by E Cleveland
10
Elsie
I watch the roaring fire that I’ve managed to build with a growing sense of satisfaction. The orange, curling flames lick the insides of the chimney and cascade a beautiful golden glow onto my arms.
Ugh. I crinkle my nose in disgust as I notice the soot streaked over the sides of my hands and up my arms. I sweep my eyes over the simple cabin, searching for something to wash up with. I hate being dirty.
I walk across the room to the kitchenette and take a look around. I’ve already explored the tiny bedroom and closet behind doors number one and two earlier. This place doesn’t show any signs of being used in years. I was shocked to find out that there is no bathroom in this place. There’s no plumbing at all that I can see. Instead, I’ve been subjected to the indignity of using an outhouse. I could begin to wrap my brain around the Pinterest-type rustic vibe of this place before I learned that. There’s nothing rustic about a pit toilet. It’s practically inhumane.
I crouch down and peer into the lower cupboard, smiling as I pluck the package of wet wipes from the cupboard. Perfect. Opening the plastic cover, I’m relieved to see that this has never been used. I plunge my sharp nail through the thin barrier and pull a couple of sheets out, washing my arms like I’m trying to rub my skin off.
“Ashy Elsie! Look at how dirty she is.” MacKenzie Kirkland pointed at me while her posse of popular girls laughed.
“I’m not dirty!” I ran my hands over my ratty Goodwill shirt. Not that they knew it was second-hand. I did my best to keep my clothes clean. To keep myself clean.
“You’re so gross. Isn’t she gross, Tessa?” she spurred on her second-in-command.
“Totally gross,” Tessa agreed with a glint in her green eyes.
“Like, have you even heard of soap?” MacKenzie continued while I tried to shrink up inside myself.
The half hour before junior high classes started was always the worst. I pretty much had the entire school to myself until then. Only the janitor shared the empty halls with me, and he never did speak a word to me. He always held the door for me when we both showed up there at six in the morning. He gave me a kind look of understanding. However, he kept his distance.
“Or, like deodorant? Oh my God, I ran behind you in the last gym class and almost gagged,” Tessa added helpfully.
I crossed my arms self-consciously. Smelly sweat was yet another way my body was beginning to betray me. My parents barely kept me fed most days, so asking them to pick up a stick of Degree was like asking them to lasso the moon and bring it closer to my window at night. A nice idea, but not happening. Of course, body odor was the least of my worries after getting my first period and having no pads or tampons to deal with it. Wads of toilet paper layered on handfuls of paper towel was a messy solution.
“Ewww, look at her fingernails,” MacKenzie continued to pick me apart, like an owl pulling the flesh off a rabbit. “Ashy Elsie, you’re so disgusting.” She tossed her shiny, long hair over her shoulder and snorted. Finally, the bell rang, telling us all to shuffle off to class.
I looked down at my jagged nails with dirt under the edges and jammed them into the pockets of my worn corduroys.
It was hard to keep clean when your parents used your only bathroom at home to cook meth. Hell, half the time if I had to piss, I had to go in a can in the hall. I shudder at the thought, remembering where my loathing of non-flushing toilets came from.
I would never tell anyone that, though. I never breathed a word. It was my deepest fear to be taken away from my parents. Even though the day I was finally carted off by child services, I didn’t see the same horror and distress etched to their hardened faces. Instead, I saw relief.
I snap my eyes back into focus and stop scrubbing my hands. My skin is fiery and the cloth I’ve been scrubbing with is worn through. I hate being dirty. Hate it. I push the memories away, but the terrible feeling in my gut stays with me.
I take a deep breath as my eyes land on my phone I left on the coffee table by the fireplace. I practically leap over to it, clutching it against me like a precious newborn against my chest.
My thumb runs across the smooth screen and calm begins to wash over me. Who cares where I came from? All that matters is where I am now.
Trapped in a snowstorm in a cabin with a strange man? The thought intrudes on my moment of optimism.
