Erin, to the displeasure of her family and now her best friend Alicia, never liked the beach. Even as a child, she had always been a mountain person. To arrive at a compromise with Alicia, they picked a cabin at the foot of a valley, beside a lake, as their vacation spot. Not that Alicia accepted it as much of a compromise.
They were sitting in rocking chairs on the balcony of the cabin with a view of the mossy green, serenely quiet lake before them.
“Isn’t this charming?” Erin asked and took a sip from the steaming mug of hot chocolate she had been cradling in her hands. She saw Alicia roll her eyes. “What? What now?” Erin asked, shaking her head.
“Where are the waves? The half-naked chiseled men showing off their torsos? The frozen margaritas and the sunscreen lotion? This is for middle-aged people, Erin!” Alicia drained her own hot chocolate into her mouth and sighed. Erin couldn’t help but smile, her best friend had always had a knack for drama.
“You haven’t even given it a chance yet, Alicia. We’ve been here exactly what? Ten hours? And you’re making it sound like we’ve been stuck here forever. Besides, I’m nursing a broken heart and should be made to feel warm and comforted.” Erin pouted her lips. If Alicia knew how to exaggerate her misery, Erin had a few of her own tricks up her sleeves. Alicia sprang up from her chair and lunged towards Erin to give her a tight hug.
“I’m sorry, cutie. Forget I said anything. You’re right, we need to concentrate on you.” She had crouched down beside Erin now and the two girls exchanged smiles.
“I hope you haven’t been going through the messages again, Erin?” Alicia straightened her back, stood up and tightened her wrap around her shoulders. Erin sighed and shook her head.
“No, I haven’t been doing that. I’ve taken the battery out of my phone and hidden it at the bottom of my suitcase.” She watched Alicia make her way back to her rocking chair and settle down.
“How does that help? You’ve not exactly hidden it from yourself if you know where it is.” Alicia reached for Erin’s mug of hot chocolate.
“No, but in my moment of weakness, having to take all my clothes and stuff out of the suitcase to reach the battery will give me enough time to calm myself and change my mind.” Erin allowed the mug to slip out of her hands and rubbed her palms together. If the temperature dropped any further, the caretaker of the lodge promised that the lake would freeze over. Erin secretly wished that would happen. She wanted the lake to freeze, for translucent icicles to drop down and then freeze mid-way from the pine tree leaves around them. She was hoping that the bitter cold would numb her heart and muscles and stop herself from physically aching.
She hadn’t realized when Alicia had reached out and was gently rubbing the side of her arm. She threw her friend a gentle thankful look.
“Thanks for coming, Alicia. I really do appreciate it.” Her voice squeaked as she spoke and she saw how Alicia flinched. Neither of them was accustomed to Erin being the one in need of support and comfort. They had been friends since Kindergarten and Alicia had always been the one to throw a fit, cry over the men in her life. Erin was the stoic one.
“I really hate him. I hate Steve. If I see him I’d ̶ ” Alicia was spitting the words out and Erin interrupted her.
“Forget it. Let’s just not talk about it.”
“But we need to talk about it, Erin. The guy cheated on you, had been cheating on you for several months. You can’t just pretend that you’ll be able to distract yourself from it for the rest of your life.” Alicia was still drinking Erin’s hot chocolate.
“I just don’t want to talk about it now, that’s all.” Erin couldn’t keep the annoyance out of her voice. She knew Alicia was trying to help, was trying to be a friend but she didn’t want to turn into a cranky cry baby.
“This is exactly the reason why you end up going through old messages and emails. Because you’re not venting.” Alicia handed the half empty mug of hot chocolate back to Erin and stood up from her chair.
“Where are you going?” Erin was predicting a dramatic quarrel between the two of them. A day would never be complete if they didn’t go through one of these.
“I’m going to have a long hot bath, drink some wine and then try and persuade Ms. Carter to light the fire. I’m freezing out here.” Alicia was already halfway back into the cabin. She held the door open with her other hand fixed on her hip.
“You coming in?” she asked Erin, but only got a shake of the head in response.
“Just don’t stay out here too long. Come find me soon?” She sighed as she went inside and Erin grinned and drank some of the remaining bits in her mug. Despite their differences and their quarrels, there was nobody else she was more comfortable with than Alicia. In fact, Erin had always believed that if they hadn’t met in Kindergarten and she hadn’t punched a boy in the face when they were six because he was teasing Alicia, they might have never become friends. They were the opposites in school and everybody around them wondered what kept them together. The skinny blonde Cheerleader and the geeky nerd with the braces who always aced every exam, including the surprise ones.
