Ben
By the time I reached the stairs, I’d already asked myself the same question five different ways.
What was wrong with me?
Why was I like this?
Why did I keep turning into a human brick wall every time she gets close?
The front door of the lodge creaked shut behind me as I stepped into the hallway, footsteps muffled by the old runner rug that stretched toward the stairs. My boots felt heavy. Everything did.
Why were you such a jerk, Jensen?
I didn’t have a good answer.
Fifi had been trying again. She always was. She came at things sideways, with jokes and chaos and hands that flailed when she talked too fast. But under all that brightness, she hada soft center. The kind you don’t see unless you’re really paying attention.
And she’d let me see it.
For half a second out by the goats, she’d looked at me like I was more than just a guest passing through. Like I was something she was curious about. Maybe even something she wanted to understand.
And what had I done?
Shrugged. Deflected. Said something borderline sarcastic and made her laugh in that way people do when they’re covering the sting.
I climbed the stairs slowly, dragging my hand along the railing like I needed the contact to ground me.
She didn’t deserve that.
She didn’t deserve me shutting down every time she asked a question that required more than a monosyllabic grunt.
But the problem was that nothing could happen here.
Notreally.
She lived in this idyllic, odd little town in Wisconsin where goats had names and coffee came with matchmaking agendas.
I lived in Florida.
In a condo that overlooked a marina that I hadn’t set foot in for weeks. A condo filled with carefully chosen furniture, cold floors, and an espresso machine that could probably launch satellites but couldn’t stop me from waking up with dread every Monday morning.
This—she—wasn’t real.
Not in the way I needed her to be.
This was a temporary lapse. A break from the real world, and a chapter, not the whole book, and it was a bad idea to think otherwise.
I reached the top of the stairs and walked down the hall toward room four. My key card slid into the lock with a quiet beep, the door swinging open into the room that had started to feel less like a lodge and more like purgatory.
Soft afternoon light filtered in through the curtains. The bed was neatly made. My bag sat in the corner, half-unpacked.
I stepped inside and let the door fall shut behind me, and it was quiet, too quiet.
I toed off my boots and sat heavily on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, rubbing the back of my neck.
Fifi had laughed when I said I didn’t smile on command. But the truth was, I didn’t smile much at all anymore.
Not since the accident.
