Authors: Ever McCormick
Or not. I sat up a few minutes later when I felt a breeze and remembered I'd left the front door open. I went back out to the porch. The sun had dipped even lower, and I could really see the view from the cabin, a bright watercolor of purples and pinks. It made me want to grab my journal, sit on the porch, and write about it.
After rifling through my bag for what I wanted, I sat in one of the Adirondack chairs and cracked open my brand new journal, but I was too distracted by the view. I shifted my gaze between the sunset and the artwork that decorated the front of the cabin. Mosaics hung around the door and window, and on closer inspection I noticed they were made up of hundreds of
small stones. I was noticing how the artist had allowed their fingerprints to settle into the plaster between the stones when my phone chirped loudly. Mom again.
"Hello?"
"Is everything all right? You never called me back!" I let my gaze fall away from the artwork and back to the sunset.
"It's fine. I was just settling in."
"What is it like? Is there a lock on the door?"
"Yes, Mom." I pulled the door open to get a better look. "There's even a dead bolt on the inside. It's a great place, lots of personality." I could've gone on, but she broke into my descripti
on with the question I was waiting for.
"Why don't you call him, Ina? I really think this is something you two can work out, but it's not going to happen if you run off into the wilderness and hide."
"That's not what I'm doing. I'm not hiding. I'm figuring things out."
"And you can't do that at home
?"
How could I tell her that I couldn't, that if she kept telling me I should run bac
k to Michael I might just do it? It would be easier to keep wishing for the dreams I'd been daydreaming until now—the big house that I'd share with Michael, the family we'd create, but after the past few weeks—all that had changed. And I couldn't stand to listen to my mother tell me that it hadn't. She might convince me, and I didn't want to go back to Michael just because other people thought I should.
"I need to figure this out
myself."
"Okay. One month, Ina. I'll give you one month to do this crazy, irresponsible, and possibly
stupid thing because you are twenty-two. So technically I can't stop you."
I laughed at her honesty.
"Thanks, Mom. Love you."
"I love you, too, honey. Be safe."
We hung up and I flicked through the various apps Michael could have used to get in touch with me had he wanted to stop me from going on this trip, had he wanted to stop me from giving up on our relationship.
There were no Facebook messages, no emails, no missed calls
, no texts from Michael. I had said I needed space, and I guess he was giving me what I wanted. But still, whether my mom liked it or not, he was letting me go without a fight. I stared at the silent phone for a minute and then shoved it into my pocket.
I took a deep breath. The noises of the bugs grew louder the longer I sat there in silence. A cool breeze blew by, making the trees creak and moan. Goosebumps sprung up on my legs. I got the strangest feeling, like I wasn't alone, like someone was watching me from afar, but I was pretty sure the only person around was the man who'd helped me hike in. Stra
nge as he seemed, I didn't get the vibe he would hurt me. Still, the feeling made me shiver. And I felt stupid for shivering. Maybe I wished someone would watch over me, but the truth was I was all alone out here. I had to protect myself, so I reentered the cabin, and as I closed the door, I slammed the dead bolt.
2
Settling in was tough. My first instinct was to turn on the TV, but there wasn't one, so I tried to get Pandora through my phone. No wi-fi shot down that plan. I shuffled around in silence, getting sidetracked by the different pieces of artwork on the walls, the messily scrawled index cards that let renters know what was what. And all the while, I kept checking my phone for updates, texts, emails, missed calls. I was getting annoyed with myself, so I tuned it off completely and stuck it in a drawer. I told myself I wasn't going to look at it for the entire trip, but even as I said it, I doubted I had the willpower.
I delved into one of the paperbacks I'd brought, wrote in my journal about my feelings on arriving at the mountain, and did some yoga. I even sat and thought for a while, mentally listing what I wanted to get out of this trip and what I wanted to figure out about myself.
I'd like to say that I provided myself with plenty of distractions from my phone, but the distractions weren't strong enough. I looked at the black screen at least once an hour despite the fact that I had turned the thing off.
At one point, I panicked myself by daydreaming that if a nuclear disaster had happened in my hometown, I'd have no way of knowing about it. The chances of a nuclear disaster occurring in my parents' suburban neighborhood was pretty unlikely, but the point was that I had no idea what was going on in the world, and even though that was partly why I'd come here, it now felt scary and disconcerting. However, I told myself I could wait until midnight to check my phone. I had to stop relying on my gadgets to distract me from my self-reflection.
And I made it. My powers of determination were stronger than I had though
t. As the clock shifted to one minute after midnight, I smiled, did a little happy dance, and finally let myself turn the phone back on. I'd successfully spent my first night inside the cabin connection-free.
Quickly remembering there was no service in the cabin, I unlocked the door and walked out on
to the porch, but the phone still displayed the no service sign. Venturing up the path where the mountain man had walked, using only the flashlight app to guide me, I kept checking the screen and then looking back to the lit-up windows of the cabin. I didn't want to venture out too far. That became more and more obvious with every step I took. I was wearing only a thin pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, and the night air brought out chilly bumps on my bare arms. I rubbed them and felt the reassuring vibration of my phone sucking in the contact I'd missed for the past few hours.
I glanced at the screen: no missed texts, no missed calls, just a couple of spammy emails in my inbox. I hadn't even received any FB likes. I'd been off the grid for six hours and not one person had missed me? How depressing.
I pressed the home button and turned around, feeling like an ass.
I let out a long sigh and then sucked in my breath when I heard a branch crack somewhere in the dark woods. I hit the button on my phone and spun around, shining my dull light into the trees, but I couldn't see more than a couple of feet in any direction as I spun.
