“Well, you can watch me get hurt all over again, Dr. Bennett, only this time you’re doing the hurting. It’s a real step up for you.”
“Kelsey, don’t do this. Just talk to me.”
“No, I’m not going to do this again. I deserve more. I deserve better. And I . . . I just give up.”
I turned on my heel and swept down the hall, down the stairs, and through the lobby. Sadie called out to me as I passed, but I shook my head and pointed to the back door. My boss nodded, brow furrowed, but only said, “Dinner’s at five, Kelsey.”
I burst through the door, gulping in as much freezing-cold air as I could. I trudged toward the lake, my boots sticking in the diminishing snow with every step. When I finally reached the water’s frozen edge, I let out a scream that probably frightened whatever marine life fluttered underneath the thick ice.
“Sonofabitch!” I yelled. “No good, rotten, lying, cheating, mold-licking scumbag! Twilight fan!”
I fell to my knees in the snow, sucking in a shocked breath as the cold soaked through my jeans. This was sheer stupidity. I was courting hypothermia and ruined pants, but I needed this. I needed to rid my body of all this poisonous rage. I’d held it all in for so long, not just with Charlie, but with Darrell and my mother, just swallowing down their garbage and keeping it, because . . . what? I deserved it? I deserved nothing more? What was so wrong with me?
I was smart. I was capable. I was strong enough to put up with the combined bullshit of two of the most toxic personalities this side of Dr. Phil’s stage. And I was hot, damn it. I’d taken the criticism from said toxic personalities over the years because it didn’t seem worth fighting over. But I had a mirror. I knew what I looked like. Darrell’s excuses about my body were just that, excuses. He couldn’t perform because of his own issues or because he was so busy cheating on me, he couldn’t maintain his stamina. He turned the focus on me to avoid talking about his receding hairline and blossoming waistline.
I deserved better than this.
“You okay?”
I turned to find Luke standing over me, hands outstretched to help me up. I took them and he pulled me out of my snow-crouch. “No. No, I am not.”
Luke hugged me and I pressed my forehead into the welcome warmth found in the crook of his neck. He rubbed his hands over my back, trying to keep me warm as I blinked tears into his jacket. “Didn’t know about her, huh?”
“No, I did not.”
A long silent moment passed and Luke just held me, rubbing his hands over my back, trying to bring me comfort. “I’m more than willing to let you use me for revenge. Just think of my body as a big playground of naked vengeance.”
I gave an indelicate donkey bray of a laugh.
“You’re so weird,” I told him. “And in a perfect world, I would climb you like my own personal monkey bars. But I’ve been in love with Charlie Bennett for years—I mean unrequited, dramatic, epic fangirl love. And he just ripped my heart out and did the safety dance all over the poor little sucker. I can’t start something with someone else right now. You are a fantastic guy, and you deserve somebody who can handle all of this”—I gestured to him—“without all of my baggage.”
He gave me a little squeeze. “Well, if you change your mind, the offer stands.”
“Thanks,” I said, smiling up at him, which was almost a miracle in itself. He leaned close and kissed me, a soft, friendly brushing of the lips against mine. In the distance, I heard the scrape of boots marching through the snow. I opened my eyes to see Charlie standing a few feet behind us, his expression thunderous.
Frak my life.
“I hate to interrupt,” he spat. “But Sadie’s looking for you.”
“Aw, sonofabitch.”
“You really know how to strike a blow, don’t you?” Charlie seethed.
“Go away, Charlie!”
Charlie turned on his heel and walked off with his spine iron straight. But he paused about ten yards away, staring up at the lodge like he was debating going in.
“Sorry about that,” Luke said, seeming honestly mortified.
“At least he didn’t hear me professing my undying love for him. I got to keep what’s left of the shreds of my dignity.”
