Leaving has never hurt before it happened. Not really. Sometimes afterward, sure. Sometimes south of the state line, with Cady Springs shrinking in the rearview mirror, I feel a pull behind my ribs. Sometimes when I’m parked near some coast or campground, I wake before dawn and miss the cold lake air so much it feels like hunger. But that’s different.
Places can be missed safely. Women cannot. Not the wrong woman. Not a woman who knows where to put her hand without even trying. Not a woman who looks at my life and asks the one question everyone else skips because they’re too busy deciding whether I’m free or broken.
Do you ever get tired of feeling like you don’t have one home to go to?
I walk into the front room and stare at the firewood stacked beside the hearth. It isn’t cold enough for a fire, but the eveningscan turn cool after storms. Layla might be cold. I swear under my breath and build the fire.
Not a big one. Just enough to take the damp out of the room. Kindling, split pine, one bigger log. I strike the match and watch flame catch along the dry edges.
Useful, that’s all. Fire is useful.
The cabin warms by slow degrees. I check my phone, even though I know there are no messages. She has my number. I wrote it beneath the address after I almost folded the paper and thought better of it.
She can text. She can tell me she’s staying in tonight. She can say she needs time. She can say thank you for dinner, for the jump, for the address, but this is all too much.
She can say nothing. Maybe nothing is better. No. It isn’t.
I set the phone facedown on the table, then pick it back up two minutes later.
Still nothing.
I laugh once, short and rough. This is what I’ve been reduced to. A man who can read water by wind ripples and weather by the smell of air, standing in his cabin checking a phone like a teenage boy waiting to see if he’s been chosen.
Chosen.
The word stops me.
Women have wanted me before. That’s not arrogance. It’s fact. They wanted the body. The story. The summer. The idea of being touched by someone who seems like he doesn’t belong to rules.
They wanted me until wanting me asked something from them. Until they realized I mean what I say about movement. Until they decided my life was a problem waiting for the right woman to solve.
Layla might decide that too. Not tonight maybe, but eventually. She might wake up tomorrow in my bed, see the map tacked near the door, the travel duffel half-packed in thecorner because I always keep it that way, and remember she has a classroom waiting. A district letter. A lease. A life full of people who understand what to call her.
Teacher.
Ex-wife.
Daughter.
Responsible woman.
What would she call herself with me?
What would I call her?
Mine rises too fast.
I shove it back down.
Mine is a dangerous word. Mine makes men selfish. Mine makes good intentions turn into pressure. Mine makes a porch light look less like invitation and more like a trap.
I will not do that to her.
If she comes, I open the door. That’s all. I open the door and let her choose the next step. Same as the ledge. Same as the waterfall. Same as the cabin when she needed time and I gave it to her because wanting her does not give me the right to rush her.
I can do that. I can be that man.
I drag both hands through my hair and turn toward the hallway.
