Page 41 of Love Felt Like This

After another thirty minutes, we finally exit the interstate. Then it’s miles of brick warehouses, mechanic shops, and car lots, all heading toward a distant silhouette of mountains. We dwindle down from three-lane roads to two then one. Finally, the trees swallow us whole.

Grass.

Trees.

More trees.

There’s an occasional country store. A gas station that may or may not be abandoned.

Winding roads and guardrails.

Out of nowhere, the specter of the mountain range is no longer distant but surrounding us, like we’ve emerged in the middle of an ancient, primeval forest and crossed the boundary to a new world. Trees stand like walls on both sides of our lone minivan. There are yellow birches and mountain maple trees with ochre leaves clinging to mostly bare branches. Pads of melted snow stick to grass. Hills of layered trees give the forest a look of a rising tsunami, cresting up, up, up to the mountain peak with its lone blinking radio tower.

My ears pop when I swallow as we ascend the mountain’s incline. Every switchback has my head swimming. To our left is an open valley, with the drop-off getting steeper as we rise.

“I’m not going down again for months,” Nana says.

Dad chuckles. “Guess I’ll get the groceries, then.”

Nana leans across the van and smacks a kiss on my cheek. “Didn’t you miss this, Bevvy?”

A weak smile pulls at my lips, but my stomach lurches. And one additional switchback doesn’t help.

Griffin: On my way

Three days pass, and time stretches painfully.

It’s weird being home again at thirty-two years old. My childhood bedroom now doubles as Mom’s craft room. Walls that were once neon purple and covered in theater posters are now adorned with pink floral wallpaper and gold-framed cross-stitch art.

The bed—my current makeshift office—is the only space that still feels like it’s mine. The twin bed is piled with open notebooks and abandoned colored pencils. Steak, our calico cat with a perpetual stink face, is curled at the end of the mattress. He hates everyone but my mom, but I guess beggars can’t be choosers when I’m the only one awake. My ancient laptop is thrown on the sliver of bed space remaining beside me in hopes it’ll cool down from being on all night. My in-progress Birds on the Block script is brightly lit.

I fell asleep working again and went right back to it once I woke up. I’ve stopped only a couple of times to check my phone.

Griffin: ETA 1 hour

My fingers freeze. I inhale. Exhale. Then send a thumbs-up emoji.

Smooth.

Griffin Harvey is coming over so we can make a production plan for the next two months. It’ll be the first time he sets foot in my childhood home. I look around at my unmade bed. My unpacked suitcase open on the floor. Bernie Bird sitting in my mom’s sewing chair.

I need to clean.

I set my work aside and shuffle to the kitchen. I grab a big mug probably meant for soup and instead pour the leftover coffee until it’s emptied of every drop from my parents’ remaining brew this morning.

As I sip, I notice a small note, scrawled in jagged cursive, on the counter.

At the diner with your parents. Be back later.

Love,

Nana

I sputter into my coffee.

No, Nana was supposed to be here when Griffin arrived. We were supposed to break the ice with him as a team.

Maybe she got the dates wrong. Maybe she forgot he was coming over today.