with me and my husband?”
For some reason Sally thought her night would only be going downhill, but somehow she’s come across the nicest people on the planet. They’re so kind.. It makes her feel guilty even if it’s them offering.. But for Flo to offer a place to stay in her home to a stranger she’s known for forty-five minutes maximum? That’s a type of kindness Sally can’t wrap her head around.
“Really?”
She smiles, “Of course! I trust you honey, you’re a lovely kid!”
Sally thinks about it, “If it’s not too much of an issue, that would be nice I think.”
-----
It takes two days for Ramone to fix her car. Flo tells her to take her time, she’s not going to get kicked out and -- for some reason, two days turned into a week, and a week turned into two, and suddenly the thought of leaving makes her chest hurt. They’re her friends now, and they’re completely content to let her stay.
Flo becomes like a mother to her, and Doc offers to teach her law, and the motel turns into less of a dream and more of a reality.
She found home with them off of a whim and a mental breakdown, and she wouldn’t change it for the world.