Chapter Fourteen
Natalie
"This color would look nice on you. What do you think of this?" Kasey asked me, holding out a lipstick.
"I think it's over thirty dollars. I'm not spending that on a single lipstick," I said, taking it from her and putting it back on the display. Kasey had had makeup returns to make, and we had gotten distracted wandering out of the store. Makeup was one of those things you didn't know you didn't need until you had too much of it. I had only started wearing the stuff after leaving for college, so I liked to think I was making up for lost time.
"You should splurge," she said. "What else are you spending the money on?"
"You want to get it for me, go right ahead," I said.
"What's the matter with you?" she asked, looking up at me from an eye-shadow display. "You've been grumpy all morning.”
"I'm not grumpy," I grumbled.
"What happened yesterday?" she asked. I shrugged as we wandered the store. We had met for breakfast earlier, and both had the rest of the morning before Kasey had to go into the salon for her first appointment. "You said you'd tell me how your little visit to your boyfriend's new house went."
"He isn't my boyfriend," I said, rolling my eyes.
"So, not good?" she asked.
"Stop," I said, picking up a mascara then putting it back down. I wasn’t here to get anything. Most mascara was a scam anyway. There was only one way to get longer lashes, and that was eyelash extensions. Mascara wasn’t the problem here. I was irritated. Had been since having to drive three hours back home from seeing Cameron the day before. "It was... He was fine. He was just there. The cabin's nice. It's beautiful up there. It was cold, but he seemed fine. He was alright."
"Why are you saying all this like it's a bad thing?"
"I don't know how to feel about any of it. He's doing okay, I guess, but he's never done any of that shit before. He's never lived that far away from emergency services and resources. I went up there to talk to him about what was happening at work, but I choked. I couldn't do it."
"So he doesn't know his company is crumbling?" she asked. Crumbling was a strong word, but it wasn't exactly thriving at the moment.
"Everything that happened at the last meeting with the stockholders, I just couldn't say it."
"Why?"
"Because he finally seemed peaceful, Kase. Something about him was different. He seemed happier. I feel like he needed this.”
“Whether he needed it or not, don’t you guys need him?”
“I know. I wish I wasn’t the one who had to break this to him. When I was there with him, I just couldn’t say anything. I didn’t want to be another person in his life forcing him into something he doesn’t want to do.”
“Are you serious? You went all that way and then talked about what? The weather?” she asked. She was being sarcastic but had hit the nail right on the head.
“We just talked. I told him about the storm that’s supposed to blow in from the mountains. Offered to take him into town to stock up because the snow’s going to be at least a couple feet deep. He might be trying to prove something, but dying during a snowstorm isn’t how he’s going to do it.”
“Snowstorm? And he’s alone up there?” she asked.
“Alone and determined he can take it.”
“He might not want to come back to Salt Lake, but he’s gotta be a lot more useful to you alive than he could ever be dead.”
“Well, tell him that,” I said, looking listlessly at a makeup display. I had been thinking about him a lot since I had been to his cabin the day before. The storm was scheduled to blow through the mountains today. He didn’t have his phone with him, or any phone with him, so he was fucking unreachable unless I wanted to make that damn drive again.
"Nat," Kasey said, "could he die up there alone?"
"It wouldn’t be hard," I scoffed. “He has all the ingredients for disaster.” Isolation. Limited access to resources and emergency services, and foolhardy stubbornness. He was looking at at least severe bodily injury, if not death.
"And you're just going to leave him?"
"I don't know why you think I have control over what he does; I clearly don't," I said. But I have control over what I do, I realized. I couldn't make him listen to me. He didn't have to listen to me when I told him he had to prepare for a storm, but he couldn't stop me from going back up there. "Kase?" I asked her suddenly.
"What?" I had an idea, and it was her fault. I hoped she wasn't going to abandon me because I wouldn't be able to do it alone. I told her. Technically, I couldn't make Cameron take care of himself. If he had decided his week of wilderness living meant he knew his shit, then I'd just have to step in where his good sense had failed him.
