by Elle Casey
I stare at the numbers as tears well up in my eyes. He left? Without saying goodbye in person? Without a hug? Without a kiss? Without having sex with me?
I wander over to the front door and let the dog in. I barely feel the freezing cold wind that flows into the room. Tea gets made, I assume by me, but I’m too busy swimming through the sea of regret that’s flooded my brain to pay attention to the details.
Why did I say no to him last night? Why did I have to be a do-gooder, overthinking, goody-two-shoes idiot and tell him we should just be friends? God, I have to be the stupidest woman on earth! The universe handed me the hottest, nicest guy in the world on a silver platter, out here in the middle of nowhere — snowed-in no less — and I turned him down? Holy shit. Talk about cabin fever. I’m obviously sick in the head. I plop down onto the couch and stare at the orange embers glowing in the fireplace. It’s over. Over before it began.
I try to make myself feel better by thinking how it’s probably a good thing he’s gone. Less complication for my life, that’s for sure. And he’s a raging alcoholic, right? Who needs that? Not me. I have to get my life back on track. Paint some things. Wake up my creative muse and make her sing.
I sip my tea and cry when it burns my lip. “Why did you have to leave?” I ask the air around me.
Jaws climbs up onto my lap and quickly gets me wet from the melting snow clinging to his underbelly. I don’t care. So what if I look like I peed my pants? It’s not like there’s anyone here but me to see it.
The cabin that used to feel like my escape feels like a prison now. I’m in solitary confinement with only a mutt to keep me from going crazy. I take another sip of my tea and burn myself again.
“Goddammit!” I throw the cup across the room. It smashes against the fireplace and spreads pieces of porcelain and splashes of tea everywhere.
Jaws looks at the shards and then at me, as if to say, ‘Are you okay?’
I hug him to me and cry into his fur. At least it doesn’t smell like stale, burned popcorn anymore. “I shouldn’t have let him go,” I moan. “I should have told him to stay.” I can’t believe how lonely I feel. I was perfectly fine being alone before. Why do I care so much now? Nothing is making sense. Maybe I’m the one who needs therapy. It sure feels like it today.
Jaws angles himself around to lick my face. I have to stand to get him away from me.
I look around the cabin and take stock of my situation. If I’m going to be here, I can’t be crying in my tea and breaking dishes all day. This isn’t high school anymore; I have to move on with my life and accept the facts as they are: Jeremy left and I’m here, by myself, exactly how I wanted it three days ago. I have wood, I have fire, I have a dog. I have enough canvas to paint until the end of January. I have food and I have money. I arrived with the same thing I have now, and moaning over the loss of something I never really had in the first place seems really ridiculous to the common sense part of my brain.
“No problem,” I say to Jaws, sniffing really loudly. “I can do this. I came here to paint, so I’m going to paint.”
I walk over the to the alcove and sit down on my stool and stare at the painting of Jeremy. It makes my heart hurt, so I move it to the floor and prop it up against the easel. Fifteen minutes later, I have a new canvas ready, and start gessoeing it.
As I cover the canvas in white, preparing it to take color, I try to imagine what will be there a few days from today. Will I paint a landscape of the area around the cabin? Will I paint the girl at the quick-mart who would rather read her magazine than sell me groceries? Or maybe I’ll paint Jaws coming out of a hole in the snow with his muzzle covered in white.
None of these ideas inspires me. All I can think about is Jeremy: how his back fills out his shirt, the hills and valleys of his muscles creating shadows on the material; the way he smiles, making the corners of his eyes crinkle up and the cleft in his chin spread wider; how his hands look impossibly large, hinting at a fist that could crush bones, but only held me tenderly.
I think of the woman who had him as her man, who bore his child for him even as she left this plane of existence, who stood next to me as I painted him, looking sad and saying, ‘That’s not him.’
And then I bend over double and cry, because I realize I’m not going to be able to paint today. My muse has left me once again.
Chapter Thirty
HE DOESN’T HAVE MY PHONE number. I have his, but unless he somehow hacked my password, he won’t know how to get in touch with me. The cabin has no phone.
I stare at the note he left me, especially the part at the bottom that invites me to call him if I want to chat.
Should I do it? Should I dial that number? Try to get through with my one bar of service?
For hours I resist the pull, but eventually at dinner time, I can’t do it anymore. We’re friends, right? Friends check on friends after they drive on snowy roads. It’s no big deal.
Besides, I’m not going to call him. I’m going to text him. Easy. Casual. Nothing to see here, people, move along. It probably won’t even go, the signal is so weak. I’ll just try and if it doesn’t work, then I’ll know it’s not meant to be. No big deal.
I press the digits into my phone and then type out message itself.
Hey, Jeremy. Hope you made it back okay. Just wanted you to know I’m going to have a blueberry snow dessert tonight in your honor.
I smile and hit Send. Then two seconds later I cringe when I realize it actually went through. What did I just do? Am I completely stupid! That was so obvious! He’s going to know I’m totally crushing on him, like a love-sick high school chick.