“No.” I shake my head and answer the negative ghost haunting my mind. “What matters is my career. My followers love me. I just need to make some lemonade from lemons.” I channel my inner Beyoncé and throw back my shoulders with determination. I’m not a kid anymore. If I could survive then, when I didn’t know shit about the world and had assholes like MacKenzie Kirkland tormenting me every day, then I can do this.
I look out the window at the blizzard swirling around and can almost feel the cold prickling my flesh. I hope Sawyer is okay out there.
I push the thought from my mind. Of course, he is. From the looks of him, he lives for this shit. Right now, I need to focus. I absentmindedly check my signal while I try to envision the perfect picture in my new surroundings. No signal bars. Still.
I tilt my head and try to figure out how I can mix up a big old jug of tasty lemonade from this craziness.
Picking up my dry bikini bottoms from where I hung them on the mantle earlier, I strip down and put them back on. I tie Sawyer’s plaid shirt up under my breasts. Next to the fireplace, I grab the little hatchet used to cut down kindling and get myself set up beside the orange glow of the flames.
As I take photo after photo of myself contorted into the most flattering angles I can manage for my ass, I remember how hard this was before I had professional lighting and a nice camera. Back when I started on Instagram, it was all shaky cell phone selfies and ingenuity. Now, it’s like a Vogue photo shoot in my apartment every time I take new pics for my profile.
I have to say; I enjoy the challenge. People can laugh all they want, but it’s not easy to get flattering and creative pictures of one subject over and over again. In this case, the subject is my curvy ass. It might sound shallow, but it pays my bills.
And made you famous, the hungry voice cries inside me. I get a tingle as I imagine how my followers are going to eat this up when I get back. All fifty-seven million of them.
What’s MacKenzie fucking Kirkland doing with her life?
Exactly. No one gives a shit.
I twist toward the fire and snap some pictures. I sit with my butt resting on my legs, pushing it out with my heels, and try to look over my shoulder like I just happened to be sitting like this when someone caught me.
Time disappears as do my swirling anxieties and the thoughts of my childhood.
When the door squeaks open angrily and Sawyer stomps his snowy boots on the floor I jump.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He wipes the ice clinging to his beard and flings it down to the ground.
“I, uh.” My face is burning up and it has nothing to do with the fire. “I’m taking a picture.” I turn away from him to hide my embarrassment. To hide from his judgment. “Not that it’s your business.”
“Oh well, excuse me. I didn’t realize I stumbled into a photo shoot. Here I thought we were trying to survive and really it turns out it’s all a backdrop for your next album,” he mocks me.
“It’s not for an album.” I roll my eyes. “It’s for Instagram.”
“Well, la-dee-dah.” He smirks. I want to shrink away. To disappear. I can’t stand how he’s looking at me. Like I’m the stupidest person he’s ever met. Like he’s better than me.
“Well, don’t let me interrupt. In fact, here.” He tosses a streak of brown across the room at me and it lands with a thud beside my leg. “I’ve even got some props for you.”
I look down and shriek, jumping to my feet. He threw a couple of dead rabbits at me. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Oh my God!” I yell.
“What, you don’t like rabbit? I thought you might want to take a few more pictures b
efore I turn them into dinner?” His eyes flash at me, disgust tattooed across his face.
“I’m not eating that.” I jump away from them.
“Suit yourself.” He shrugs, tugging off his layers of winter wear. “If you want to starve to death, that’s on you,” he answers nonchalantly.
I grab the pants he lent me earlier and storm off into the bedroom, slamming the door behind me. Tears streak down my cheeks as I hear him chuckle at me in the other room. This storm can’t be over soon enough. I stare out the window at the whiteout conditions. However, I know that in my heart, the storm inside is just beginning.
11
Sawyer
She’s been in that room all day. I look at the closed door as I whisk the gravy I’ve whipped up with a fork. I’m pretty sure I made her cry earlier.
Not that she didn’t deserve it. We’re stuck in the storm of the century out here and she’s trying to take selfies while I’m out scrounging for food? It’s ridiculous. She sums up everything that’s wrong with the fucking world right now. I drop the fork against the side of the pot with a clatter, splashing some boiling gravy onto my hand.