Erin was smiling to herself as she thought about their friendship through the years, subconsciously grateful that she had something else to think about rather than Steve.
“Sorry, is someone sitting here?” Erin was jolted out of her thoughts by the voice of a man she had not noticed had now joined her in the balcony. She looked up to find him hovering over the chair that Alicia had been sitting on, her discarded wrap was still lying on the seat of the chair.
“No, please go ahead. My friend was but she’s gone in now.” Erin spoke too quickly, slightly embarrassed to be caught in the middle of deep thoughts. How long had he been there? Had she been smiling and rocking herself like a fool this whole time?
She watched as he picked up the edge of the wrap with one hooked finger, like it was something that could infect him with a fatal viral disease. He held it away from his body as he walked the short distance with it over to Erin’s side and then gently flung it over the back of her own chair. She wanted to laugh, just the sight of him made her want to burst out laughing.
He was incredibly tall, for starters. Erin wasn’t the tallest girl she knew, but she was certain that this person was at least half a foot taller than Alicia…who was the tallest girl she knew. The lower half of his face was covered in a rough salt-pepper beard and his dark hair was scruffy and brushed back, away from his forehead. Only his temples betrayed a slight smattering of grey. She watched as he quietly settled into the rocking chair, a leather-bound book in his hands. She couldn’t quite tell his age, although he was most certainly older than her. He was in a warm plaid shirt and baggy jeans. If he wasn’t a fellow guest at the cabin, he most definitely was a local carpenter or lumberjack. Her eyes fell on his thick wrists and the way the muscles on his shoulders tensed as he started flipping through the pages of his book. She wondered if he had single- handedly built the cabin himself.
“Are you a guest here?” she asked, interrupting his flipping and he looked up at her with slanted eyes. His dark green eyes contained a flicker of annoyance which silenced her, she immediately decided she would leave him alone.
“Yes,” he replied and went back to reading his book. Erin looked away from him and out towards the lake. She didn’t want to worry about how rude and unfriendly the man was being, she had her own worries to keep at bay. They should have been taking up all her energy.
“How long are you staying here?” his voice was deep and thick. It was almost like his voice boomed as it bounced off the walls of the mountains that surrounded them. She cleared her throat before she spoke. He was glaring at her, although the question from anybody else would have been a friendly innocent one. Coming from him, it made her slightly nervous. She wanted to give him the right answer, although what would be the right answer to bring a smile on his face?
“A fortnight,” she said and only now realized that she had been nervously cracking her fingers. His gaze had fallen on her hands and she stopped doing it. In her mind, she thought that he took awfully long to respond and allowed too much silence to ensue between them.
After a few seconds, he grunted and Erin wasn’t sure what kind of a response that was.
“And yourself?” she asked him but he had gone back to reading his book again.
“A month, maybe longer. I’m undecided,” he said, without looking up at her again. Erin sat back in her chair and began rocking herself gently, for the lack of anything else to do. When the chair creaked after a few minutes of silence, he looked up sharply, as if angered by the sound. Erin stopped rocking. For a second, she felt guilty for disturbing his reading and an instant later she was furious. Why would he make her feel guilty? She was as much a guest at the cabin as he was.
“Ms. Carter must have lit the fire inside by now. It might suit your reading needs better,” she snapped at him and he looked up, their eyes met. She held his gaze, even though her heart continued to pound and she wanted to look away embarrassed. He had a knowing look on his face, she was certain that he knew she was trying to make a jab at his impolite reactions to her presence.
She was surprised when he suddenly smiled. Unrealistically white teeth peeped out from between his thin red lips and the surrounding dark beard.
“I apologize for being this wound up. It’s not easy to force yourself to relax,” he said and shut the book in his hands. He leaned back in his chair and started rocking himself. Erin smiled too. She could feel her cheeks burning up.
“I know what you mean. I’m simply trying to blank out my brain,” she said and looked away. They were both looking towards the lake now in silence.
“So you’re hiding too?” he spoke after a few minutes. Erin thought about how the silence between them had been comfortable, but she welcomed the question, this question in particular from a stranger.
“Not hiding as much as escaping,” she said. She wasn’t looking at him when she answered but she could sense that he was nodding his head.
“What’s the difference though?” he asked and they looked at each other again. Erin was the one to smile and he gave a small laugh.
“You may be right,” she said, “whatever I’m doing, I plan on going back home as a new person after this.” She was still smiling.
“Good luck with that. Believe me, I’ve tried,” he said and to her dismay, opened up his book again and started to read. Erin allowed herself to continue to look at him for a few seconds longer before she forced herself to look away. When she did, from the corner of her eye, she could sense that he had raised his head to look at her. Only for a few seconds.