My new home.
A wave of nausea curdled my empty stomach.
The landlord of the guesthouse, L Carmichael, hadn’t specified in his oh, so informative listing. What if it was a college dorm size? The pictures of the listing were scant, to say the least. There was almost no information at all. If this were a scary movie,I would be calling myself an idiot for even considering going there. But this was the real world, and I was in a hell of a pickle. If I got bad vibes when I got there, I’d get the heck out of Dodge. Also, I wasn’t a total nimrod and had bear spray and a big ol’ knife that I was very comfortable using.
Everything had happened so fast. My fight with Kevin turned uglysofast. Kevin had changed into a stranger when I hadn’t been paying attention. I’d been in flight since then, as in fight-or-flight. Kevin didn’t speak to me as I packed up and left. Nothing even felt real yet. I was on a delay. I would never tell my father, but I spent the night in my storage unit on my old couch. Thankfully, it wasn’t too cold yet. I searched high and low for a listing and managed to find one that would take me with cash only and on this short notice. My stomach gurgled with nerves, and I pressed my hand on the cold glass to steady myself.
I pushed away the worries and focused on my dad asking questions in my ear. The car was already loaded up with my important belongings and cold-weather clothes. The rest of my stuff would have to be moved from storage when I got back. Again. Something I just wasn’t thinking about yet.
One crisis at a time. And that thing was getting food, getting to my new home for the next two months, and finishing that article.
A flash of guilt as Kev’s hurt face came to my mind.
Was I really a heartless career woman sabotaging my own chance at happiness for others? How had I missed the signs of a crumbling relationship?
La la la, not thinking about that right now.
I had to block these thoughts, or I wouldn’t be able to write the article. My brain, God love her, was incredible when on track and focused but utterly useless when derailed. Right now, my brain was that GIF of Homer Simpson spinning on the ground, getting nowhere.
“I don’t love that you haven’t shown me the listing of this place. How many reviews did it have?” my dad asked in my headphones.
I was glad it was not a video call because I hadn’t hidden my wince well.
“All the reviews were great,” I said, abandoning the cream to debate how many cups of yogurt to get.
It wasn’t exactly a lie. All the reviews were great. They were all also terrible. Because there were no reviews. It was the Schrödinger’s cat of reviews.
“I want you to video call me as you arrive. I want to see the place,” he said.
“About that.” I closed the door to the refrigerator section and set my empty basket on a display of stacked cases of beer. “There is no internet and definitely no phone service.”
I waited a beat and then another.
“Nope. Nuh-uh. Just come back here,” my dad said, and my shoulders sagged.
“Dad. It’s fine.” I hadn’t lived with him in ten years. I was just shy of thirty, but if I mentioned any of those things, he’d give the same line about how I would always be his child and his maincause of stress. “It would take me almost three days to get to Chicago. Do you really want me driving solo across the country? I’m already here. People do stuff like this all the time. I’m not worried. You’ll see. Plus, I’ll be coming into town for email and stuff all the time, so I’ll check in often.”
He made a sound of sucking his teeth—a familiar gesture of concern. “I don’t like this.”
I didn’t like it either. Last week, I was making plans for the rest of the year that looked totally different. Now, I stood in the dairy section of Ye Olde General Store in the middle of nowhere, wondering how I would feed myself in a place I didn’t know anything about. What if I was walking into the den of a serial killer? What if the advertisement was a money scam, and I was the idiot who fell for it? Honestly, being an idiot sucker almost felt worse. Almost.
My throat tightened, and the backs of my eyes burned. All at once, I felt like a little kid who wanted so badly to just give up everything, fly to my dad’s house, and curl up in my childhood bed and cry.
Maybe my dad felt the shift in my energy even through the phone. “I’m sorry. I know you’re capable of handling things. I know you aren’t going to do something blatantly dangerous, but in the script of life, my lines will always be to worry about you.”
I bit down on the inside of my lip, eyes searching the ceiling until this surge of emotion passed. “I know,” I choked out.
“I’m furious at Kevin. I hope he’s forever stubbing his toe on the bed frame and catching his pockets on door handles,” he saidin his soft, cajoling tone.
I sniffled a laugh.
“But you are ClairefreakingWells. You are journalist extraordinaire, and you can handle this and anything else life throws at you with grace and aplomb.”
I took a deep breath in and out and nodded. “Yes.” I sniffed. “Or at least faux aplomb.”
He sighed again, and I could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke. “And I’m so incredibly proud of you,” he said. “And you know your mother would be too. I love you, kiddo. Just a worried old man.”
I smiled as another threat of tears hit. “Okay. Okay. Stop trying to make me cry in front of strangers.”
