by Fiona Riley
The last two months had been a whirlwind. The general release of the movie was received with open arms and award buzz had already started. It looked like the studio would get their Titanic after all. She was getting praise after praise for her performance, but somehow none of it mattered the way she’d expected it to. She’d been spending a lot of time in Colorado in between her studio and press obligations. She’d put a hold on any future acting projects and had focused on working on some new Zelda Frog stuff. That way she could spend time with Deidre and her family more, since she could do that work remotely.
Things with Rory were improving every day. They’d started to go to therapy as a family. And Emerson had started doing her own therapy on the side as well. She liked talking about her stress and what was expected of her. And what she expected of herself. She felt like the therapy had had a positive impact on her fear of flying, too. That was an unexpected and added bonus.
But therapy also helped her identify what was truly lacking in her life. She couldn’t get excited about Willow Path—or anything, really—because what she wanted most was Hayley. And Hayley had packed up and disappeared. She’d left town. She was just gone. Emerson looked for her and she’d tried to reach her. Hayley didn’t seem to want to be found. But deep down, she knew where to find Hayley. She just had to work up the nerve to put herself out there and take the risk. Hayley was worth it. She had always been worth it.
The road seemed to go on forever and everything was lush and green and dense, so she had no idea if she was going in the right direction since her GPS had effectively told her to fuck off about twenty minutes ago. Was this road this long last time? She couldn’t remember.
The road veered toward the right and it narrowed. The overgrowth made it feel like the forest was closing in on her, and she felt momentarily claustrophobic. She squinted through her tinted sunglasses to try to see if she was getting close.
“These are so fucking dark.” She pushed them up onto her head just in time to see the moose dart out in front of her. “Sonofabitch!”
She slammed on the brakes and jolted forward as the car fishtailed in the muddy grooves of the road. She tried to throw the car into reverse to get away from the animal, but the wheels spun and whined in a useless and pathetic show of force.
Emerson looked back up at the moose and tried to decide the best course of action, since she seemed to be stuck. Then something occurred to her.
“You bastard.” She laughed and yelled out the window in triumph. “That’s a hell of a welcome, Stan.”
Standing before her with a goofy, smug expression was Stan the marker moose identifying the edge of Hayley’s Maine cabin property. And she had never been so glad to see his ugly mug.
She gave her heart a minute to slow down before she put the car in drive and prayed it would move. It didn’t. Because of course. She looked down at her cell phone and swallowed thickly. She had less than 10 percent battery left. She dropped her head to the steering wheel and exhaled.
“You can do this, Emerson. You were named for a nature-loving transcendentalist. You have been in a dozen stunt car accidents, and you played a fucking badass jungle explorer.” She looked down at her designer shoes and sighed. “Just accept that you are totally going to ruin your fucking shoes. That will help ease the sorrow later on when you have to sacrifice them to make a flare when you can’t get out of here anyway.”
She stepped out of the car and the sludgy road swallowed her left foot. “See? You were totally expecting that. It’s good to be prepared.” She looked up at Stan and shook her fist at him. “You’re kind of an asshole, Stan. I’m just putting that out into the universe.”
She swore Stan winked at her, so she flipped him off.
“So much for unexpected romantic gestures à la Pretty Woman,” she grumbled. “Richard Gere’s car would totally have survived this kind of murky roadway.”
She paused. “He had a driver. Of course he did. You’re right, Stan.” She looked up at the carving and nodded. “Next time I’ll stick with a driver. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about digging out the wheels and trying to find a nice flat board to help get my car out of the mud. You make a good point. I see you have some redeeming qualities.”
She sighed and asked with a smile. “Any chance you’ve got a shovel up your ass?”
* * *
Hayley stood up from her desk and stretched. The cell phone alarm sounded to remind her to step away from the computer and hydrate or walk or pee. Whatever. She needed to be reminded because all her days ran into each other since she’d moved here from LA.
After the photos were leaked and she was fired—both of which sucked, by the way—she’d gotten the hell outta Dodge, so to speak. Except it was LA and she doubted anyone would miss her now that she was the reporter that hooked up with a celebrity to get the inside scoop. Okay, maybe she was being a little harsh on herself, but those photos of her and Emerson kissing popped up every time she googled her own name. So she was that kind of internet famous, it seemed.
But she knew that some people missed her. Like Alison. They talked every few days. Alison had started dating Scotty after she introduced them, and they were making plans to come out in the next few weeks to stay a few days with her before the fall entertainment season picked up and they both got too busy to travel. Being as the lake was at its peak temperature and beauty, she really wanted to share this with someone. Anyone.
She frowned because the person she wanted to share this with was the same person she had actively been trying not to think about for the last two months. Emerson. She knew that Emerson had missed her too, since she’d tried to reach her about a thousand times. But Hayley ignored every call and text and email and even a few handwritten letters that were really beautiful, and Emerson had such gorgeous script, but that was beside the point because she wasn’t going to answer them, ever.
