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My phone rings. I switch it to silent and put it away. It’s my mom. I haven’t spoken to her in a couple of years, and I don’t intend to rekindle that relationship anytime soon. Dad learned that the hard way the last time he showed up at my place unannounced, right before he checked himself back into rehab. If there is one thing I’ve come to terms with, it’s that my family ceased to exist without Maddie, my sister. The minute she passed away, it was over. It was a hard pill to swallow, and perhaps I should’ve spoken about it with a therapist at some point. Someday... when I’m not stressed out of my mind and can allow the therapy to actually work.
The only thing I can do right now is focus on my own well-being. Mom bailed on us and moved to Florida to lose herself in the arms of hippies who like to smoke various green things and eat the fruits and vegetables they grow in their commune. She has found a measure of peace there, but I will never forgive her for leaving me behind, for not considering me important enough to be a part of her life. Dad took it the hardest. He lost his favored daughter, then his wife. Once I was the only one left, he was so deep in the bottle he couldn’t even see straight anymore. I needed years to give myself new meaning in their absence. I’m amazed that they’re still trying to reach out to me, expecting me to answer, after how they treated me.
Maddie would’ve been furious with them. She’s probably been tossing and turning in her tomb for years, now. She never would’ve allowed them to discard me and leave me behind the way they did. At least neither of them ever directly blamed me for her death. It was an accident, but she was driving that night because of me. No one ever said the quiet part out loud but I heard it, anyway. Maybe it’s why I was so quick to rush into a relationship with Kieran. I needed emotional safety and comfort, not realizing I was only walking into more of the same.
But it’s remarkably different with Matthew, Sully, and Jason. They see me for who I really am. They admire and respect me, and they always make sure I have everything I need.
“Have you eaten anything?” Matthew often asks me.
“Do you want more coffee?” It’s Jason’s favorite thing to say in the morning, especially after he goes down on me and rocks my world to the core.
“You need to sleep, baby,” Sully says whenever we cuddle after a lovemaking session in his bedroom or mine.
I’m so well taken care of. Appreciated. Cherished. Made to feel like the woman that I truly am, with all my shades and colors and complications. They don’t care that I’m practically homeless and struggling. They don’t care that I’ve yet to gather any prospects for a promotion at The Sartorialist, despite my good professional relationship with Etienne. They don’t care about anything that ultimately doesn’t define me as a human being, and it is such a strange concept for me to wrap my head around.
It’s so nice here, especially during the first part of the day when the sun is coming up and manages to shine a bit of light through the tear-shaped clearing just half a mile east of the cabin. I can see the country road snaking through the trees ahead, along with the snippets of windows and bushy landscapes of neighboring homes. It’s quiet, with most of the forest animals keeping their distance from the more populated areas of the mountain. The bears have gone into hibernation, and only a few straggling deer remain.
I take a deep breath and welcome the sharp winter air into my lungs. It’s soothing and refreshing—there’s nothing like the December cold to slow my senses down just long enough so I can actually enjoy these moments of peace and solitude. The guys are probably out on the slopes again. The heavy snowfall from recent days has made skiing even more popular, particularly with throngs of out-of-state tourists coming into the area. The holiday season has begun, and it’s the first time in a long time that I’m actually looking forward to it. A month ago, I would have dreaded the very thought. Funny, how life throws you for a loop when you least expect it, and this time it just so happens to be a good kind of loop.
It makes my experience all the more beautiful and terrifying at the same time, because I fear something will come up and ruin it somehow. Maybe it’s just my survival instinct holding on to me. My paranoia. The sudden sound of a twig crackling to my left has me spinning on my heels. As I look, my heart jumps for the briefest of moments then quickly settles at the sight of a young woman in a pale blue ski suit.
“Oh, hi,” she says, smiling broadly. A beautiful woman in her late twenties, I reckon, with long, dark brown hair styled in two braided tails. Her sharp face and piercing brown eyes are framed by a white fur hat that matches her snow boots—I recognize the high-end brands without even blinking. She belongs on the cover of a beauty magazine. At least she’s nowhere near as threatening as a sullen bear, which is what I’d thought had caused the sound less than a minute ago. It’s not rare that the animals prematurely wake from their winter slumber due to hunger. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” the woman adds. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I was just so deep in my thoughts, I didn’t notice anyone coming,” I reply.
“Yeah, I get it. These woods are a great place to get your mind lost in, aren’t they?”
She lovingly looks around, a twinkle of recognition lingering in her gaze. It’s as if she’s been gone for a long time and she’s only just returned to a realm that is very dear to her heart. I can’t help but smile, despite the slight tug in my heart. There’s an underlying coldness about her that I can’t identify. Maybe it’s that same annoying paranoia I’ve grown used to. The overthinking part of my brain that warns me against everybody and everything.
“Do you live around here?” I ask as we stand several feet apart.
She shakes her head slowly. “I only come around for the winter, but I still miss it throughout the year. Especially this past year…”
“How so?”
“Let’s just say it was a difficult year,” the woman chuckles nervously. “Are you on holiday?”
“Yeah, me and my friends, actually. We’ve got a cabin west of here,” I say, not wanting to sound like the charity case that I know myself to be, even though the guys have repeatedly pointed out that they love having me around, and that they’re not taking any kind of pity on me. I guess my ego insists on pooping on things. “How about you? Do you rent or do you own something down there?” I ask, nodding at the cabins farther behind her.
“My parents have a couple of them,” the woman says. “They rent one out, but I always take the second cabin for myself. Who are your friends? The ones you’re sharing a cabin with?”
“I’m not sure you know them. Matthew Parker. Sully. Jason. They hang out in these parts for the whole of winter,” I reply.
The woman eyes me intently, lips pressed into a thin line. I cannot read her for the life of me until she smiles and waves around her. “Isn’t this beautiful? There will be a blizzard coming, though. I think toward the end of this week. You should keep an eye on the forecasts from now on,” she says. “The last thing you wanna do is be out here, even if it’s just half-a-mile from Matt’s cabin, when the blizzard hits. You’ll get stuck and snowed in before you can even make your way toward the road. Everything just vanishes.”
“Wow, that sounds kind of scary…”
“It is. I got lost once as a kid in the middle of a snowstorm. Almost died,” the woman replies with a heavy sigh. “I was lucky, though. My dog found me before my parents and the rescue folks did.”
“I imagine lucky doesn’t even begin to cover it,” I say, trying to picture her as a scared little girl, lost in these snowy woods, alone and struggling not to freeze to death. “How long were you stuck out here?”
“I’m not sure, maybe six or eight hours,” she says. “But don’t worry. The guys will plow the whole mountain down to find you. Matt knows the area like the palm of his hand.”
This is the second time she calls him that, which compels me to ask a simple but what I think is a logical question. “Oh, so you know my friends, then?”
“You could say that, yeah.”
The smile she gives me is rather unsettling. But my discomfort is short-lived as a tall man in a khaki winter suit joins us from the cabin area behind. “There you are baby. I thought I’d lost you,” he says to the woman, love glowing in his bright blue eyes.