“I’ll walk you back to the lodge,” Luke said. “You can’t stay out here in the cold like this. As soon as the electricity is back on, we can have food that wasn’t cooked over a fire. And I’ll let you into any of the guest rooms you want, as far away from everybody else as you can get. Before you know it, the roads will be cleared up and you’ll be out of here.”
“Are you trying to placate me? Like I’m a toddler having a tantrum?”
“That depends. Is it working?” he asked, leading the way toward the lodge.
“Sadly, yes.”
“Well, it’s good to know that I can still pick up on some signs,” he said as we pushed through the back door, into the dining room. Through the entrance, I spotted Charlie storming through the lobby and into the guest wings. Gina was smirking at me so hard I thought the expression might become her new bitchy resting face. The rest of the staff were standing around the fireplace, still as statues, mesmerized by such un-Charlie-like behavior. Sadie turned toward us, brows furrowed, and said, “Kelsey, what the heck—”
An insistent mechanical whine interrupted my boss’s perfectly reasonable question. With a steady flicker, the lights surged to life and the dining room was bathed in a harsh electric glow. We all blinked and shaded our eyes with our hands, our now-antiquated vision unaccustomed to newfangled ’lectric lamps.
“Everybody else sees the lights too, right?” Theresa asked, waving her hand in front of her face.
A triumphant roar rippled through the room, and everybody began hugging everyone else. But the others, even Bonnie and Sadie, knew enough to give me a wide berth. I watched as they danced and cheered, half expecting them to burn our chore boards in the fireplace. I wanted to be part of that joy. I wanted everything to rewind to thirty minutes before, when I was in the pillow fort love bubble, blissful and ignorant.
“Okay, okay, okay!” Sadie called over the din. “Everybody calm down. The electricity could go off again, so for now, let’s make some dinner while the kitchen is operational. Luke, can you crank up the thermostat, try to get some heat flowing?”
“Will do,” Luke said, giving me a nod before retreating to the office.
“Dorie Ann, you’re in charge of dinner,” Sadie said. “Something that doesn’t come out of a can, if you can find it.”
“Yes, boss!”
“Gina, just be quiet and try not to cause any problems,” Sadie said, making Gina sneer. She turned to Tom and Jacob. “And you two, your beard-growing contest is a draw. There is no winner in this situation. Go shave, now.”
While everyone else was eating dinner, I moved my stuff into a guest room two floors away from the block of rooms Sadie had reserved. Excepting Bonnie and Sadie, I doubt anyone noticed my defection. They were too busy reveling in warm private rooms and well-lit showers.
For twenty-four hours, I didn’t come out. Not for meals, not for drinks. I didn’t even come down for the morning “Hey, the electricity’s back on, here’s how we behave now that we’ve returned to polite society” meeting. I took multiple long, hot bubble baths. I foraged for food after everybody else went to bed.
I took advantage of my newly charged computer and my cell phone wireless hot spot and caught up on missed e-mails. My mother called repeatedly, until she stopped. Darrell had left increasingly distressed messages. I managed a Skype chat with my boys to assure them that I was whole and healthy, if more than a little depressed.
I didn’t care if it was unprofessional to pull my postmodern Howard Hughes impression. I didn’t care if it was immature. I just needed some time to process and be alone for a little while.
The next morning, I woke up and pried mys
elf out of bed, took extra care with my makeup, and slipped into a flame-red sweater dress that hugged me in all the right places—because screw Charlie, that’s why—then sashayed down to breakfast as if I didn’t have a care in the world.
In my absence, the others had worked some feat of housekeeping magic on the first floor. All signs that we’d spent the better part of two weeks camping out in the dining room had been cleared away. It was all so normal and mundane that I felt a keen sense of depression welling up from my belly. It was like our being snowed in had never happened. It hadn’t meant anything. I snagged a cup of coffee from the buffet and diverted my steps outside onto the porch before anyone noticed me.
I knew I wouldn’t last long outside without a coat, but it was worth the cold to know that I could go back inside to a fully heated, well-lit building. I just needed the air to clear my head, to help me focus.
