Ella's Stormy Summer Break (Ella and Ethan Book 2)

by Amy Sparling

  Wow, this isn’t the least bit secure. Who’s to stop me from just grabbing a key without paying?

  I look around and don’t see a single soul, or even a car parked at either the gift shop or the office building. But I’m no thief, so I take out a twenty dollar bill and shove it into the slot, then I survey the remaining keys to the cabins. I grab number twelve because that’s the day that Ethan first told me he loved me. I take the rusty key back to my car and then drive forward, following the weathered signs that direct me to cabins 1 through 15.

  The whole park is wooded and overgrown, with little pathways for cars to get around. I pass up the tent area which has about a dozen campers parked and set up in tents. It’s weird, but I’m glad to see other humans out here since I’ve felt extremely alone for the last half hour. Further on, I get past the tent area and to the cabins. They all look the same, little square log cabins with a single yellow light bulb turned on by the door. Even in the daylight, this place is a little creepy. I mean, isn’t this the type of area where every single slasher film takes place?

  I try to ignore that nagging feeling in my gut that keeps reminding me I’m all alone in the woods in the middle of nowhere. Nature should be fun, and relaxing, and all that crap. Not terrifyingly creepy.

  I just have to pretend it’s fun.

  I park at cabin number twelve and walk up the broken stone pathway that leads to the door. The whole thing looks like it could use a power washing and a fresh coat of wood sealant and maybe even new hardware. This place is old and unkept.

  I shove my key into the door, but it’s old and rusty and the lock doesn’t budge. I shove harder and then wiggle and twist and pray a little bit and finally the old lock gives away and I can open the door.

  The stale stench of old wood and outdoors fills my lungs as I step into the cabin. Shouldn’t nature smell good? This smells like the deepest corner of an old antique store. Air so thick with dust it feels like it’s clinging to your lungs.

  I close the door behind me and survey the tiny cabin. There’s a bed against the wall without any sheets on it. A nightstand with a janky old lamp that probably doesn’t even work on it. On the other side of the small room is a mini fridge that’s covered in dust and making a slight wheezing sound, and a table with two chairs.

  I can’t help but stare in disgust. This place is filthy. The wooden floor is all dusty and the windows are covered in grime and tinted greenish from the moss outside. Also, I’m trying not to panic here, but I have to pee and there’s no bathroom in sight. The only other door inside this place leads to a closet that’s filled with towels and bed sheets that are sealed up in bags, so at least they’re clean, which is about the only positive thing I can find here.

  I stand in the middle of the room and look around again, hoping that maybe I missed the kitchen and bathroom and hot shower. But there’s nothing else in here.

  This cabin might as well be a wooden tent with electricity. I lower my forehead to my hand and stare at the floor. A tiny spider runs across the wooden planks and slips into a crack along the floor. This place is gross. That woman at the coffee shop had acted like this park was a wonderful hidden treat for people who were stranded. Instead, it’s like a creepy horror shack in the middle of nowhere that’s probably surrounded by serial killers who are just waiting for me to fall asleep.

  I swallow the fear rising in my throat and walk over to the bed. On the nightstand is a folder with some paperwork in it. I flip through the worn pages and discover that the bathroom and showers are in a communal building just up the road. Gross. It’s like a dorm room shared bathroom but in the middle of the woods.

  But I have to pee, so I grab my phone and head outside. I don’t bother locking the door behind me because no one is around and I don’t feel like wrestling with the lock again. I walk along the pathway, past a couple more empty cabins and to the communal restroom.

  Unlike all of the other log cabin buildings out here, this one is made from concrete cinderblocks. There’s a men’s and women’s side, so I step into the women’s entrance.

