The whole thing was Andy's fault. Andy is my boyfriend. I suppose I should say was my boyfriend, because they'll be skating in hell before I go out with him again.
Andy is a little on the small side, but that didn't worry me. He's smart, witty, reasonably good looking, and charming when he wants to be. At twenty, he's a year older than me, but I've always thought that the guy should be older than the girl he's with.
If I had to fault Andy then I'd have to say he's a bit impatient, always rushing things. The other thing is he's a little sensitive about his size and covers it by belligerence. If he thinks someone is putting him down he'll get right in their face, yelling at them. I've seen guys a lot bigger than him back off.
The day that the incident happened we were out driving around. We weren't going anywhere in particular, just cruising through the countryside and up into the mountains. We had an idea that we might drive up to the lookout tower on top of one of the mountains, but we weren't fastened to the idea. If we decided to go elsewhere, we would.
The trouble with driving with Andy is that he tends to speed. That's his impatience coming out, wanting to rush even when we don't have a specific destination. Going up this winding road we found ourselves behind this whacking great SUV. I pointed out to Andy that the guy was doing the legal limit but he didn't care. He wanted to pass.
We were only behind him for a short while, but Andy was getting antsy. He hated being held up. He made a rude comment about men with big cars and small dicks. I giggled. Not at the comment but at the fact that we were also in a big car and, like I said, Andy is a little on the short side.
We finally came to a slightly longer stretch and Andy put his foot down. I pointed out that there were double lines but he just said not to worry. There was plenty of room.
I suppose there would have been if that logging truck hadn't come charging around the corner. We were stuck on the wrong side of the road, not having passed the SUV. I truly thought we were dead. Truck in front of us and a sheer drop next to Andy. The SUV driver read the situation real fast and he just slammed on his brakes. This caused him to drop back and Andy dived into the space left like a rabbit going home.
It was a pity he didn't wait another second. He cut in front of the SUV so fast that it didn't have a chance to drop back far enough and Andy clipped it. Just the bull-bar, but it was enough to make Andy lose control. The SUV didn't even seem to notice. Andy swerved a little, fishtailing as he tried to straighten up, hit his brakes and finished sliding of the road and into a ditch running beside the road.
It could have been worse. There were some pretty hefty trees the other side of that ditch, and if he'd gone the other way either the logging truck or the drop would have fixed us.
The SUV pulled up to see if we needed any help and to exchange details. We had hit him after all. Andy was furious, yelling at the other driver, saying that if he hadn't been blocking us it wouldn't have happened. He was being silly really. It was obvious that it had been his own fault and the SUV driver had got us out of a fix.
I had to hold tight to my facial expression, though. It turned out that the SUV driver was a big man. A very big man. He towered over little Andy. I couldn't help but think of an aggressive Chihuahua yapping at a Great Dane. The SUV driver was as impassive as a Great Dane, too, ignoring Andy's belligerence, just looking at him as if to say what on earth are you?
He asked us if we needed help getting out of the ditch and I jumped in before Andy could.
"Please," I said, smiling gratefully. "We'll never manage it on our own and it would take ages for a tow truck to come."
Andy opened his mouth and was probably going to refuse any assistance, but I kicked him, shaking my head. Like it or not, we needed the big guy.
The big guy smiled back at me. (He'd noticed the kick.)
"I'm Jase," he said, walking around the car to see how bad a fix we were in. "Not too bad," he said. "If I get behind it and give a decent shove we should be able to get it back on the road. You'd better sit in her and steer and keep your foot on the brake. We wouldn't want it rolling across the road."
Andy, being Andy, promptly said that I could get in and steer. He'd help push. I promptly said no way. I didn't mind giving a hand pushing but I didn't know how to drive his car. (It wasn't automatic. Why would anyone want to drive a car with manual gears? Go figure.)
Jase and I got behind the car and pushed and nothing happened. We couldn't budge it. Jase walked to the front of the car and looked inside and suggested that Andy take off the handbrake.
We started pushing again, getting the car rocking back and forth and eventually we moved it enough that the wheels had a proper purchase and the car rolled onto the road. By that time I was wanting to kill Andy. Jase and I were doing all the hard work while all he had to do was sit and steer. And bitch. God, could he bitch. He bitched about the predicament we were in. He complained about the damage to his car. He whined about crazy logging trucks that came hurtling down the road at insane speeds. (Ignoring the fact that it had been on the correct side of the road, unlike some.) He abused Jase for not getting out of his road faster, for not driving faster, and for not getting Andy's car back on the road fast enough.
I think he was somewhat intimidated by the sheer size of Jase, using invective to show he wasn't impressed. If I was Jase I'd have clocked him. I suppose he felt he couldn't because Andy was so much shorter than him. Andy didn't have that problem and he believed in the tyranny of the small, knowing it would be considered cowardly to hit him.
Despite the bland look on Jase's face I could tell that Andy was really getting to him. Here was Jase, who had effectively save us from becoming a hood ornament on a logging truck, going out of his way to help Andy out of the jam he had got himself into. And there was Andy, being a real dick. I was honestly surprised. I'd seen him being aggressive before, but never out and out rabid like he was now. I was almost expecting him to bite someone.
As an aside, may I point out that, even with Jase doing most of the work, it takes it out of you pushing a car up out of a ditch. With the car back on the road I just rested my arms against the side of it and rested my head on my arms. I was puffed.
"Is that guy your husband or your boyfriend," Jase asked me, speaking quietly.
"Currently my boyfriend," I replied, throwing a hostile glance at Andy. He sure wasn't winning any brownie points with me today.
"Well, he's giving me the irrits," grumbled Jase. "I really think I'd like to return the favour. Let me apologise in advance."