Thelma and Louise

I drove and drove and drove, eager to get back home and start saving the lives I was meant to. However, the road wasn't done with me quite yet. I was pretty far along the highway before I realized that this highway was headed southeast, not northeast as I had meant. I'd have to take a northbound highway to get back on track, but in the meantime I was in Texas, and I decided to stop and walk around.

Everyone was walking around in cowboy hats and boots, just as the man in the house-truck said they would. I felt as though we were all at a costume party, but no one had told me. I walked into a saloon anyway, and noticed as some of the men's eyes gravitated toward me. I ordered a drink, which the bartender said was on the house. It was all very strange, as only a few women were in the bar and they all seemed to be flirting and laughing with multiple men. A handsome but overconfident man in a white cowboy hat introduced himself to me, but I said I needed to go back to my husband waiting outside and left the half-finished drink there.

It was a strange experience and I didn't know what I had just walked into. Was that a whorehouse? Was it just a bar? I didn't know what was going on, but I knew that I didn't want to be a part of it. I drove through the town but as I came to the edge of it that morphed in to a residential area, I saw a woman in a ripped sequin dress staggering around. I stopped my car and yelled, and the woman stopped walking. I approached her, and could see that her lip was bleeding, and her dress practically falling off.

"Excuse me ma'am, are you alright?"

"I..." she couldn't seem to make out words. My nursing instincts went into gear as I led her to my car.

"Do you want to go to the hospital?"

"No."

"The police station?"

This caused her to start crying, from which I figured out the answer myself.

"Hey, I'm a registered nurse. I just want to make sure you're okay. Is there somewhere safe I can take you?"

I drove her to a motel and we checked in for the night. She wasn't a local, as I figured out from her lack of cowboy boots. She indicated that she had a car, but it seemed she was too drunk that night to drive. I checked in to the room next to her, and said good night as she closed the door without a word.

The next morning, I knocked on her door, but there wasn't an answer. I went to the front desk, and the receptionist gave me a note, which said simply, "Driving back home. I'm ok. Thank you."

I dropped off my keys and kept on driving.