My heartbeat sped up and my breathing stopped. My ears perked up to every single sound. I glanced at the cabin. I was about 20 feet away. I decided to make a break for it, but my first step left me sprawled across the trail. I'd tripped over something. I lay there in the dark wanting to scream.
Then a
frog let out a long, deep ribbit close to my ear, and I had to laugh at myself. The truth is, I was not a country girl, and this was kind of comical—at least until I felt a big hand grip my own and pull me up. On instinct, I pulled away and crawled backwards, but the hand gripped me harder and pulled me to my feet. Once I stood, I was able to pull it back, grab my phone, and shine my light in the direction the hand had come from. I could barely see him, but it was the mountain man, and the big, burly no-nonsense jerk was smiling! I could see his white teeth in the light of my phone.
"What are you doing?" I screame
d at him, backing up a few steps. The little bit of distance I created made him invisible to me because of the dark, so I had to step forward again.
"What are
you
doing?" He echoed. "Do you always leave your cabin doors wide open in the middle of the night while you go sightseeing without a flashlight?"
Ugh. He w
as right again. I did seem to have a knack for irresponsibility out here. It was dangerous and I really ought to think more before I acted.
"No," was all I could say to him. "I was checking my messages."
"Well, do me a favor and lock your cabin when you leave it, and don't leave it by yourself after midnight."
All right. I'd admitted to myself that he had a point, but he didn't need to rub my nose in it.
"Listen, buddy," I said, feeling something like anger reeling up from my belly. "Thanks for the advice, but I'll do what I want. I paid for that cabin, and if I want to leave it, I will. Nobody's going to stop me. This is America in case you haven't heard."
He stared at me, obviously shocked, but I just jutted out my chin farther, showing him I wasn't going to be intimidated.
"You shouldn't be out here alone," he said more calmly.
"I'm not alone," I shot back. "You're here. I chose this place because your website promised a completely solitary experience away from the real world, but here you are." I shook my phone at him and the lig
ht trailed down the front of his body. I aimed the light at his face, but it shut off, so I had to hit the home button again.
He looked
shocked, and I couldn't blame him. I didn't like being surprised at night in the woods, but in all honesty, at least some of the anger I was directing at him was meant for Michael, and all the other "friends" who had neglected to contact me in the last six hours.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I will make sure you get the seclusion you want." He appeared to be smiling, but it was hard to tell in the dark.
"Thank you."
There was more silence for a second, well,
what passed for silence on the mountain. All around us were skittering feet and animal conversations I wasn't yet used to overhearing. Branches creaked in the wind and brought my chilly bumps back.
"I'd like to walk you back to your cabin,"
the man said in a strained voice. He was trying to be polite, I think. "If you don't mind, that is. Humans are the minority on the mountain. There are deer and bears. You shouldn't be out at—"
"What are you doing out?"
He didn't answer right away, and I crossed my arms and stared at him defiantly. My eyes were adjusting to the dark and I didn't need the light of my phone anymore. Something stung or bit my calf and I slapped it, flicking a bug to the ground.
"I saw strange lights over here by your cabin and I wanted to investigate, make sure you were safe."
I felt some more of my tension slip away as he explained. He was only looking out for his tenant.
"I was just checking for messages. It's hard to leave everything behind and not check on it."
He laughed sarcastically. "I check on the real world as little as possible. Haven't watched, heard, or read the news since I don't know when."
"Really?"
"Sure. A bomb could've gone off, and I'd have no idea." He'd used the same metaphor as me. Only the idea of a bomb going off scared me. He seemed fine with the possibility.
"And wouldn't you like to
know if that happened?"
"Why?" He laughed again. "So I could worry about it? So I could change my li
fe based on something that doesn’t even affect me? If a bomb goes off and I need to know about it, I'll know about it. I live here, and everything is fine here. Why should I care what happens there?" He took a breath and then spoke again. "You know, for someone who wants to get away from everything, you go out of your way to cling to it." He wiped his hand across his mouth. "Now, do you want me to walk you back to your cabin or not, Miss Independent?"
I did want that. It was scary out here, but I couldn't resist making a smart comment. "Oh, so you're a Kelly Clarkson fan now?"
"Who?"
"Forget it. Yes, I would appreciate it if you walked with me."
He waited for me to walk in front of him and then he followed. We'd gone a few steps before he spoke again. "I'm up in cabin one if you need anything. Follow this trail,
in the daytime
," he emphasized, "and follow the signs. I'm Adam."
I nodded, and realizing he likely couldn't se
e me, I turned to tell him I understood. I felt my ankle buckle and the rest of my body fall in slow motion. Adam picked me up by my hand, and my other hand involuntarily reached out in the dark and rested on his chest as he lifted me upright.
"I got you," he said in a terse voice. He moved to stand next to me instead of behind and offered his arm
without announcing how clumsy I was. I appreciated that, so I leaned on his arm without complaint and walked with his help. I was a bit taken aback by how muscular his arm was. I mean, he was by no means fat or anything. He was tall and rugged, but covered in jeans, flannel, and an unkempt beard. Those were hard to see past. Between his chest and his arm, I suspected he was hiding a solid body under all those clothes.
We walked silently to my cabin. The bugs were relen
tless and Jurassic sized. After slapping my arms and legs and even slapping one out from under my shirt, I wished I'd thought to bring bug spray.
"Must be something sweet about you," Adam said in the dark. "When you g
et back to your cabin, rub wet salt over those bites."