Page 24 of The Cabin

“Was I abducted by aliens and dropped off in an alternate universe or something?! Were you not the guy who pushed me over to Jade last night, encouraging me to introduce myself?” He doesn’t answer. But I’m pretty sure he’s mocking me again in his head. I can’t be sure because his actual face barely moves. But there is some movement. His lips mouth, ‘Jade,’ ever so subtly, but it’s enough to let me know this whole thing totally got under his skin. “You literally pushed me right to her. You told me to, ‘Have fun!’ ” I do a really high-pitched imitation of his voice.

“Yeah, I meant have fun like chat and stuff, not dry hump each other on the dance floor for everyone to see!” My face falls. I can see the instant regret in his eyes. I feel hot and cold at the same time. A mixture of embarrassed and infuriated.

My voice goes very low and very serious. I am trying my best to stay calm. “What I am not going to do is sit here and listen to someone else tell me what is and is not appropriate to do with my own body. I can chat, flirt, kiss, dry hump, and fuck whoever the hell I want, wherever the hell I want and you have absolutely zero right to judge me.” I throw the sponge back into the sink and high tail it back towards the bedroom to get my stuff so I can leave.

I said the words. But I’m feeling anything but confident enough to stand up for myself. I feel gross. Last night was huge for me. Dancing by myself just for the fun of it, going up to a girl at a bar. Those are things that I would’ve never done after my marriage failed. Even before my marriage. And now I feel self-conscious about it despite knowing that’s stupid. Who cares what he thinks?

“Sol, wait, I didn’t mean that. I just…I was just…fuck.” Grayson stands in the doorway of the bedroom, his hands taking turns running through his hair.

“You were just what?” I spit, gathering up my clothes from the floor. It is just now dawning on me that I have been in a T-shirt that just barely covers my ass this whole time. Pantsless in Grayson’s cabin eating his pancakes. I did not mean for that to sound like an innuendo.

He’s silent. I can see his thoughts warring with each other as they play across his face, but I don’t have time to decipher them. This friendship has been way too much drama. This is the opposite of healing, this is falling back into a pattern. Is he a good guy, or is he a bad guy? Good guy. Bad guy. Good guy. Bad guy. It’s exhausting.

When I reach where he’s standing, he reluctantly steps to the side to let me through. I don’t even have any shoes on but I march across the living room anyway and throw open the front door.

“Listen, I’m not sure this friendship is going to work out,” I say, maneuvering my way past the screen door because I don’t have any hands to open it with as they are full with my clothing and shoes.

“Sol, no, wait, I didn’t mean it like that.” He looks crestfallen. That is about zero percent my problem.

“Yes, you did. I hope you have a good time up here. I’ll ride down with the tow truck whenever it finally comes up.” He doesn’t move, he just watches me go. I don’t really care. Yes, it would’ve been nice to have a friend up here. And yes, it would’ve been nice to get to fantasize a little bit in my head while I was here. Feel feelings I haven’t gotten to feel in forever. But that’s not what this trip was supposed to be about. Things are too hot and cold, too dramatic, too up and down. I am worked up almost all of the time around him. Although, if I’m being honest, that is a kind of refreshing, even if incensing, one-eighty to the way I felt with Brian. I was quiet almost all the time with him. Agreeing with whatever he said, trying to be the perfect, silent wife. To earn his love. I never used to be like that. I was like his little robot wife with a downloaded personality he got to choose…

That doesn’t even matter. The two are not comparable. One was my husband and one is just some guy I just met. Yes, I was attracted to him. But, I was attracted to Jade too. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean I owe him anything. So we made a stupid checklist together? So what? If he’s going to be moody and demanding, then that’s on him. It’s definitely not hot anymore. I’m not going to stand around getting swept up in his hurricane of emotions. First, he’s mysterious, then he’s sexy, then he’s kind and genuine, then he’s goofy, then he’s supportive, then he’s a caveman, and now he’s misogynistic. That sounds like a whole lot of, ‘DO NOT ENTER,’ metaphorically speaking. Well, I guess in the literal sense as well. Anyway, that’s beside the point.

He needs time. He needs space and he needs to heal just like I do. He needs to figure out who he is outside of his marriage. I will not get in the way of his healing just like I won’t let him get in the way of mine. I know what it’s like to feel rudderless. I am the definition of ‘up the creek without a paddle’. I’m not myself. I haven’t been myself in so long. I don’t even know who ‘myself’ is. And he’s experiencing that too. And it’s best if I just let him. No harm, no foul.

