Chapter 4
Claire
The half-and-half would be my downfall.
I stood staring at the cold section, debating between the eight-ounce half-and-half and the full quart. My brain was stuck in a loop because I wasn’t sure how big the refrigerator was. Small one. Big one. Just pick one. How often would I be able to get to town? How easy would it be for me to get back into Cozy Creek once I got up to my new home?
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 ugly so fast. 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 Schr?dinger’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 main cause 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 said in his soft, cajoling tone.
I sniffled a laugh.
“But you are Claire freaking Wells. 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.”
“God. Imagine having feelings and people seeing them,” he said with mock horror.
I glanced up when I sensed someone waiting nearby. An older woman dressed in a brightly colored caftan hovered cautiously, probably needing access to the eggs I had blocked. I sent her a tight-lipped, apologetic smile and shuffled out of the way to collect myself.
He was right. I was stronger than this. I was fierce. I had a purpose.
I struggled to remember it at this moment .
We ended the call, and though I could tell Dad felt better, I felt worse. It wasn’t a great plan. It was a CliffsNotes plan. I found a place to live. Now I just had to finish the article.
After that? I couldn’t think about it yet.
I returned to the dairy section when it was free of people again. Just choose the cream you want for coffee . The next choice. I’d been making choices my whole life. I could figure out what size cream to get.
As my hand reached for the fridge handle, it didn’t look quite right. It didn’t look like mine. I froze in place, studying this stranger’s hand. The knuckles were white as they gripped the handle, fingers trembling. The lights around me faded, and my eyes seemed to vibrate. It started with a ringing in my ears, a strange, disconnected feeling from my body as a cold stung the back of my neck. A sudden and very intense feeling of dread crept over me. The first telltale signs that something wrong was barreling toward me.
I looked around to see if maybe something had caused it.
The small grocer appeared normal.
My insides were far from it.
An employee came out from a side door leading to the back of the store with a blast of cold air that must have been from the refrigerator section. His jeans and flannel were covered in a long leather apron, reaching almost to his well-worn work boots. His unruly beard covered most of his face, and worn and clouded protective glasses covered his eyes.
“Excuse me?” I stepped in front of him.
He stopped, shoulders tensed as if I’d pulled my knife on him. He stood a good five inches or so taller than me with a broad frame and smelled lightly of a campfire and hand soap.
“Is there a restroom here?” I asked with a surprising wobble to my voice. My ears felt like they needed to pop, and the burning on the back of my neck grew worse.
This dread , something was wrong.
He shook his head. “I don’t?—”
“I know. I saw the sign that there isn’t a public restroom, but this is an emergency. I’m having a-a—I just need the restroom.”
He grunted; his head moved subtly, giving the impression that I was being scrutinized.
I suddenly felt silly for stopping him at all. I was fine. I was just having a moment. It would pass.
“Maybe I’m okay. I don’t know what I’m doing.” I pressed my cold fingertips to my cheeks and was shocked to find they were wet. “How humiliating. My cream crisis sent me into a full-on spiral. There is a chance that I’m in a state of delayed shock.” My words came out choppy and tight as I struggled to take a full breath. “This happens sometimes.”
That had to be what this was. The rushing panic and complete upending of my life was just now hitting me. I didn’t have a plan. I couldn’t catch my breath. Was I dying? The blood rushing through my ears blocked out all other sounds, emphasizing just how hard my heart was pounding. I pressed a hand to my chest to make sure I was breathing. To make sure there wasn’t an elephant sitting on it.
“Cream crisis?” he asked with obvious and understandable confusion.
“I’m sorry. This was totally—I’m not normally—” I stumbled backward and into the corner of a shelf, wincing when it stabbed into my side.
You’re dying. You’re dying.
His arms shot out to balance me before he stopped just short of grabbing me. His palms were raised, and his eyebrows shot up behind the grimy glasses, as though waiting to see if I would topple over. I wished I could see him better, then I’d be able to read his features. I wasn’t great at reading people, but when I couldn’t see their eyes, it felt that much harder. He could have been glaring at me or staring disinterestedly over my shoulder. He could be rolling them like Kevin did when I had an opinion that varied from his own.
But sometimes, I wondered if it wasn’t my lack of reading social cues that helped me get to the meat of a good story. I made people uncomfortable, and uncomfortable people talked. So, this curse was also a blessing.
One thing was sure—this man was uncomfortable.
My stomach gurgled.
“I-I think I’m-I don’t know.” I flushed and shook my head. I pulled at the collar of my jacket to let more air in. It did not help.
I should have been more embarrassed, more in disbelief of my irrational behavior, but all I could feel was that sense of growing panic.
The employee looked around the store and came to some sort of decision.
“Come this way,” he said and spun on his heels.
“Okay,” I said, but my feet didn’t move. This same sense of dread kept me locked in place .
Seeming to notice I hadn’t followed, he turned back. “Can you walk?”
I sputtered as though the question was absurd. “Of course.”
We both looked at where my feet stayed put.
“Normally, they listen to me.” I tried to joke, but even as I chuckled, it sort of melted into a panicked sob.
“I’m going to help you, okay?” He said it in such a gentle way; asking permission but also still supplying a level of confident assurance I needed.
I nodded, sucking in my lips so that I wouldn’t make any more embarrassing sounds.
He tucked his arm through mine, gently guiding me into motion, and led me back through the door he’d initially come out of. Sure enough, it was behind the refrigerator section, and a toolbox sat next to an open panel exposing wiring. He tugged over a short wooden stool and led me to it. He helped me settle on to it before carefully releasing me to straighten. I took a cool and slow breath. The cold air and change of scenery helped. I didn’t feel as much like the world was ending or like I was dying.