She didn’t know if Emerson had tried to find her at her old apartment since she’d moved out immediately after she was fired, but the forwarded mail told her she’d at least tried to write her there. But the sixty days of mail forwarding ended earlier this week, so any further correspondence seemed unlikely. Especially since she’d canceled and permanently signed out of every social media forum in an effort to purge her obsessive checking of Emerson’s whereabouts and her own faux celebrity gossip status. Because how many times could she look at that picture of Emerson leaving that Starbucks wearing her plaid shirt? She needed to live more simply. She needed to get back to her roots. She needed her Grandma Ginny. But she’d settle for her essence and her cabin. Her happy place. Or at least, what used to be her happy place.
Try as she might to forget the weekend she’d spent here with Emerson, it was absolutely impossible. Even though numerous others had stayed in the cabin since they’d stayed here, she still found little reminders of Emerson tucked here or there.
Her first night in the cabin had been the most difficult. She swore she could smell Emerson’s perfume on the sheets in the master bedroom. So she slept on the couch. But there she was haunted by how comfortable Emerson had been sleeping on her chest, in front of the fireplace. After a fitful night she washed all the linens, the couch cover, and all the pillows in an effort to purge Emerson’s phantom scent from the fabric. It didn’t help. She still smelled her everywhere.
And then there was the book. She’d had a particularly good two weeks of not missing Emerson when she’d gone to the bookcase next to the fireplace for something to read and distract herself from the quiet. She blindly reached for a book and pulled one out without looking at it. As she settled onto the couch, the book opened to a dog-eared page. Hayley rolled her eyes initially because who damages a book like that? But then she noticed the pretty, slanting script along the edge of the page. It was Emerson’s handwriting. She had taken notes. She thumbed through the book and read all the passages Emerson highlighted or little anecdotes she scribbled in the margin. Most of it was humorous commentary regarding the main character’s
actions or inactions. But some of it was very, very poignant, too, like the stuff she had kept in that ES Musings file on her desktop that she wasn’t supposed to look at, ever. And that made Hayley’s heart hurt because she had seen the silly and the deep sides of Emerson. And she loved them both. Or she thought she’d seen both sides, but she didn’t trust herself regarding Emerson anymore. Sometimes she thought she must have dreamed her version of Emerson up entirely, because she seemed too good to be true all the time. Because evidently, she was. Which was why Hayley was here, alone. She’d shelved the book after a while and hadn’t gone back to the bookcase since, for fear of finding something else there to remind her of Emerson.
“Stop thinking about her,” she mumbled to herself as she headed out of the guest room toward the kitchen. She padded across the warm wooden floor on bare feet as she looked out toward the lake from the kitchen window. The late day sun strained through the trees to give the lake its last bit of light before the sunset lit it on fire with orange and red hues. The sounds of the forest around the cabin would start to get louder soon. The crickets and bullfrogs would start their symphony and the fireflies would dance their mating dance as dusk fell. These were the comforts that helped her sleep at night. The consistent dependableness of the woods around her had helped her heal here. She’d started to feel whole again, but just started. She had a long way to go and she knew it, but she was on the right path.
She rinsed her cup out and dropped some ice into the glass before pouring in some water from the filtered pitcher by the sink. Her grandmother believed that all water should be drunk at room temperature, but Hayley wasn’t uncivilized. Although she abided by her grandmother’s routine of leaving the water out, she also added ice, because duh. But she wasn’t paying attention and she overfilled the cup and it runneth over. All over her pants and onto her bare feet.
She jumped back at the wetness and sent more of the cup’s contents spilling onto the kitchen floor. “Dammit.”
She put the cup on the counter and grabbed a dish towel to clean up the mess. After she’d patted down her pants and tidied the kitchen, she went about the task of refilling her cup. Ice first, then water. As she dropped a few cubes in the glass, she thought she heard what sounded like a knock at the front door. But that was impossible since there was no one around here who would visit without calling, and her parents were in Italy for the summer, which was why she had the cabin to herself.
She poured some water into the cup and heard the noise again. That was definitely a knock. She turned to look at the front door and dropped her cup because the ghost of Emerson Sterling was peering through her window, and she looked like she’d just crawled out of a grave.
Chapter Thirty-three
Emerson flinched as the sound of the breaking porcelain echoed through the open screened windows of the cabin. She hadn’t meant to startle Hayley, but she was glad to find her here all the same.
Hayley gaped at her for a moment before disappearing from view behind the butcher-block top of the kitchen island. What felt like an eternity passed before her head popped back up and then her body. She had a look of disbelief in her eyes and a pile of ceramic shards in her hands.
Emerson gave her a weak wave and an apologetic smile.
Hayley just blinked at her.
Well, at least she didn’t throw anything at her, right?
Hayley blinked again and then discarded the broken whatever into the wastebin and walked slowly toward the door. Like, really slowly. Emerson was practically vibrating with anticipation when Hayley finally opened the door.
“Hi.” Emerson waved again because she was nervous and because Hayley looked incredible. She had a light summer tan and her hair was swept up into a messy bun on the top of her head. She looked fit and strong, like she’d been hiking or cutting wood or doing really sexy woodsy related things by the lake. Or maybe she’d been rowing and swimming a lot. That could totally be why her collarbone looked so delicious as it peeked above the loose V-neck collar of her shirt, because she’d been swinging an ax or practicing her freestyle swimming technique or just being Hayley. Because that was sexy enough. God, how badly she wanted to rip open this screen door and touch her.