“Please, God, I know that we haven’t talked a lot lately, but if you can just get me home to Frankfort without having some sort of humiliating Real Housewives outburst, I would really appreciate it,” I murmured into my coffee.
I heard someone clear their throat and turned to find Will sitting back in a rocking chair with his feet propped up on the railing. He had a large buckhorn knife in one hand and a block of wood in the other. It sort of resembled a duck . . . or a turtle. Either one. He looked totally at ease, and for some reason that really pissed me off.
“Are you actually whittling right now?”
Will smirked. “I’ll be honest, I have never done this in my life. Not once. But it was getting sort of noisy inside with everybody’s gadgets back up in order, and I couldn’t think of a way of sayin’ ‘Your coworkers are drivin’ me nuttier than squirrel crap’ to Bonnie without hurtin’ her feelings. So I came out here for a time-out.”
“That is a harsh sentiment.”
“Since nobody wanted me inside flashin’ a big knife around, whittlin’ seemed like the best solution.”
“You’re a lot smarter than people give you credit for, Will McBride.”
“Well, they set the bar pretty low. So what brings you out here to the ‘squirrel crap’ section?”
“Barely contained fits of impotent rage?”
Will gave the little block of wood a particularly vicious swipe with his knife. “Look, hon, I don’t know much about everybody here, but I know enough to see that something’s not right with Charlie. I’m telling you, I’ve seen the way the man looks at you. This is not a guy who wants to cause you pain.”
“Doesn’t really make up for the fact that he did.”
Will’s hand slipped and the little duck-lump lost what looked like an important piece of beak. Maybe it was a turtle now, after all. “I’m going to tell you a story and then I’m going to leave you alone.”
“Does the story involve vampires or werewolves?”
“No.”
“Then my interest has waned.”
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “When I was sixteen, I was dating a girl named Cindy MacKenzie. Now, I was crazy in love with that girl. Long blond hair, big brown doe eyes, a body that—”
“Keep talking and I’m repeating this story to Bonnie.”
Will shrugged. “I was in love with Cindy, but she had this asshole boyfriend named Merle. A real macho football idiot with the whole ugly-drunk-scenes-at-keggers and cheating-with-the-nearest-available-cheerleader package. If any guy so much as looked at Cindy, he’d crush him like a bug. And as much as I wanted Cindy for my own, I convinced myself that she was never going to leave Merle and I might as well get on with my life. So I started dating my friend Jenny Lee. She wasn’t exactly the love of my life, but I liked her a lot. But once we started dating, Cindy dumped Merle.”
“Because she was jealous?”
“I like to think so.”
“And then you broke up with Jenny Lee and started dating Cindy?” I asked, my tone hopeful.
“No, I stayed with Jenny Lee for a few years, until after we graduated from high school and she decided to go away to college.”
“But Cindy ended up with some really nice guy from 4-H?”
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “No, she didn’t date anybody for years, not until graduation, at least.”
“So Cindy ended up alone and you ended up dating someone you had lukewarm feelings for? That’s the saddest freaking story I’ve ever heard.”
“No, no, see, because when Cindy showed up at our ten-year class reunion, she explained the whole thing. She’d liked me for almost as long as I’d liked her. But she didn’t know how I felt and didn’t want to risk pissing off Merle and putting a target on my back if I didn’t feel the same way. Seeing me with someone else was the only thing that convinced her to break up with Merle. She said even if it didn’t work out between us, being alone was better than being with Merle.”
“But that means Merle the hyperaggressive creeper sort of won, since Cindy ended up alone. How is that fair?”
Will shrugged, his face an infuriating mix of impassive and cheerful. “It’s not, really, but it’s still a nice story. Losing her chance with someone she really liked because of Merle was her first big clue that he was not a good person to have in her life. She moved out of Mud Creek as soon as she graduated. Majored in psychology and works as a family counselor. Married a very nice orthodontist and lives in Orlando.”