He stood, legs spread, one hand scratching his beard as he seemed to contemplate me. “Just take a few deep breaths,” he instructed.
I wasn’t usually one for being told what to do, but at this moment, having someone command the situation was exactly what I needed.
I took a deep breath in and out. He nodded with approval.
“Anybody I can call for you?” he asked .
“No. I’m all alone,” I said, and my voice squeaked.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and I felt like he actually meant it. Not in the way a stranger should mean it, like he was concerned for me.
It was too much. His gentle question pushed me over the edge. He didn’t want to be here, but he still asked. I shook my head. “I mean that I just got to town. I’ve had an interesting few days. I’m not okay. I’m a mess. I slept in my storage unit last night because my boyfriend just kicked me out. Just like that. No warning.” His forehead crinkled, and I would likely be embarrassed about that overshare later. I flopped my hands out. “Delayed reactions. Sometimes that happens. It takes me a while to feel what I feel, and then suddenly, five days later, I’m sobbing. In the sixth grade, my dog had to be put down. It was literally days later, watching some TV show, when I just started sobbing uncontrollably. It was wild.”
He frowned and dropped his hands to tuck them both in the pockets of his jeans.
“Normally, choosing what sort of creamer I want doesn’t send me into a spiral, believe it or not.”
He nodded again, but his body language remained that of a man who would rather be anywhere else on the planet. Even I could see that.
“Do you still need the facilities?” His voice was rich and deep and matter-of-fact; his tone soothing despite the humiliating question.
I dropped my face into my hands. The skin was burning hot. “ No, I’m okay. My insides just riot when I’m having any emotions. I typically try not to have them.” I laughed again but it was manic sounding still.
“Try not to have emotions?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“That works?”
“Yes.” I nodded but it wobbled into a head shake. “No. I am so sorry. This is not normal behavior for me. I probably need a friend to talk to, but besides my father, I don’t really have anyone besides Kevin.” I sucked in a breath. “And now he’s gone too. I can’t talk to my online friends about this; it’s not something you can gently toss between hilarious memes. ‘Hey, my boyfriend left me because he’s only driven by money and lost all the ethics he once had. But also, by the way, I’m fundamentally broken, so it’s probably my fault.’ Oh my God.” My hands flew to my mouth and covered them to stem any more words that might try to escape. “I have to stop talking.”
Truly, though, this stranger had already seen it all. Unmasked and unfiltered. More than anybody else in my life that I actually knew. Even at this moment of shock, there was a wild freedom in this confession. I could tell him anything. Get it all off my chest so I could move on.
I looked up at him, eyes still hidden behind cloudy plastic. I let the truth rip out of me.
“I-I think there’s just something wrong with me. Aside from all this.” I tossed up my arms to gesture wildly around my head. “I have this thing, it’s like this secret compartment I keep tucked away that makes me operate differently. From stories, I’ve heard that my mother was similar. I just never know when to quit. There’s a little voice that says, okay, stop now, but I ignore it and keep going. Like right now, for example.”
I broke to suck in a breath; the words came out so fast I forgot to breathe. I thought he’d have run by now, thought he would have called the fire brigade. He hadn’t moved. If anything, he seemed to be listening.
“I struggle to get close to people. I know this is a thing with me. But I had let Kevin in. I trusted him enough to put my guard down. To be myself.” I was talking to myself at this point, processing these feelings in real time. “And it’s like I came to find out that he was not the person I thought at all. It makes me feel stupid for not seeing the truth. I cannot express to you how much I hate feeling stupid. You wouldn’t think that with everything that happened in the past five minutes,” I teased.
There was the slightest twitch at the side of his mouth.
I let out a long sigh and met his would-be gaze.
“It’s like I feel simultaneously too soft and too hard for this world. I can’t let people in but somehow still manage to feel hurt by them all the time,” I said.
His lightly parted mouth shut with a smack. He swallowed as his large Adam’s apple moved up and down the column of his throat. After another moment, he slowly opened his mouth again to say something, but I held up a hand. “You don’t have to say anything. I know this is so far past normal and appropriate. There is nothing you can say. It’s just what it is. I guess I didn’t realize I needed to verbally process with someone who had no skin in the game.” I shook my head and stood. The earth spun a little at the sudden movement. His hands shot out to steady my shoulders when I lilted to the left. It felt like safety, and I yearned to lean into his protection. I searched to find his gaze but was only met with stormy lenses and a beard. This man was a stranger, and I was pathetic. “I’m sorry you were caught in the crossfire of my battling emotions.”
I patted one of his hands awkwardly, so he released me. He cautiously pulled his hands back, his mouth in a grim, flat line.
“Anyway. I think the only healthy and rational thing to do now is allow me to flee with any scrap of dignity intact. Sorry again to interrupt your workday, and sorry for the possible psychological trauma I have inflicted on you.” I tucked my hair behind my shoulder. “Thank you for being a kind stranger and not abandoning me with what I now realize was the beginnings of a panic attack.”
I puffed out my cheeks and blew out a sharp breath. I would have to save groceries for another day. For now, I needed to get the heck out of dodge. I couldn’t stand to be in this place a second more.
Once again, I cut him off before he could talk by turning on my feet and running out of there. Not my finest moment, but nothing else to be done.
I had shared everything with this man. Once this numb state of shock wore off, I was going to be mortified. One hour in town and I was already scaring the locals. A new record, no doubt .
Good thing I was going up to the safety of my temporary cabin and would never need to interact with this man again.