For the first time since she got stuck in the cabin, she didn’t wonder where she was when she awoke. It felt almost normal now, being cuddled up in the bed with the flames still licking away at the glass from King’s stoking the night before.

As Effie stretched overhead, the morning sunlight that poured into the bedroom got suddenly brighter.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “The lights. The lights!”

She didn’t know where King was, but she raced down the hall in search of him. “The lights—”

“I know,” he said as he flipped one of the Keurig cups into the machine. “The electricity is back. We finally get some decent coffee that I don’t have to make stovetop.”

There was an edge in his voice, and she suddenly remembered. The game the night before. How close they’d come to something happening.

She needed to make up an excuse, pronto.

“My phone,” she said. “I… I didn’t want to keep it on and drain the battery.”

“So, go,” he said curtly. He glued his eyes to the counter as he scrubbed mercilessly at an invisible spot.

What’s his problem? she wondered as she raced down the hall. It took her phone a minute to boot up after being dead.

“Looks like the snow’s abated quite a bit!” King called from the kitchen. “I’m guessing we can get out of here tomorrow at the latest. Thank Christ.”

Her heart sank a little. She’d started to develop a pretty intense case of cabin fever, but there was a part of her that would miss this. They’d fallen so neatly into their little routine. Sexually charged, of course, but it felt almost normal.

When her phone flickered to life, she gulped at the sight of all the missed calls from the vet clinic. It looked like her voicemail was piling up, too.

Shit. I never even called in to work, she thought. How many days was it now?

She couldn’t remember exactly.

Effie ignored the messages from her mom, Thorne and Renee and scrolled to the clinic’s number. Maybe her mom was right, at least with some things. She needed to take some responsibility, and it started with her job.

“Paws-itive Veterinary Clinic, how can I help you?” chirped the young receptionist. They all sounded the same. Effie could never tell who was who.

“It’s me, Effie,” she said. “Is Dr. Yung—”

“Effie? Oh, my god! We thought you died or something. Dr. Yung is pissed.”

“What… what did she say?”

“All kinds of stuff.”

“Well… can I talk to her?”

“I wouldn’t want to, but hold on. I’ll call her up here.”

Effie could feel her pulse race as she listened to the maddening elevator music.

Maybe Dr. Yung got called away on an emergency case. Maybe she’s not actually there at all. Maybe—

“Effie?” She couldn’t gauge anything from the voice. Dr. Yung sounded professional as always.

“Dr. Yung—”

“Where on earth have you been? Are you alright? You didn’t call in, we were worried about you. Dawn had to cover your shifts. All of them.”

“I’m alright, I just—”

“If you’re alright, there’s no excuse.”

“Excuse me?”

Dr. Yung sighed heavily into the phone. “You millennials, I should have known better. I should have hired the retiree coming back to work, but no, I took a chance on you. And look where that got me.”

“Dr. Yung, I’m really sorry, I—I found out my fiancé was cheating on me, and—”

“And what? You think you’re the only girl who’s ever had a breakup? You couldn’t even be bothered to call in sick, at least put a little effort into faking it?”

“I’m sorry?” Effie asked. She realized how immature and selfish it sounded.

Shit.

“Are you asking me? Because if you are, I disagree. I don’t think you are sorry. Not sorry about leaving everyone here hanging, including the patients. You are sorry about the situation you’re in right now. That’s the problem with your generation, it’s all instant gratification and then you’re shocked when the world doesn’t serve you a silver platter.”

“I’m calling now,” Effie said miserably. She knew she made it worse.

“Oh, well thank you! Let me do you a favor in return. Since you love taking sudden extended vacations, consider yourself on permanent holiday.”

“You mean—”

“You’re fired, Effie. I already have a replacement lined up. I was just going to give you the end of the week, just in case. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.”

“But if you fire me… wait, can we work something else out? If I could be laid off—”

“You think you’re in the position to be asking favors of me? I know what you’re thinking. If you’re laid off, you can get unemployment. And then what? Skate by on that, milking the system until it dries up? No, I’m not doing that because you’re not laid off. You’re fired.”

Effie felt the hot tears that pricked at her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“That’s not good enough. I’ll have Dawn mail you your things.”

Dr. Yung slammed down the phone.

That was the thing about landlines. They could really make a statement. She tried to gulp down the sadness, but there was no more holding it in.