  The stench of sewer makes me gag and I cover my nose as I step into the worst bathroom ever. The floor is concrete, the walls are concrete, and the ceiling doesn’t freaking exist. This place is open to nature with no roof at all. There’s a row of old rusty shower heads against one wall, should you want to take a shower out in the open where anyone could see you, and then a row of three bathroom stalls. Because there’s no roof in here, I see hornet’s nests in the corners, and leaves on the floor and dirt everywhere. I might as well pop a squat and pee in the grass outside, but for the sake of propriety, I squat over one of the toilets and hope to God that I don’t have to pee again before I leave tomorrow. This bathroom is the worst. I quickly rinse my hands off with just water since there’s no soap in here, and then I rush back outside where the air doesn’t smell like a sewer. Earlier I had been daydreaming of a hot shower but now I don’t want anything to do with bathing.

  Why would anyone voluntarily camp here? This place is awful.

  I make my way back to my cabin and I lock the door behind me. I close all the curtains and plug my phone into one of the two outlets that are in here. The only good thing about this place is that the window unit air conditioning blows cold and the bed isn’t too terribly uncomfortable.

  I put on some fresh sheets and lay down, trying and failing to find a Wi-Fi signal on my phone. Luckily, I have a couple movies downloaded on my phone, and even though I’ve seen them a million times, I play one just so the sound can make me feel less alone.

  There’s no getting ahold of Ethan this far out in the middle of nowhere, so instead I lay back on the bed and stare at the wooden ceiling and try to imagine that I am anywhere else but here.

  After the sun sets, I’m still wide awake and rewatching Mean Girls on my phone again. My heart hurts in this way I’m not used to. I think I feel sorry for myself. This week was already going to suck because it was my last week until school starts and I have to leave Ethan, but now it’s just all screwed up in ways I never imagined.

  The hurricane will make landfall tonight and it’ll tear through my state, and then my city, and maybe even my parent’s rental home. There’s a chance all of my new purple dorm stuff will be wiped away with the fury of the storm, and I’ll have nothing to come home to and nothing to take to my dorm next week.

  I really hope that’s not the case, but you just never know. I start thinking about all the things I wish were true. Like I wish I was with Ethan, even if we had to sleep in his truck in the Walmart parking lot. I wish I was with my parents in New Orleans. I wish I was at the hotel with Ethan’s parents.

  I wish I had someone with me. This is the worst sort of isolation ever. Not even a movie on my phone can break me out of this feeling. I keep watching the clock, counting down the hours until it’s tomorrow and I can try to drive to the hotel again.

  I close my eyes and daydream about Ethan, trying to relive our best dates and all the times we hung out on the couch watching TV together. I try really, really hard to imagine that he’s here with me, laying in this squeaky bed in a cabin in Blackwell, Texas, and that it’s all okay because he’s here and I’m not alone.

  But my imagination doesn’t work so well. The only solace I can find is knowing that somewhere several miles away Ethan is stuck in the same situation I am. He’s sleeping in his truck, he’s all alone, and he’s missing me just as much as I miss him.

  It makes me feel a little better knowing that he’s also stranded and miserable. He’s stuck with Walmart bathrooms and no place to stretch out his legs and sleep. It’s probably horribly hot in his truck and he can’t run the engine for the AC because he’d run out of gas. Yep, my boyfriend is just as miserable as I am.

  I hate that we are both stranded and miserable, but at least we’re in it together. Finally, after hours of watching the seconds tick by into the night, I feel an exhaustion settling over me, and I can finally go to sleep.

 
In just a few hours, I’ll get to be with Ethan again. We’ll make up for all the time we lost. We’ll share horror stories of being stranded in this evacuation. And everything will be okay.

  Chapter 14

  I wake up to the overwhelming smell of Kennedy’s perfume. My first thought is that she hadn’t smelled like that earlier when I first ran into her. Back when we were dating, she carried a cloud of perfume smell wherever she went. But it was gone earlier at the Walmart parking lot.

  Now it’s back.

  I open my eyes and quickly realize that the soothing sensation that woke me up was the feel of Kennedy’s hand running over my hair. I jump and slide over, putting some space between us. My shoulder hits the wall, and my butt is half numb, and I look around and realize I fell asleep on the floor of our hotel room. No wonder my shoulder and neck hurts. My phone is on the floor next to me, still plugged into the charger.