“Fuck!” I yell angrily, pulling my hand up. I quickly stick my burned flesh into one of the many containers of snow I’ve gathered on the counters and stare out the window with my jaw clenched tight. What a careless mistake. I look down at the red patch growing over my skin despite the ice fighting to keep it contained.
What is it about her that gets me so worked up? I don’t have to think about it very hard. I know the answer. I know why her obsession with social media burrows under my skin like a tick and bleeds me dry of my sympathy for her.
She’s not the one you’re mad at.
I know that. I’m not an idiot.
She didn’t mortify you on television. She didn’t reduce you to nothing more than an Internet punch line. It isn’t her fault.
I gaze out into the bleak, snowy night and try to push away the shadows creeping across my mind. No good comes from reliving that shit. No good comes from remembering any of it.
“Hey, are you okay?”
I spin around too quickly, still angry about my burning hand, and frown at the owner of the soft voice cutting into my thoughts.
She looks like a vision. Now, most of her makeup that she had caked on has either worn off or been washed away. Her big, blue eyes meet mine and I can’t help but notice how supple her skin is. I want to run my hands over her. To feel her beautiful long hair tangled around in them. To squeeze her plump ass that she loves so much.
My hand.
I look down at my angry skin, then up at Elsie. I can tell she’s one of those girls who, for whatever reason, can’t see her own beauty. That must be why she needs all the makeup and all the pictures and all the Internet fame. I wish she could see herself right now through my eyes. How the setting sun radiates off her skin. How her locks shimmer around her face like a sunset reflecting off a Hawaiian shoreline. She’s not even trying, and she looks like a fantasy that no amount of photo manipulation could replicate.
“Yeah, I just burned my hand,” I admit.
“Oh, no. Is it bad?” She closes the small square footage between us and grabs my arm, lifting my hand toward her face. My palm looks abnormally large next to her delicate features. It’s rough and calloused from chopping wood and working the land. It looks like a monster’s paw next to her natural beauty.
“It’s fine.” I pull away from her. “I don’t need a nurse,” I answer gruffly. Too gruffly. I don’t mean to hurt her feelings, but I can see from the pain that flashes over her eyes that I have. I instantly regret my words. All of them. The ones I just spouted off and the ones I angrily mocked her with before.
I take a deep breath. Stop taking it out on her. The thought tugs at my conscience. “Thank you for trying to help, though. I appreciate it.” I force myself to sound less like a snarling bear caught in a trap and more like a normal person.
“No problem. The food smells good.” She looks up at me, like her words are an olive branch and she’s waiting to see if I’ll take it.
“Thanks.” I smile down at her. “I’m, well, I’m sorry I threw the meat at you earlier. That wasn’t right. I made us a nice supper, though. Braised rabbit with mashed potatoes and gravy.” I point to the massive mess of pots I’ve managed to collect on the stove. I’ve never claimed to be a clean cook. A good cook, absolutely. But with my culinary skills always comes the trade-off of a very messy kitchen.
“The potatoes aren’t great, they’re from a box I found in one of the cupboards,” I continue, “but the gravy should more than make up for it. I couldn’t believe how many spices they have up here. Almost everything you could imagine. I mean, within reason. It’s not stocked with saffron or anything, but still…” I ramble. I forgot how much I enjoyed cooking with a wide variety of spices. At my family’s restaurant, we had every seasoning you could imagine. Even the rare and expensive ones.
“What?” I look down at her biting her lip and peering over at the stove full of food behind me. “What’s wrong?”
“Uh, so you really did cook the rabbit?” She looks up at me with her eyebrows arched up in the center.
“Of course, I did. What else would I do with them? Make slippers out of them? Why?” My jaw juts forward and my teeth set back on edge.
Elsie shakes her head and her hair bounces around on her shoulders as she looks at the floor.
“What’s going on?” I push her.
“I can’t eat a bunny. I can’t do it,” she whispers and flickers her eyes up to meet mine.