My car wasn't that big, and the number of things I believed he'd need in general might have been too long to get up there on this one trip. We started with a few emergency items: candles, a lighter, matches and a flashlight with batteries in case of a power outage. His cabin seemed to have electricity, but I wasn't sure whether his lights were solar powered, gas, or whether he was attached to the grid. We had lived pretty remotely on the ranch growing up, but we had always had electricity. We hadn't been total savages.
Unless a week had been long enough for him to have learned to hunt, he needed food. I got a mix of fresh and non-perishable food to be safe. If he didn't like canned corned beef, he was about to start. He had a fireplace, and the cabin had been pretty toasty when we had gone inside, but I remembered winters back home when we'd do everything short of setting the house on fire to heat it up. I took a chance and got an electric heater, hoping I was right that he'd be able to use it.
I picked up some kitchen and general items like paper towels and aluminum foil, even some extra blankets. Kasey helped but hadn't had that many ideas on what he'd need. The closest she had gotten to wilderness living in the past was dating a guy who liked to hike. Finally satisfied with the haul and running out of time before Kasey had to be at her salon, I dropped her off before I started for the mountains.
"Are you heading out there now? What time is the storm coming through?" she asked, talking to me through the open window of my car where we were in front of her salon.
"Afternoon, hopefully later than earlier," I said.
"Are you going to be able to make it back?"
"Maybe," I said. I hadn’t really thought about how I would be getting back. I had mostly been thinking about getting there first.
"Natalie, this is serious. You won't be able to drive through that."
"If worst comes to worst, I'll get a hotel or something," I said distractedly. "I just need to get up there."
"Just be careful," she said. I nodded. I had my phone and had splurged on a satellite phone too, just in case of any emergencies. It was the most expensive purchase of the haul, and I cursed Cameron silently for not bothering to get one himself. I left, and taking my own hasty advice, stopped at a store and got a stock of clothes and toiletries in case I really did end up having to stop at a hotel.
I drove as fast as I dared because the snow was already falling by the time I turned off the paved road to the all-weather mountain trail. The sky was obscured by clouds. It was windy, just how windy I didn't want to check. Kasey had been right. If the snow only got heavier, I wouldn't be making it back down. I concentrated on just making it up. You know what you should have gotten? I thought darkly. A snowmobile. No, what was I thinking? He should have gotten one. He should have done some fucking research and chosen a better time of year to abandon the comforts he had never had to live without. What kind of fool...
I stopped because it was no use. Concentrating on staying on the road, I finally got to his cabin. The trip that had taken me under three hours the first time had taken over four. The property was already covered in snow. The tarp over his car was completely carpeted. The wind whistled violently when I opened my door. I had dressed for winter that morning, but not winter in the mountains. My open coat whipped around me as I went over to the trunk and opened it to get the things out.
I grabbed a bag full of food and hurried to the porch, rushing up and sitting it on the highest step so it didn't get covered in snow before going back for another one. My second trip, I heard the door unlock as I came up the steps. Cameron came out looking confused. See, now, nobody would come out of their cabin emptyhanded like that if they heard a commotion outside. Maybe it was just your coworker, but maybe it was a bear. He was so green. It had only been a week that he had been out here, but it showed. How had he not broken his leg trying to get across a snowbank yet?
"Natalie?" he said, coming up to me.
"There's more in the car," I said shortly, walking back for more. He followed me.
"What is all this stuff?"
"It's for you," I said, hauling another bag out of the car. He helped me, grabbing the last bag and the heater and taking them up. I locked my car and hurried up to the porch.
"Did Brett ask you to do this?" he asked when we were both up on the porch. I was panting. My breath formed clouds in front of my face. I jammed my hands in my pockets.
"No. I just had a feeling you weren't going to listen to me, so I had to do something about it." He looked at the stuff on the ground.
"So, all this..."
"You should have gotten yesterday when I told you to get it," I said. I reached down for one of the bags, picking it up.