  “Sorry,” Kennedy says sweetly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She reaches for my head again, but I pull away. “You don’t need to pet me,” I say.

  She frowns. “You just looked so stressed out. You fell asleep sitting against the wall, Ethan. You know there’s an entire bed in here that’s for you to sleep in.”

  She motions to the bed. Only now do I realize what Kennedy’s been up to while I was sleep. She showered and applied a face full of makeup with her signature bright pink lip gloss that I always hated kissing. Her hair has been blow dried and styled, removing all traces of the messy bun she’d had earlier. She looks like she’s ready for a night on the town, except for one major part. She’s wearing the hotel’s bathrobe. And if I know Kennedy at all, there’s no other clothes underneath it.

  I pull my phone off the charger and stand up, stretching my aching joints. I want to collapse on the bed and sleep some more, but I’m filthy and even though Kennedy smells like a French prostitute, she looks a lot happier now that she’s clean. I know a shower will be good for me, too.

  “I’m gonna shower,” I say, avoiding looking at her. She’s still sitting on the floor next to where I had been, and her bathrobe is conveniently loose around the chest area. I don’t want to accidently see any part of her. It’s not like she’s got anything better than what Ella has.

  I take some clean clothes out of my backpack and slip into the bathroom. The marble countertop has been littered with Kennedy’s makeup and hair dryer and flat iron and perfume bottles. It’s like she brought her entire bathroom with her when she evacuated her house. I only brought a couple outfits and my electronics. Everything else I figured the hotel would have.

  I take the sample bottles of shampoo and soap and slip into the shower. I turn the water as hot as I can stand and then stand under it, letting a steamy warm waterfall cascade down my body. It’s been way too long since I’ve had a shower, and being cooped up in my truck for ages has made my body feel claustrophobic.

  Now, my muscles ease and my lungs take deep breaths and I stretch my arms up high and bask in the feeling of finally being free from the evacuation. I still have to get to my parent’s hotel, but at least the worst part is over.

  I soap up and wash my hair and then stand here under the water for half an hour. At home, my mom would have complained that I was wasting water, but here it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to leave this bathroom. I don’t want to face Kennedy again and have to smell her perfume and deal with her overly fake smiles that I know are all just an act.

  I want to be home. I want to be with Ella.

  I open my eyes and shut off the water. Dammit. I can’t believe I was so eager to get in the shower that I didn’t even check my phone. It’s sitting on the counter next to Kennedy’s makeup, and I can see the little LED light blinking on the corner, which means I have a new notification.

  I step out of the shower and towel off quickly and then check my phone.

  I have messages from my parents, Toby, Jose, and Dakota. Nothing from Ella.

  With a sigh, I leave the messages unread and I get dressed then towel off my hair. She must still be too far away to get signal. I’m so sick of this shit. This is 2018, dammit. We should have cell phone technology that’s better than this. This is a country where everyone is connected all the time. This shouldn’t happen.

  Anger rises in my chest. I just miss her so much.

  Once I’m dressed, and there’s no reason to not still be in the bathroom, I’m forced to face my ex-girlfriend in our shared hotel room again. She’s laying on her bed, still in the bathrobe, her gaze focused on her phone.

  The hotel’s TV is on Cinemax, which is showing some romantic chick movie.

  “Feel better?” Kennedy asks, not looking up from her phone.

  “Much,” I say, walking over to my bed. Thank God for separate beds. Now if only I had a wall I could use to separate them. I lay down and bury my head into the clean pillow. The mattress is even softer than it looks, and besides being stuck with my ex, I’m in heaven right now. This is so much better than sitting in my truck.

  “You hungry?” Kennedy says. “I just ordered us some food from the restaurant down the road. They’re going to deliver it.”

  “What’d you get?” I ask, looking over at her.

  “Cheeseburgers, fries, fried pickles, onion rings. All your favorites.”

  I nod once. “Thanks.”

  Kennedy’s phone dings with that familiar sound of a Snapchat notification. She tends to her messages and I roll over on my side so that my back is facing her, and then I read my own messages. My friends are just checking in, and my parents are asking me for an ETA.