Effie let out an animal keen as she sank to the floor. She heard King’s angry cleaning in the kitchen stop briefly before he was back at it.

There’s no way I’ll make ends meet without a job. Not that it would have done much anyway—not with Thorne holding my whole freaking family hostage.

She sobbed heavily as she crawled into the great room. The little white rabbit was curled up in the corner of the boot box. It looked up at her with bright eyes, equal weight on all its limbs.

At least one of us is okay, she thought.

Effie gingerly picked up the rabbit and cradled him to her chest.

I have no job, no fiancé, and an ex who’s hell bent on ruining my life. What did I do to deserve this?

But she knew, even as the rabbit sniffed at her palm with its velvet nose. Sometimes it takes karma awhile to come back around. This was payback for what she’d done. For what she and Thorne had done together.

Was it worth it? she could almost hear her mother asking.

Effie tried to think of how much was in her checking account. She knew there was nothing in savings. Around eight hundred dollars.

That wasn’t even enough to make the full mortgage payment, and it was what, the twenty-fourth? There’s no way she could come up with the payment in time.

Effie heaved and rocked as the tears kept falling. Somehow, the rabbit wasn’t afraid. It pressed into her palm, happy for the heat.

She didn’t know how long she was there, splayed out on the floor, but eventually King made his way into the room with a Swiffer in hand. He pretended to ignore her, and she went along with it.

I’m sure I look like a frigging monster, she thought.

Effie could tell her eyes were already puffy and red.

She did her best to hold in the tears, at least until he finished his maddening cleaning. When King moved to the coffee table to wipe it down and straighten it up, he was just an arm’s reach away.

“Jesus, what’s wrong?” he finally asked, though he didn’t look at her.

“I… I just got fired,” she whispered as she stroked the bunny’s soft back.

“Well, what did you expect? Did you even tell your boss you weren’t coming in?”

“No,” she admitted. “I mean, with the snow, the storm, I just… I didn’t realize…”

“You do know it’s not snowing like this in the city, right? For everyone else, it’s just been a normal week. And who gives a damn if you got fired? Get another job.”

“Yeah, like that’s so easy! Or maybe it is for you, I don’t know. Sorry I don’t have a ‘family business’ to run to.”

She clamped her mouth shut as King grew still. It was a low blow, and she knew it.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said carefully. “But I didn’t start with the family business because I needed money. Besides, you’re fine. You’ll get another job, easy.”

“Yeah, well, not in time to pay the bills this month. And it’s not just a job, anyway. It was the perfect hours—”

“Perfect hours are a luxury, Effie. Get over it. What, you think you might hit rush hour during your commute now?”

“The perfect hours to take care of my grandmother!” she snapped. “I could take an extended lunch hour and work later to do her mid-day tasks. I could choose flexible hours a week in advance to work around her appointments. I could—”

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry. I didn’t realize,” he said.

His guilty look softened her. It wasn’t his fault, anyway.

You shouldn’t be dumping all your crap on him, she thought.

“No, I’m sorry. I’m the one who should apologize. This isn’t your mess, you didn’t ask to be stuck here with a crazy, dramatic girl.”

She almost said “ex,” but bit her tongue just in time to keep that drama out of the equation.

“No problem,” he said with a shrug.

She knew he meant it. It’s one of the things she always loved about him, how he could forgive so quickly and genuinely. Effie was used to dragging out grudges forever. It was an unfortunate habit she got from her mom.

But on the flip side, just because King could forgive didn’t mean he’d forget. She’d made that mistake once before, in high school.

When Effie had been sloppy and didn’t put the emergency brake on his car when he was teaching her to drive stick, he sent her a photo the next day of it smashed into the mailbox at the bottom of the hill. She’d called immediately, begging forgiveness, and he’d given it immediately.

However, that afternoon when he didn’t give her the keys, she asked, “Aren’t I driving?”

“Not after you let my car roll into the mailbox. You could have killed someone.”

“But you said you forgave me!”

“I did, I do. But that doesn’t mean you get to drive my car again.”

At the time, Effie crossed her arms in a huff. Now, she somewhat understood.

Effie carefully put the rabbit back in the box and pulled herself onto the couch. King rubbed diligently at a scratch she couldn’t see on the coffee table.

