Chapter 1

I thought I had everything solved. I was living quietly and was enjoying my life. Then, she happened. I guess starting closer to a beginning point would help you understand my problem.

I won the lottery in Georgia. It was a small one. With the cash up front and after paying taxes, I netted about five million dollars. At the time, I was a fresh graduate from college with a degree in psychology and pre-law. I still haven’t gone to law school though I had been accepted before graduation. The summer I graduated, two other things happened other than the lottery and they both happened before that event.

The first thing, just barely, was that my girl broke up with me. That was probably only a half a thing since she wasn’t really a loss. We had been students and enjoyed uninhibited sex with each other. She wasn’t much good on conversation even though she was getting a degree in communications. That’s a bit or sarcasm, by the way. We were only about half exclusive. Both of us went out with others. I knew she screwed a few of her professors for grades. I had helped a couple of times with a male professor and his wife. She was very bi and, I found, loved to be screwed while she was going down on another girl. She would also suck anything from anywhere on anyone. As much as I liked what she would do, I was getting bored. When another graduate offered to take her to California, she went with my blessing.

Then, my parents were killed in the wreck. My parents were killed in an auto accident when the drunk wiped out their little Honda with his big truck when he crossed the centerline. They were only children and I was, too. It was tough. I had no close relatives. They had insurance and I had more than enough to tide me over for a few years or even through law school if I were careful. I got a lawyer to go after the drunk’s insurance though that would take time.

I was lonely in my apartment and drinking. I rarely drank much so, unsurprisingly, ran out of booze. There was a liquor store on the corner and I walked because driving was not a good idea. I was drunk but not that drunk. While I was buying a bottle of Jack, I saw the lottery display and bought a ticket. Somehow, I managed to hang on to it.

I heard the announcement a few days later that the winning ticket was sold at the liquor store. I thought that some drunk got lucky. I decided to check the numbers and found that I was that lucky drunk! I’m not sure if my hangover got better or not. A day later, I was cleaned up and went through the process to claim my winnings. Since it wasn’t much, there wasn’t much interest. That suited me.

Now, I had sobered up and would have to figure out what to do. I thought about life and what I really wanted. I had money. I paid off every debt and it hadn’t made a dent in the money. I paid off my parents’ house even. I moved there from my apartment but found it a bad idea. It was too lonely with memories of them and of my early life. It did make me start thinking about what I wanted to do. I decided law school would at least wait. I had planned on law school because my dad was a lawyer more than from a real desire to be a lawyer myself.

I enjoyed hunting and fishing. I decided to look at buying some land with or without a house and become a hermit for a while. I found some property in east Alabama with a six-acre pond on it. There was a house on the property but it wasn’t well situated. I sold it off with a couple of acres from the corner of the property and would build a place to suit me utilizing the rest of the property.

It took almost a year but I managed to build a three-bedroom, two-bath house with expansion possibilities overlooking the pond. It was self-sufficient. Except for satellite, I was off the grid. There were compromises to get the internet but I had a nice place off a quiet country road at the end of a long dirt road which was my driveway.

I moved in. Sometimes, I wouldn’t go out for a month except for church. Buy enough groceries and have a little truck garden and you can do it. I had my books and could watch movies from the dish. I used a post office box and received everything possible on line. It was quiet. Maybe I was running away though I preferred to think I was running to nowhere. That can be a nice place.

That led me to the startling and not-so-startling conclusion that I was enjoying my new life. My drinking had already quickly slowed to my prior normal amount which was very light. A six pack of beer would last a week. I did find that I enjoyed wine quite often but still didn’t drink that much. As far as people went, I started going to the little church down the road from my house. My parents had always gone and I had usually gone with them. I made friends there of the people who lived in the area. There were no girls around my age in who I was interested but that was okay. I wasn’t chasing after a relationship. In town, I got to know a few more people. All in all, it was quiet but I had enough people around to keep me sane but not feel overly crowded.

I traded my car for a pickup truck with four-wheel drive and was set. I had been living there for over a year and had found that it worked for me. I don’t know if I would want this for the rest of my life but, right now, it was good.

I was making one of my forays into town when my little world got messed up.

My trips into town were along two-lane country highways. They weren’t fancy roads but were paved. I thought I had looked at the weather but might have missed out. It started raining. It was one of those southern thunderstorms that are strong and then over. I had a camper cover on my truck so nothing would be wet. At the house, I had an aluminum carport. I had shopped and was on the way back when I was passed by a low-slung sports car. It was going too fast.