  I grab the remote off the nightstand that separates my bed from Kennedy’s and turn it to the news.

  “Hey!” she says, but she doesn’t stop me.

  On the news, they’re talking about the hurricane hitting landfall tonight. All these predictions have been made about flooding and storm surges and none of that matters to me right now. Eventually they address the traffic problem, and I’m relieved to see that the major roadways have finally cleared out. There’s still quite a bit of cars trying to evacuate, but that dead stop traffic nightmare has finally run its course. The news anchors say that if anyone still hasn’t left the south Texas area, they need to leave now or risk being caught in the hurricane.

  “Looks like we can leave tomorrow morning,” I say.

  Kennedy shrugs. “I’ll just stay here.”

  I look over at her curiously. She doesn’t have a car or anyone else and I figured she’d be tagging along with me until this was over. “You sure?”

  “We’re far enough away from the hurricane here, and I know you don’t want to bring me to be with your family so, it’s fine. I’ll just stay here until it’s safe to go back home and then I’ll get an Uber or something.”

  I frown because I’m not sure if Kennedy riding three hours in an Uber is the safest idea. “Maybe I can pick you up on the way back,” I suggest. I hate myself for saying it, but Ella will be in her own car, and maybe she doesn’t even need to know.

  Kennedy’s face lights up. “Really? That would be awesome.”

  I bite my lip. Seeing how happy that made her now makes me wonder if it was a very, very bad idea. “Let’s just play it by ear. But it’s a good idea for you to stay here. I don’t think there’s room at my parent’s hotel.”

  “You mean you don’t think Ella wants me there,” she says, rolling her eyes.

  She’s right, but I’m not going to say it. I don’t want her thinking Ella is the jealous type of girlfriend like she was. Ella is so much better than Kennedy. And that’s why I’m relieved beyond measure that Kennedy is going to stay here. Ella will never have to know what I spent time with her while we were apart. The guilt is already eating me up inside, but it’s for the best. At least that’s what I tell myself.

  Kennedy means nothing to me and being here with her was just a means to an end. What Ella doesn’t know can’t hurt her.

  Kennedy’s phone goes off with a ton of new Snapc
hat alerts. I roll my eyes. When we were dating, she was on her phone so much that it often ruined all of our dates. But now she’s not my problem. She can stay glued to that thing all night, for all I care.

  I toss the remote to her bed and then roll back over to face the wall. I’m going to get as much sleep as I can, and then tomorrow I’ll finally be back with my girl.

  Chapter 15

  The sounds of cicadas keep me awake at night. I think I fall asleep a few times, but the next thing I know, I’m awake again, hearing their incessant buzz that drowns out all other nature sounds. How does anyone like camping? I can only imagine it’s worse if you’re in a tent instead of one of these cabins. And that’s about the only time I’ll even consider giving a compliment to the cabin.

  I let out a huff of air and roll over, the old bed frame squeaking in protest. In the dim moonlight that manages to sneak through the thin curtains, I can see some kind of dust or something on my pillow, right in front of my face.

  I blow some air out to brush it away.

  It does not blow away.

  It runs toward me.

  I scream and sit up, realizing a few seconds too late that it’s a spider, not dust. A freaking spider! I trip getting out of bed, and the sheets are all tangled but I kick and twist my way out of them until I’m standing barefoot on the dirty wooden floor and the sheets are all over the place, and the spider is nowhere to be found.

  A shudder ripples through me, and I run my hands up and down my clothes, my hair, my neck. I don’t feel the damn thing but that doesn’t mean it’s not on me.

  Oh, hell no.

  I’m so done with this place. Screw being safe. Screw staying off the roads. There are no spiders in my car. If you ask me that’s a lot safer than being stuck in this crazy old shack where spiders try to eat you in your sleep.

  I grab my few belongings and shove them into my backpack, then unplug my cell phone without checking it because I know there’s no new messages. I leave the sheets where they are because I’m not risking being bitten by yet another insect on this evacuation from hell. My hand is still sore from the first bite I got the other night while sleeping in my car.