I shove my phone away from me on the counter and go over to the cabinet. “Come on, Jaws. Let’s go get some snow for dessert.” I’m eating it before dinner. I’m a grown-up. I can do that if I want.
I bundle up in all my clothes and go out onto the porch. Scanning the area in front of me, I wonder how I’m going to get the right snow for my project without someone to shimmy up a tree for me.
Hmmmm… Jeremy said he was worried about animal pee. Surely that means the snow on my car is safe? I trudge through the snow, the top of it crusted over from partially melting and then freezing again. Jaws hops behind me like a rabbit, going from one big footprint to another.
I stop in my tracks when I get to my car. All the snow has been cleared from the car’s surfaces and the windows, and there’s a message in the ice on the glass.
Call me, maybe.
When that annoying song starts playing I my head, I start laughing so hard I fall down on my butt. Jaws of course takes advantage of the situation and lick-attacks me, but this time I don’t shove him away. I just wrangle him into a hug and get on my feet again with him under my arm.
“He likes me, Jaws! He likes me!” I try to twirl in a circle, but fall over again. Thank goodness there’s a snowbank there to catch me.
I stare up at the evening sky and sigh. Things don’t suck quite as much now as they did five minutes ago. That’s a step in the right direction, right? He told me twice to call him. That’s got to mean something.
I find some good snow on a branch hanging lower than the one we used last night, and gather up a bowl of it. Back in the house, I use the smaller glass bowl Jeremy showed me to make the perfect snowball. Instead of the blueberry syrup, I use the rest of the maple stuff, feeling way too sentimental to try anything new. Jeremy smelled like maple syrup last night, so it’s now officially my favorite flavor.
I’m eating the last bite when another ghostly light appears off to my left. I don’t move suddenly, even though every instinct in my body is telling me to.
Call him.
Again, I hear the words as if I were saying them to myself in my own head. I glance at the phone on the counter. There’s no response to my text, which kind of makes me doubt whether Jeremy really wanted to talk to me in the first place. Maybe he was just being polite. Maybe he changed his mind after he left here and got back to the real world, away from
the magic that surrounds this cabin. Or maybe it’s just the bad signal.
I scrape my spoon around in my bowl, trying to get the last drop of syrup to my tongue.
Call him now.
The flash of light is back at the corner of my eye. Bigger. Brighter.
I grab the phone and press the buttons that will bring up the last number I texted. My thumb hesitates over the spot that will dial his number for a voice call.
Just do it.
Okay, so now his dead wife’s ghost is quoting Nike slogans in my head. Is she going to make me start jogging too? I hate jogging. I’d rather nap.
“Okay, okay, keep your pants on. Or your sheet, whatever ghosts are wearing these days.” I hope this ghost has a sense of humor. Vengeful spirits sound like a bad idea when combined with an isolated cabin.
The light flashes off to the side again. I try to turn my head to look at it, but there’s nothing there. A headache starts to appear behind my eyes. I sigh heavily and dial the number.
Fine. A ghost wants me to call her husband? I’ll call her husband. Maybe she needs me to give him a message from beyond. Two days ago I would have laughed out loud at that thought; today, I give it serious credence. I do, after all, have cabin fever. I’m pretty sure that’s an official diagnosis.
The phone rings three times before someone picks up.
“Hello?” The reception is bad, but not so terrible I can’t tell this is not Jeremy on the other end of the line.
“Um, hello. This is Sarah. Is Jeremy there?”
“Hang on a sec. I’ll see if he can talk.”
I’m totally confused. It didn’t sound like James either.
I hear a voice in the background that I finally recognize. “What are you doing answering my phone, man? That’s not cool.” Then he’s on the line. “Hello? This is Jeremy.”
“Jeremy, hey, it’s me.” I hesitate as my face turns pink. “Sarah.” I add that at the end because I don’t want him accidentally calling me the wrong name. Who knows how many girls he’s told to call him? Maybe hundreds. He said it had been a really long time since he’d touched another human, but maybe a long time in his eyes is a few days.
“Hey! Sarah! Great to hear from you. Hold on a sec, okay?”
“Sure.” I’m a little less nervous now than I was, but still kind of wishing I hadn’t called. I should have waited for him to answer my text. I’ve totally blown the most important rule of dating: do not act too interested. Not that this is dating or anything like dating.
I’m just a friend checking on a friend. A friend checking on a friend. I say it a few more times, trying to convince myself it’s true.
I hear muffled voices again. I think Jeremy is trying to cover the phone, but he’s doing a terrible job of it.
“I told you, man, I’m not interested.”
The other guy’s voice is deep, so harder to hear. It sounds like mumbling. Then Jeremy speaks again.
“I know what I said before, but I changed my mind. You need to go. I have to take this call.”
Fear sparks up in me. Jeremy’s tone is either angry or scared, maybe a combination of the two. Is this why his wife wanted me to call him? Am I interrupting something bad?
“I’ll call you later, okay? We’ll work something out.”
I hear more deep-voice mumbling, footsteps, a door shutting, and then sounds of the phone moving around before Jeremy’s voice comes back to me.
“You still there?”
“Yep, right here!” My nervousness makes me sound like a deranged cheerleader.