I frowned at him.
“And Merle?
“Got arrested for trying to have unnatural relations with the water return at the county pool.”
“Augh.”
“There’s a lot of suction.”
“I get it,” I said, shuddering. “So what is the point of this emotionally traumatizing fable?”
“That sometimes, we don’t know what we’re missing until someone shows us. And before you get mad at Charlie, you should think about why you’re so mad at him. We don’t get angry with people who can’t hurt us. And the people we care about? They’re the only ones that can really hurt us. I mean, you’ve called Darrell names and threatened his most delicate manly parts, but even Bonnie said that she’s only seen that little mushroom cloud over your head when it comes to Charlie.”
I frowned, chewing my lip thoughtfully.
“See? Gave you something to think about there, didn’t I?”
“No, not at all.” I shook my head vehemently and pivoted toward the door. I was going right back up to my room. I was wrong. I wasn’t ready to see anyone yet. I wasn’t ready to face my coworkers. I was retreating to my fortress of solitude, and I was taking the bag of Oreos I had snagged from the dining room snack table.
“You know, this is quality wisdom I’m droppin’ out here,” Will called after me. “People in Mud Creek appreciate my stories!”
11
In Which Closet Karma Bites Me on the Ass
After an afternoon catching up on office-related e-mails and voice mail, I decided to come down from my tree house of seclusion and join the others for dinner. Not because of Will’s disturbing anecdote, but because the Oreos could only hold me for so long. Also, because screw Charlie, that’s why.
I thought about Will’s twisted backwoods love story while wrapping up my self-exile. What exactly was I supposed to take away from this tale of woe? Was I supposed to feel bad for Charlie/Will for having waited so long for the clueless girl they loved? Was I supposed to understand why they each moved on? Mostly, I felt sorry for Cindy, the girl who got left behind . . . and whoever had to pry Merle loose from the pool filter.
When I came down to the dining room, Charlie was sitting at one of the largest tables with a freshly shaved Tom and Jacob. All three of them looked absolutely miserable.
Good; Charlie had it coming.
And Jacob and Tom had been too attached to their facial hair anyway.
The cooking crew had produced a lovely meal of spaghe
tti and garlic bread, which I planned to avoid, because it’s difficult to be all badass and unattainable if you have vampire-repellent breath. Luke was helping Theresa distribute the plates when he saw me walking through the door.
“Hey!” he exclaimed. “There she is! You feeling better, Kelsey?”
Charlie’s head popped up at the mention of my name. I walked past him, putting an extra bit of swivel in my hips and looking through him as if he and his stupid soft lips didn’t exist.
“How are you doing? Sadie said you were taking it easy on account of a migraine,” Luke said, giving Charlie a pointed look.
“Oh, I just needed a little rest and quiet, that’s all.” I bestowed my best million-watt smile on Luke and accepted a plate of pasta.
He winked at me and sent an even more pointed look toward Charlie. “Save me a seat?”
I kicked the smile up a notch. “Of course.”
Charlie was staring holes through me as I walked past and sat with my back to him. Luke sat with me, asking me all sorts of questions about my day in “exile” and making me laugh with stories about the more colorful guests at the lodge. I stopped glancing over my shoulder at Charlie and concentrated on Luke and his above-par conversational skills. I had definitely learned my lesson. I was not ready to date or do anything similar to dating. But I could enjoy a pleasant dinner with a delicious piece of man-candy who just happened to be an intelligent, capable sweetheart of a person. There was no harm in that.
Sadie had organized a final death-match Scrabble tournament to decide spelling superiority before we headed back home. Thanks to my ranking from previous matches, I was pitted against Charlie, Bonnie, and Dorie Ann. I refused to make eye contact with Charlie, who was staring at me with those stupid, lost, beautiful green eyes. I just couldn’t bring myself to look at him.