Highway Star | Online Only | n+1 | Meg Bernhard
Trucking saved her, she said, but she still got lonely. Solitude became its own source of claustrophobia. “I have blue days,” Jess said. “If I slammed my truck into a mountain, would anyone notice? Does anyone know I’m out here?”
Jess and I arrived at our final destination, Perrysburg, Ohio, hours early for her last delivery, at a Walgreens facility. She drove past grain elevators and skinny cedars, weathered barns and strip malls, under a sky thick with cumulus clouds, and parked at a Love’s Travel Stop at the edge of town. My back ached from three long days in the passenger’s seat; my body felt greasy and swollen from a truck-stop diet of fried chicken sandwiches, chocolate bars, and tepid coffee. Jess pulled out her tablet to do administrative work, and while she typed emails, I went for a walk. I turned down a…
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