“Jack,” he says, and when I don’t respond, he continues, “Listen, you don’t have to take me up on it, but just know you can, okay?”
I finally say the most important reason, the only real one. “I don’t know you.”
“No,” he agrees with a shrug. “But it doesn’t seem like you want to stay with anyone you do know, so if you need somewhere to crash while you fix up the place, the cabin is an option.”
“Thank you,” I say. “That’s nice of you to offer.”
A clap of thunder sounds outside, drawing out attention. Rain falls in heavy sheets, and I have to hold in a wince at the bad timing of it all.
“I better go,” I tell him with a nod toward the door. “The hole isn’t going to cover itself.”
He lets out a sigh. “Goodbye, Stevie.”
“Bye, Jordan,” I say before heading to the checkout counter.
Before I can step outside, I tear the packaging open and use the tarp to cover my head in lieu of an umbrella. I’m going to need it.
The tarp, frankly, is a piece of shit. It’s too small and whipping in the wind as I try to secure it. Water already poured in through the opening, leaving a massive puddle on my floor that managed to splash into my boots and soak through my socks. Which would have been the worst thing if I hadn’t had to climb—concussed—out onto the roof of my aluminum Airstream and attempt to nail down a plastic sheet in the middle of a thunderstorm.
The cold rain pelts my back. My hair is completely stuck to my scalp, and even my underwear are soaked through. Every crack of thunder spikes my heart rate and sends an aching pulse through my skull.
The last straw, however, is when my boot slips and I almost slide down the Airstream, barely catching myself at the last second. I grapple for purchase and steady myself, heart racing and breath heaving. I almost fell. With a head injury. Alone on a mountain in the middle of the woods.
I’ve always fancied myself independent, in need of no one. And there have been plenty of times when that’s felt lonely, especially more frequently in the last few months and years. But I’ve never truly feltalone. Until now.
It’s frightening.
That feeling is what drives me to carefully climb down the ladder on the side of the Airstream, hands gripping the metal until my knuckles are white. I gather the few things I unpacked and load them back into my truck. It’s the driving force leading me to steer my tires through the squelching mud down the mountain. It’s that feeling that sends me across town, windshield wipers fighting furiously to keep the rain at bay, and toward a cabin occupied by a much-too-kind stranger.
I can see him through the kitchen window when I turn into the short drive, my headlights slicing against the metal bear cage around the trash can outside as I put the truck in park. Before I can kill the engine, my phone vibrates in the passenger seat, illuminating the dark cab. A photo of my mom from the nineties lights up the screen, a shot I snapped of a Polaroid I found in a box when I was helping clean out their attic last summer before Grandma moved in. She’s got a wispy, fringe-style haircut and she’s wearing smudged dark blue eyeliner. In her arms she’s cradling a tiny bundle—me—and she’s smiling at the camera like all her dreams came true. I loved that photo when I saw it, and Ihate the way it always sends a stab of anxiety through me when I see it now. The way I’m always sure she’s calling to tell me something is wrong. That Grandma got lost when she insisted she knew how to get to the grocery store or that Dad’s chronic back injury is flaring up and she’s going to have to take him to the ER for a steroid shot.
I swipe open the call and let my eyes drift back to the cabin, to Jack in the kitchen, hunched over the stove.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetheart. How ya doing?” It’s the same way she’s answered every call with me for as long as I can remember. Just the sound of it slows the heart thumping erratically in my chest. She doesn’t sound frantic, just like she’s calling to chat.
“I’m good,” I say, and it’s only ninety percent a lie. I’m still soaked and chilled to the bone, despite changing into dry clothes before leaving the Airstream, and my head is still pounding like it’s trying to burst out of my skull. And I’m so desperate I’m about to go stay for an unforeseen amount of time with a complete stranger. And my home is destroyed. But before all that, I was having a pretty good hair day, so you win some, you lose some.
“When are you going back to work?”
I pick at a thread on my sweatshirt sleeve, soaked through from my sprint from the Airstream to the truck, and say, “Uncle Silas won’t let me come back to work for two weeks, even though that seems extreme.”
Mom laughs, warm and rich. “Good. I’m glad he’s making you rest.”
“Mmm,” I mumble, noncommittally.
“Since you’ll be off next week, do you think you could come by the house Thursday and hang out with your grandma? Your dad has field trips at the farm all day, and I have a doctor’s appointment I forgot about.”
“Yeah, of course.” I think I was supposed to get lunch with my friend Finley that day, but I can reschedule.
“Thanks, hon,” Mom replies, and I startle when there’s a tap on the driver’s side window. I bite back my squeal as I turn and see Jack standing in the rain, a black rain jacket hood pulled up over his hair, his eyelashes covered in droplets that made it past the fabric.
“I gotta go, Mom,” I say, eyes holding Jack’s.
“Love you,” she tells me, and I say it back before ending the call and rolling down the window.
The rain is even louder now, and Jack’s gaze is even more intense behind his glasses. He gives me a small smile, teeth flashing in the dark. “Can I help you?”