I limp my way over the threshold to my cabin (I only finally stopped to put shoes on after stabbing the bottom of my feet on rocks for like the fifth or sixth time) and survey the severity of the mess I’ve made in the one day it’s been since I found out I’m stuck here and can’t leave like I was planning to. Very symbolic. I’m going to start cleaning. Yes I am. Cleaning is good. Cleaning is therapeutic.

I start with the scattering of clothing I threw around trying to find something to wear to the bar last night. I don’t know why I even looked so hard, we all know all I have are t-shirts and leggings.

The endless bending down and getting up is making me nauseous. It’s definitely from the acid reflux. It is certainly, certifiably, one hundred percentnotabout an argument I may or may not have had with a very annoying nearby resident.

And I can promise you that I am not feeling any type of unsettled about any conversations I may or may not have had this morning.

I will swear on anything you want. No harm, no foul. That is exactly how I feel. Completely. Without a doubt. Athousandpercent, even.

Do you think the wickedbrujahaunts people on the mountain who lie? Asking for a friend.

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The next couple days are obviously and predictably very boring. Like psychological break inducing boring. The first day I was very determined to finish the checklist myself, ready to start fresh at square one, be an independent woman, blah, blah, blah (at this point I’m annoying myself. It’s like I’m getting paid every time I say the words healing, divorce, and independent). I had a plan to find my meditation papers, open my coloring pages, read more dirty books, and find myself as the sun rose each morning with my toes squished in the earth, bent over doing downward dog.

Turns out, I hate meditating. Not because it’s boring, but because I either sit and spiral or spend so much mental energy trying not to spiral that I feel like garbage afterward. I didn’t print enough pages to know if you’re supposed to spiral and heal by reliving trauma or if you’re supposed to empty your mind of all thoughts. Which is essentially impossible. It would probably be way more possible if my big, tall, lumberjack of a neighbor wasn’t doing construction twenty-four hours a day but, I digress.

If I do manage not to spiral, all I can focus on are the sounds coming from up the hill. Which lead to very different, stupid, illogical thoughts.

There could even be a third option for how you’re supposed to meditate that I am not even remotely qualified to know or understand after my manic thirty-minute Google search. So that one is a bust.

You can only color so many doodle pages with a big, bold ‘fuck off’ in block letters before you a) get sick of it and b) get arthritis. The yoga has been accompanied by bugs and I feel like that is enough explanation as to why I’ve given it up.

The dirty books have actually been a lot of fun. Apparently, the book store lady slipped a lot more in my pile than I thought. It’s true that my thoughts sometimes drift to a certain someone that they shouldn’t, but for the most part it’s been kind of exciting.

They’re a pretty brutal reminder that my standards for love were completely obliterated over the last eight years. And even before then, they were based on teenage hormones and silly fantasies I’d seen in movies. I know a lot of the books I’m reading now are exaggerated and whatever, but they’re also empowering. I am a woman who deserves pleasure, respect, love, kindness, power, say, consent, and joy. (Affirmations work, right?). I do not deserve to constantly question whether or not my partner even likes me. To have to bait them in hopes they’ll nibble and I can reel in their affection. Sighing as loudly as possible in hopes they ask me what’s wrong. Pretending (or actually), crying in front of them to earn a freaking hug every once in a while. Giving them the silent treatment to see if they even give a shit that I’m upset or that my feelings are hurt (shocker – they didn’t).

That isn’t healthy, and they are coping mechanisms I am not willing to continue. Which means naming my toxic patterns, learning from them, and making sure I don’t enter into the vicious cycle all over again just because I desperately want to be seen. To feel known and cherished. To feel like somebody gets me and wants the world for me. These books, however silly, are showing me examples of things that I haven't gotten to experience. Introducing me to a world I didn’t even know existed. Not to this extent, at least. I think Joanna would be proud of that realization.

I want another chance to love myself and fight for myself. And so even though I hate meditating and have out colored myself, I am going to pursue this new budding confidence, these new boundaries, and just pure fun I’m finding in my books.

My skin is currently sticky with dried sweat and my feet hurt from the very ambitious hike I chose to go on this morning. I was about three seconds from going absolutely nuts sitting in that cabin all day everyday besides my very brief strolls up and down the road in front of the property, so I threw my morals and ethics to the wind and sank as low as deciding to climb a freaking mountain. In the heat. With no cell service and no one around to save me if I get eaten by wolves or trip and fall and break my leg (my serial killer and I are on a break).

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