“Emerson. What are you…why are you—” Hayley opened the door with a look of confusion and disbelief.
“Covered in mud?” Emerson had given herself a quick once-over in the car’s rearview before she’d gathered up enough courage to walk up the front steps of the cabin. She was splattered in mud. Her pants, her shirt, her beyond ruined Louboutins…She’d even managed to get some mud in her hair. It was masterful, really. But she’d made it. She’d dug out those fucking useless wheels and found enough small sticks to wedge under the tires to get traction to drive out of the mud. And although the car looked like it had been in a demolition derby at the bottom of a mud pit, she’d arrived alive, before sunset, with 3 percent cell phone battery to spare.
“It’s a long story that involves a wooden moose with a holier-than-thou attitude, a somewhat improperly dressed city slicker, and an ill-informed choice regarding vehicle selection for an off-roading adventure on a series of unpaved roads after a storm or six.”
“Wow. That sounds—”
“Dirty. And far-fetched. I know.” Emerson leaned against the door and motioned up and down her body. “But I can assure you, this time fact is stranger than fiction.”
Hayley handed her the dishcloth she had draped over her shoulder and Emerson bowed her head in appreciation.
“Thanks.”
Hayley nodded but said nothing.
“So. You’re, uh, a hard lady to find.” Emerson wiped off her face and hands with the cloth and grimaced. The cloth appeared to be ruined. She folded it neatly and held it in her hand to give herself something to do. “Sorry about the cloth.”
Hayley eyed it for a moment before looking back up at her. “Don’t worry about it. I have about fifty more. And I wasn’t hiding. But I wasn’t looking to be found either.”
Ouch.
Hayley turned and walked into the cabin, leaving Emerson standing in the doorway.
Emerson wasn’t sure if that was an outright dismissal or what, so she hovered in place, unsure of what to do.
Hayley walked to the back of the cabin and started to go out through the back door before she stopped and turned back to her. “Maybe leave the shoes on the porch to dry out. There’s fresh linens in the hall closet. You know where the bathroom is. Feel free to freshen up. But maybe use the darkish towels, just to be safe.”
She didn’t wait for Emerson to reply. Instead she slipped out the rear door and disappeared.
Emerson stepped out of her mud-caked shoes and tiptoed through the house, trying to limit as much dirt castoff as possible. That wasn’t exactly the welcome she’d been hoping for, but it wasn’t an outright door to the face, either. She could use a shower or five. And it would give her some time to prepare what she wanted to say. Or rather, prepare how she wanted to beg.
She walked to the hall closet and pulled out some towels. She lingered there and ran her hand along the soft sleeve of the sweatshirt Hayley had worn when they were here together, so many months ago. It was as soft and welcoming as she remembered. She pulled it off the hanger and took it with her into the bathroom. It only occurred to her that she didn’t have pants once the shower ended and she was naked from the waist down. She popped her head into the hallway and called out to Hayley, but there was no answer.
She took the short walk to the master bedroom and found it was a little different than how she remembered it. It was more cluttered now. There were clearly things of Hayley’s strewn about the room in an organized chaos. The room was a mix of simplistic nondescript furniture akin to a rental space, with splashes of Hayley’s personality and favorite things draped here and there. Hayley’s messenger bag sat on the chair next to the dresser, and a few pictures of LA’s most famous landmarks speckled the dresser’s surface. Emerson saw the corner of a movie ticket under a sm
all stack of notebooks, and she pulled it out.
It was a souvenir ticket from the premiere of Willow Path. That had been an impossibly emotional night for her. She wondered if Hayley felt the same. She placed it back where she found it and opened a few drawers until she found a pair of pants to borrow.
When she made it to the back porch, she found Hayley lounging on one of the chairs. Her eyes were closed, and her knees were tucked under her chin. Emerson sat on the chair next to her and waited.
After forever, Hayley spoke. “Why did you come here?”
Emerson turned to look at her, but Hayley’s eyes remained closed. “My heart is here.”
Hayley’s eyes shot open and she shook her head. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
Hayley turned her body toward Emerson, but she kept her knees tight against her chest. “Don’t sit here in my clothes telling me I’m important to you in that perfect voice that makes me want to melt into your arms and forget all the fucked-up shit that happened to me after meeting you. That. Don’t do that.”
“Fine.” Emerson grabbed the hem of her borrowed sweatshirt and started to pull it over her head.
“Whoa. What are you doing?” Hayley’s hands were on hers, stopping her from pulling the shirt off.
“I’m giving you back your sweatshirt.”
Hayley huffed. “That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean then?” Emerson reached for Hayley’s hand, but Hayley pulled back from her touch.
“Emerson.” Hayley didn’t look amused.
Emerson nodded. “I get it. You hate me. That’s fair. I brought unbelievable chaos to your life, that’s true, but I never—”
“Meant for me to be so incredibly embarrassed on a global scale that I had to flee to the woods and obscurity just to find some peace?” Hayley asked. “Is that what you were about to say?”