“Are you fucking kidding me? You haven’t even tried it. It’s delicious.” I squint at her. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“I am, I just, I don’t think I can do it. I don’t know, I had a rabbit as a pet at one of the homes I lived at for a while and I’d feel bad to eat one.”
“Well, it’s not like I stole some kid’s floppy-eared fucking pet. These are wild hares. It’s not the same.” I try to keep my voice even despite my temper flaring up. I spent all day either hunting for this food or cooking it and now she’s going to turn her prissy little nose up at it?
Beep-bop-beep-beep!
Elsie and I both look over at the radio I have resting on the counter and I cock my head and listen.
“This is an extreme weather warning for the entire Anchorage region. The icy nor’easter continues to decimate most of Alaska. Millions are without power as lines are downed from the weight of the snow. There is no end in sight for this treacherous weather and authorities are advising to stay indoors.”
As the radio goes back to speaking in Morse code, Elsie looks at me suspiciously. “Where did that come from?” She nods at the red, crank radio.
“I brought it. Sometimes, when people head off on adventures in the woods, they actually prepare for it.” I talk to her slowly, like she’s incapable of understanding the basics of life. Maybe she is.
“See?” I pick it up and hold it in front of her face with mock enthusiasm. “When you crank this magic lever here, you can either use the radio or, prepare to be amazed”—I sneer at her—“when you push this button here”—I flick the switch—“it’s even a flashlight.”
“You don’t have to be such a dick all the time!” She sticks out her bottom lip and storms over to the fireplace.
“Yeah, well, what kind of dick are you? I’ve spent all day trying to get you something to eat and you won’t even try it!” I roar, my anger finally getting the best of me.
“Oh yeah, well, what kind of guy spends all his time trying to make some woman he doesn’t even know feel bad about herself?” She trembles as she yells back, clearly not as used to the anger welling up inside her.
The radio cuts back in before she has a chance to say anything else.
“Due to hazardous weather conditions the search party for Elsie Young has been postponed today. Search and rescue crew aren’t happy to report that this delay is necessary for the safety of their staff. W
ith each hour that goes by, it is less likely that the social media darling can survive these extreme conditions.”
Elsie crosses the floor and flicks the switch, muting the man predicting her demise.
I breathe her in. That sultry scent of summer strawberries ignites my soul and I close my eyes to imagine the two of us naked on a lazy July day, spending the entire afternoon fucking and picking berries.
“Listen.” I reel my tone back in. You attract more flies with honey, right? “It sounds like you’re going to be stuck here for a while. Who knows how long this is going to take to blow over. You have my word that once the weather cooperates, I’ll take you back to Alyeska, okay? But in the meantime, you’ve got to eat. You look like if you miss three meals you’ll die of starvation. Please, give supper a try.” I point back at the sprawling mess of pots on the stove.
“I think I’m just going to go to bed,” she answers, defeated and disgusted. As if I offered her cockroach stew or something.
Elsie makes her way back to the room she’s been hiding out in all day. Her shoulders are slumped forward and her head is hanging.
“Fine! Go to bed hungry. I don’t care. Maybe you’ll get a gourmet dinner in your dreams!” I growl angrily. “Don’t come out here in a few hours and try to eat this because I won’t be sharing it with you!
She slams the door shut for the second time today and I’m left staring at the same empty space I’ve been occupying all afternoon.
So much for playing nice. Or for having some company to eat with for once. Or for controlling my temper.
All in all, I’d say it was a huge failure.
12
Elsie
I’m cold, so cold. I look down and I’m barefoot, walking down the hall of my childhood home in my nightie. It’s threadbare, and I outgrew it a year ago. The arms stop midway between my elbows and my wrists, but I don’t care. It’s my favorite. It has the most beautiful picture of my favorite princess on it. Belle. Sometimes, I like to pretend I’m Belle. That I’m locked inside a huge stone castle and that my worn paperbacks and library books are like the leather-bound books she got to read. I like to imagine that my empty bedroom is that beautiful library she went to in the movie.