Page 54 of Cabins Cows Critics
“I couldn’t tell them. How would I even begin to explain who I used to be, or why I lied to them for a decade about it?” I ask myself as I head toward Bellerelle. Snowflakes fall, the windshield wipers brushing them away as fast as they land, butI don’t slow down. I can’t slow down. It doesn’t matter that the only place I ever felt like myself is on that ranch. I lied to them, and when they know who I was, the family I used to belong to… I remember the looks on their faces when Perry was telling them about how my grandfather low-balled an offer on the ranch years before. I couldn’t bear to see them look at me like that.
I hit town, but the snow is falling heavier now, the road covered in a fresh blanket of white. The string lights they’ve put up between light posts for Christmas illuminate the buildings in their rainbows of color, and a pang hits my chest as I drive past all the places that have filled my memories over the last decade.
My eyes sting, and I lose the fight to hold back the tears. I let them fall, my chest heaving. I push my foot down harder, and the engine roars, the snow whipping past now, but I don’t slow. Not until the lights of town disappear from the rearview and only the soft glow of their presence lingers. The radio crackles, losing its connection to the local station, and I switch it off. The sound of the car and wipers flicking back and forth is my only company.
I think of Lulu, and how any other day she’d be snuggled up in a carrier on the passenger seat. I think of Hayden. I don’t know if what we had could have been the kind of love people write songs about, but it felt like it could be to me. Like it was the love you see in old movies, the forever kind.
The snow falls heavier, and I kick the windshield wipers up to full speed. The forecast said light snow, so it should pass soon, I think as I take the next corner tight and the tires swing out a little, but I regain control quickly.
“Well, that was close,” I say, and then the front tire hits a pothole I couldn’t see under the snow, and the back of the truck lifts up off the road as the front swerves to the side. I turn the wheel, but the back tires land and spin the truck, the world passes in a blur, and then darkness.
***
I hear the skidding of my tires first, and lifting my throbbing head, I realize my foot is still on the accelerator. The branches of a tree jam the wipers that are still trying to clear the snow that is coming down thick around me. Fuck. Okay. Focus. I turn off the ignition, the wipers stop fighting to keep going, and I start checking myself for injuries. Head first. There’s a lump on the right of my head, but it’s not bleeding. My arms feel good, a little tight as I stretch each one out to test it, but nothing broken. I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with the cool night air that is now freely flowing into the car from the smashed passenger side window. I feel down my legs, they’re okay too, and I lean back against the seat and let out a sigh of relief.
“Fuck, that could have been bad.”
The tree rustles, and a chunk of snow falls from an upper branch onto the hood.
“Okay, so I’m still pretty screwed here, but I’m alive.” I grab my phone that’s fallen to the floor. The screen is cracked, but it still works. Only when I check for a signal, it doesn’t even have a single bar. Okay, well, at least the flashlight still works, I think, and I flick it on and reach under the passenger seat. I grab my go bag and climb out. Shining the flashlight of my phone around, I spot the tracks of the wheels partly covered by fresh snow already. I have no idea how long I’ve been driving, but it’s going to be a cold walk, regardless. I prop my phone up on the seat and rummage through my bag, strip off my jeans to quickly layer on a second pair of long johns before pulling them back on, and layer three shirts, before squeezing into my jacket. My hat is still hanging on the hook by the Beakers’ front door. There was no way I could have grabbed it without them seeing, so, I pull out another flannel and wrap it around my head like a beanie, and then add a second layer of socks, too. By the time I’m ready totry to walk to civilization, I am struggling to even move under all the layers, but being uncomfortable sure beats freezing to death out here.
I sling my bag over my shoulder and make my way to the road. The skid marks from my truck are deeper set in the road, and the pothole that sent me spinning out of control is easy to see now, but if this snow keeps up, it will be like an invisible trap for any other driver making his way down this road who might not be as lucky as I was. Teeth chattering, I drop my bag on the side of the road, prop my phone against it to illuminate the immediate area, and collect branches, stomping them into the hole until it’s filled and my fingers are numb. Okay, time to get moving.
Levingston is probably half an hour’s walk from here. So I put my phone flashlight facing out into the breast pocket of my jacket, shove my hands into my armpits, and start walking.
The road between Bellerelle and Levingston is winding and really fucking creepy. Hayden would totally call me a serial killer’s dream right now. No one knew where I was going, car crashed off the road in the snow where no one can see, walking half frozen, probably concussed in a really fucking big snowstorm, thank you, Channel Four, for downplaying the weather forecast. Not that it would have made a difference. I was leaving the second I saw that photo. I wonder if they’ve seen the image yet. If they know.
If I die out here, at least I never have to worry about running again, I think, and an owl hoots nearby, scaring the fuck out of me.
“I’m not dying out here,” I tell it, like his hoot was somehow a confirmation of my fate.
Then, because things couldn’t possibly get any worse, the flashlight on my phone flickers, once, then twice, then it goes outcompletely, plunging me into almost complete darkness except for the soft glow of a distant moon.
“Well, fuck.”
Chapter twenty-two
Hayden
DAZED AND CONFUSED
IknockonConnor’scabin door, my stomach a flurry of nerves like it’s our first date or something. The family from cabin eight and ten passes behind me, the younger children picking up snowballs and tossing them at each other, squealing and carrying on along the way, while the older siblings walk behind their parents, their heads buried in their phones. Their mother, the lovely Laura, waves my way.
“Good evening, dear,” she says, and her husband, Keith, offers a curt nod.
“Headed to the movie?” I ask, though I already know the answer.
“Sure are. Can you believe it’s almost Christmas?”
“The two weeks have just flown by.”
“They have, and we couldn’t have asked for a better place to be, right, Keith?”
He nods.
“Will you be coming over, too?” she asks.
“Yep. I wouldn’t miss it.”