“So cool you called. I got your text. I was just about to answer it when I got interrupted.”
“Who was that? Your brother?” I ask innocently, even though I know for a fact it wasn’t James.
“Who? That guy who answered my phone?” He’s being evasive. This isn’t good.
“Yes, that guy.”
“No, that wasn’t James.” Points for honesty, at least.
“Who was it?”
“Just a guy.”
“Just a guy? He answered your phone. He must be a pretty good friend.”
“No, he is most definitely not a friend.” He clears his throat and then jumps right in again. “So, how’s the painting going?”
“Not good. But I don’t want to talk about that yet.”
“You don’t?”
“No. I want to talk about that guy.”
Jeremy sighs loud and long. “Can we just drop it?”
“You said in your note that I’m a good friend.” I have a hand on my hip, ready to lecture him.
“Yes. So?”
“So? Would a true good friend let that situation slide?”
“Yes.”
“Be honest.”
“I’d rather talk about your painting.” I can tell his resistance is crumbling because he’s trying to trick me with his cutie-pie voice.
Time for some tough love. “Later. Tell me who the guy is or I’m hanging up.”
Chapter Thirty-One
I SIT ON THE KITCHEN stool and stare out the window, waiting for Jeremy to come to terms with the fact that I really am a good friend and I’m not going to walk away when things get difficult or weird.
“Okay, you really want to know? I’ll tell you. That guy was my dealer.”
My heart hurts at that admission. Is he going to use drugs again already? I latch onto the one bit of hope his sentence contained.
“Was? As in past tense? Used to be, but isn’t anymore?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Then what’s he doing at your house? Are you at your house? Where are you?”
“I’m at one of my houses. A rehab I’d started and kind of left. He’s found me here before.”
“So, what’s he doing there with you if you’ve quit?”
“He’s not on board with me quitting, let’s put it that way.”
Anger boils up inside me and threatens to explode, but I do my best to keep it cool. “Well, that’s not his decision, is it?”
“No. But trust me when I tell you that he can be very convincing when he wants to be.”
“When he wants your money, you mean.”
“Yeah, sure. I’m not under any illusions it’s anything else. We’re not friends.”
“How much did he used to make off you?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. Say it anyway.” I cross my arm under the one holding the phone, waiting for the horrible answer.
“About three grand a week. Maybe more.”
My head drops as I think about how much I could be doing with that kind of money. “Oh my god.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s disgusting.”
“Did you get rid of him?” My fingers drum the counter now as my impatience grows. I worry that with him being so far away, whatever good influence I’ve had on him with disappear like smoke on a windy day.
“For now. But he’ll be back.”
“So you need to go. Don’t be there.”
Jeremy sighs, but he doesn’t say anything in response. I find myself pleading.
“Jeremy, please. Don’t go back to the drugs or the booze. Your life is so much better without all that.”
“I don’t know,” he says, sounding depressed.
“Of course you know! Don’t be stupid!”
“When I was with you, yes. I agree. Life seemed better without the numbing effects. But now that I’m back here, I’m not so sure.”
“Is it Manhattan? Is it a bad influence on you? All the traffic and the energy and the noise?”
“I don’t think so. I did plenty of drugs in the cabin. And you saw the bottles.”
“Yes, I saw the bottles. I’ll never forget that. You’re better than that, Jeremy. You don’t need that stuff. It turns you into a jerk.”
“A jerk?” He laughs. “That’s harsh.”
“That’s the truth. Now, you need to get a grip on yourself. Have you seen your brother or sister yet?”
“No.”
“Cassie?”
“No.”
“Anyone besides your drug dealer?”
“No, I just got here. Relax.”
My eyes bug out. “Did you just tell me to relax?”
He laughs again. “Um, yeah. Maybe.”
“Don’t ever do that again. It has the opposite effect, trust me.”
“I do trust you.” His voice has gone serious and softer. “I really do.”
I chew on my lip as I consider my next words. Should I tell him what’s happened here at the cabin? Do I want to resurrect the ghost of his wife just as he seems to be letting her go a little?
“Maybe it’s you,” he says out the blue.
“What’s me?”
“Maybe you’re the difference. I did drugs here, I did drugs there, I did drugs around my family. The only time I didn’t want to do them was when I was around you.”
“Uh, wrong. You wanted to drink yourself into oblivion when you were with me, but I cut off your source.”
“Yeah, but my brother did the same thing when I was Baker Acted and I had zero interest in sobriety, even when I had an army of therapists on my ass.”
“Maybe you just weren’t ready.” I’m flattered he finds me that much of a positive influence, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to take the credit for his sobriety. He needs to find the strength inside himself for that, I’m pretty sure. Otherwise, it won’t last. It’s not like we’re going to be roommates, or get married or anything. Even just the thought of that makes my heart do gymnastics. An image of him in a tux at the end of a church aisle has me feeling dizzy. A headache starts to pound behind my eyes.
“Maybe,” he says, sounding unconvinced.
I see the flash of white out of the corner of my eye again. It’s fuzzy. Undefined. There, but when I look left, it moves and stays just out of reach.