“I just don’t know what I’m going to do,” she moaned. Effie let her head drop into her hands. “Even if I got a new job right away, I wouldn’t get my first paycheck for maybe a month. I could donate plasma, I guess. I did that in college one summer. See what I have to sell—”

“Effie, is there anything you can do about this situation right now?” King asked. He stopped his cleaning and looked at her.

“Well, no,” she admitted softly.

“Then what’s the point in worrying about it right now?”

That’s easy for you to say.

Effie looked towards the window and started making an inventory of items of value in her head. She didn’t even know if she had anything worth a hundred dollars. She could sell the car, but needed something the right size and reliable to take Yaya around.

King began to stream one of his classical playlists and made his way into the kitchen. She heard the sizzle of oil in a pan and a scent that made her mouth start to water. Faintly, she thought she could hear him whistle along to the sonata.

What would it have been like, had things gone differently?

The scene she was in the middle of, the one where she felt like a crasher, could have really been hers. Maybe listening to classical music while King busied himself in the kitchen would have been an everyday event.

All you had to do was say yes all those years ago. But she couldn’t undo the past. You’ll never know, she thought.

The idea hit her hard and tugged her down into a deeper sadness than she’d ever known.

“Hungry for an early dinner?” King asked as he popped his head into the great room. “The deep freezer outside stayed cold enough to keep the prime cuts in good shape.”

“Sure,” she said.

She could tell throughout the dinner that King was trying to be normal, but she didn’t have it in her.

“Is it okay?” he asked.

Effie widened her eyes, mouth full of pork tenderloin in a decadent bourbon sauce.

“It’s amazing,” she said.

King probed a bit more, but the whole of the day had exhausted her.

“Sorry, no dessert,” King said. “I’m not much of a baker. But I found Oreos in the pantry. They never go bad, right?”

In silence they each took a handful of cookies. The overt sweetness shocked her tongue. It had been too long since she’d let herself indulge like that.

“I think it’s time to release the bunny,” she said as she polished off the last cookie.

“Tonight? He’s all better?”

“Yeah. He’s ready to go.”

Together, she bundled up in jackets and she stuffed her feet back into his mom’s boots. King carried the box to the outskirts of the woods that flanked the cabin. When they put the box into the snow and opened the lid, the rabbit peered around in wonder.

“It’s okay,” she urged. “You’ll be okay.” Effie put out a handful of chopped veggies against the base of the trunk.

“Just in case,” she told King. “Just giving him a leg up.”

As they walked back towards the cabin, she felt that familiar lump in her throat. She wanted to cry for it all. For the rabbit, for her life, for not having King. She felt him take her hand, their thick gloves providing a hearty buffer. It almost broke her heart entirely.

Effie stomped her feet in the mud room and kicked off the boots. She saw King pick them up and line them against the wall as she shook off her coat.

“Want to play cards?” she asked. “It might be the last night.”

“Sure,” he said.

“And I get to pick the music.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve listened to classic all day. Go get a bottle of wine. I’ll put on my playlist.”

She heard King pop the cork in the kitchen as she scrolled through her music to the Supremes list. Effie pressed shuffle, and “Someday We’ll Be Together” began to flow through the room as King appeared with two full glasses of wine.

“What are we playing?” he asked.

“You choose.”

“Texas Hold’em.”

They huddled against the fire even though the electric heat had warmed the entire cabin. As Effie sipped the wine, she felt a lightness in her bones.

“I can’t believe it’s back to reality tomorrow,” she said. “Or kind of reality, I guess.”

“For you, maybe,” King shrugged. “I might stay awhile longer.”

“How nice it must be,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “To be the heir of the new American Kennedys.”

“Right,” King said with a laugh. “Unfortunately, I think there are too many Smiths for it to ever be a name with much influence.”

“It’s alright. Your parents gave you a unique name to make up for it.”

“You’re one to talk,” he said pointedly.

“Hey! Effie is a totally normal name in Greece.”

“We’re not in Greece.”

“We’re not!?” she asked and gestured to the blankets of snow outside. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

King laughed as he won the hand and gathered the cards to shuffle. That smile, those full lips, it all made her feel like she was eighteen again. On a whim, emboldened with wine, Effie leaned forward and kissed him. He didn’t reciprocate—but he didn’t pull away, either.

She bit her lip. It was now or never with him, because they were leaving in the morning.

“Just once? For the road?” she whispered.

She looked at him and held her breath.