"Natalie, listen. I appreciate you coming here. I didn't know you'd be back."
"You didn't think I'd let you just die out here, did you? I told your dad I'd be there to help you out when you needed me. Leaving you out here through a storm with nothing wasn't going to work." I walked into the cabin, grateful for the warmth, and plopped the bag down on the floor in the kitchen. He followed me inside with one in each arm.
"To be fair, if I had thought I needed anything, I would have driven out myself and gotten it."
"Then why didn't you?" I asked, heading back outside for the last of the items.
"I know you're trying to help, but if I needed it, I would have asked, Natalie."
"No you wouldn't," I said, looking at him. "All you've done since the accident is retreat. You went as far as moving to a new house to the middle of nowhere. If you could get to the moon, you'd probably do it. By now, I would have hoped that you realized there are people who care about you, Cameron, who'd rather you didn't starve to death alone in the mountains."
"You're one of them?"
"I take it personally when people refuse my good advice."
"If you had taken mine, you wouldn't be stuck out here with me," he said matter-of-factly. I looked out at the snow, now covering my car along with everything else.
"If you had taken any, you would have stayed in Salt Lake City." He stared at me. I couldn't make out any emotion on his face, but knew he wasn't pleased with me. This had been a bad idea. I was sure of that now. I had made it up to the cabin, but clearly, Cameron had wanted a houseguest about as much as I wanted a pelvic exam. Oh well.
"Did you take long to get here?" he asked suddenly. I looked over my shoulder to where he was in the kitchen. He was rifling through the bags, looking at the different stuff I had gotten.
"Longer than the first time. The snow slowed me down." I stood and walked to the kitchen and started helping him, taking food out of the bags and setting it on the counter.
"I still don't know why you did it."
"A simple thank you would suffice," I said, looking at him.
He smirked, then laughed a little. "Alright. Thank you. I should have listened to you."
"You should have done a lot of things, but that's a good place to start." I paused, looking down at the counter. "I told your dad I would help you. I told Brett too. This wasn't the kind of help I expected to give you, but it was what you needed."
"Thanks," he said again. "I... it's been harder living out here than I expected." Finally, he admits it. The darkness losing his parents had given him was probably starting to lighten up a bit. If not, it had just taken a backseat to the more immediate issues he had living in the middle of nowhere, like not dying, for instance. I still didn’t think it had been a good move, but I couldn’t deny that he seemed somewhat better for it. I hadn’t known him well to begin with, so maybe that was giving him a lot, but he couldn’t have been prepared for the accident. I couldn’t say I would have reacted that much differently.
I maybe owed him some props for lasting the week that he did during winter. He was no mountain man yet, but a few more winters and he could be. He had always been clean shaven at the office, and the scruff he sported now wasn’t a bad look. He looked great in a suit, but anyone seeing him now for the first time wouldn’t imagine he belonged anywhere else.
"I thought that would be the case."
"You got a lot of stuff. I should pay you back for it."
"Don't. I'm stuck here too. I'll get as much use out of it as you do."
"No, I roped you into this," he insisted. I stopped arguing with him remembering how much the satellite phone had cost. We put away the rest of the food in companionable silence. He was connected to the electricity, so he'd be able to use the heater, and he hadn't eaten corned beef before but was willing to try something new.
"Are you hungry?" he asked when we were done. "I don't usually eat this early, but you must be hungry." I was. The last thing I had eaten had been breakfast with Kasey.
"Do you need help?" I asked.
"No. I'll take care of it. Just keep the fire going," he said. I went over to the fireplace, opened the stove carefully, and fed it another thick log. I loved the smell of wood burning fires, something I didn't get anymore but had defined a lot of my childhood. This situation was as similar to my childhood as it wasn't. The snow was the same. So was the fire and the isolation outside, but the beautiful man making dinner—that was new. Cameron and I had been forced into a hasty friendship over the past few weeks. The next few days would be...interesting.