Chapter 26 Skye
SKYE
Bloody hell. Once the car stops (snugly in a ditch, but stopped), I get out to see what happened.
When I swerved in the road, I must’ve run over something.
My front left tire is as flat as a pancake and no longer straight like the other wheels, but at an odd angle.
I take a deep breath and mean to let it out in one calming gust, but what comes out instead as I stare at my demolished tire in the dark night and feel the first fat rain drop of many to be sure, is a primal rage-filled scream.
As I get back in the car, the rain really starts to come down, the sound echoing on the metal of the roof. At least it’s not snow…yet. Even if I changed the tire, with it bent that odd way, I couldn’t drive it anywhere. My phone has absolutely no service and two missed texts. The first is from Dad.
Dad: Drive safe, pet.
Ha! Too late for that advice, Dad. The second is from Miles.
Miles: I miss your eyes. The first time I saw them, I thought they looked like the sky on a sunny day on a tropical island, and now I know they are the sun itself. I miss their warmth upon me.
Tears spring to the corner of my eyes as I read and reread it.
And he says he’s not the writer. I miss him too.
More than I’d like to admit. I miss his hands on me.
I miss his laugh. I miss his eyes when they light up with an idea.
This will be what our relationship is like if we keep seeing each other after he goes back to America—just a bunch of words on the screen and an ever-present longing.
Headlights are coming down the road, startling me out of my thoughts.
I hop out of the Land Rover, throw my bag on my shoulder, and wave, jumping up and down like a mad thing.
The car, a white sedan with a prominent dent on the side, mercifully slows to a stop.
I’ve seen this car and that dent before.
The window rolls down, and Finn leans over. “What are you doing out here jumping like a nutter?”
Because I am a nutter, I think, but just shake my head, water droplets flying out of my hair.
“Get in.”
I do. What choice do I have?
“Thanks.”
He nods, his blond hair falling over his eye. “What are you doing out here?”
I tell him about the deer and the flat tire. He gets out, braving the downpour, his phone out with the little flashlight on. After a few minutes, he gets back in the car with a shiver. “Yeah, it’s properly fucked.”
I nod.
“You’re lucky I came by. You might have been stuck out here all night. Where are you going?”
Should I just ask him to take me back home? But he was headed the opposite way, and I’m probably only about half an hour from the address Miles sent me when he was trying to convince me to come. Maybe an hour.
I fish out the page I printed out from the holiday park’s website and hand it to Finn. “I’m headed here, but you can take me home if that’s the way you’re headed.”
“Nah, this isn’t too far out of my way.”
Relief washes over me so completely that it feels like dunking my head under in a warm bath. “Thanks.”
He pulls back out on the road, the windshield wipers struggling to keep up.
“Where are you going this fine evening?”
Finn laughs, the booming sound filling the small car, his mom’s car.
It reminds me of when we were kids and used to ride around in this heap for hours playing an old Sonic Youth cassette tape and looking for adventure or trouble, whichever we could find.
I was in the car when he put that dent in it, trying to park a little too close to a pole.
“Fine evening indeed. Can’t say I’ve missed the weather here, that’s for sure.
In Brooklyn, when it rains, it’s a whoosh all at once, a couple of minutes, and then it’s over.
Sunny skies again. Not like this constant dirge. ”
I bristle at this. It’s one thing for me to complain or joke about the weather. I love it here. When Finn does it, it feels like a slight. “Well, we can’t all be Brooklyn.”
Finn smiles like I was joking. “I’m going to an old buddy’s gig at Grog and Gruel. You could come with if you want? He’s putting me up after the show. I actually stayed with him for a couple of weeks when I first arrived. Wasn’t quite ready to face everybody. You, anyway.”
There is an awkward silence. I don’t know what to say to that, and his cheeks are pink as a fresh rose.
He keeps talking. “I’m sure there would be room for you to stay the night, too. It’s Nate Haggarty. Remember him?”
I smile. “Ah, Nate. I haven’t seen him in an age.”
“Want to come?”
I shake my head.
“Who are you off to see, then?”
I falter, “Um…I…”
Finn laughs again. “It’s alright. It’s none of my business anyway.”
I nod, and we’re quiet for a moment. The silence is heavy with unsaid things. For the life of me, I can’t think of one small-talk type of topic. The only thing that comes to mind is Why did you ghost me when I needed you the most? But I can’t say that. The answer wouldn’t even matter.
It’s like Finn can read my thoughts. He fiddles with the heat, putting it on full blast, and then says, “I’m sorry.”
He’s so quiet, I can hardly hear him over the whoosh from the vents. “Sorry?”
Finn nods. “I should’ve called when I heard your mom died. I should’ve been there for you.”
It’s so unexpected, I don’t know what to say. I know I’m supposed to say that’s okay, or don’t worry, but I can’t. It wasn’t okay. “Why didn’t you?”
Finn runs a hand through his hair. “It was hard the first few years in New York. I was broke as fuck. The band wasn’t going well. I was afraid that if I talked to you, I’d come running back home, and I wasn’t ready to give up my dream.”
Finn turns down the dirt road, thick with trees on either side.
“I wasn’t asking you to give up your dream or to come home, even.”
“Aye. I see that now. And my dreams have…not changed, exactly, but shifted. I’m moving back.”
My mouth falls open. “Moving back, for good?”
Finn nods. “That’s the plan. And I was really hoping you would forgive me and that you might want to hang out a bit?”
The holiday park comes into view with two neat rows of cabins on either side of the road, lit by their dim porch lights, some with glowing windows.
Finn stops the car and looks at me with his blue eyes glistening in the dim light. He takes my hand. “Please forgive me, Skye.”
I take my hand back and clutch my bag to my chest. “I have to go.”
Finn blows out a small breath. “You sure you’re going to be alright here?”
I nod.
“If you need a ride back, just call. I promise I’ll answer. I’ll always answer from now on.”
I don’t know what to say, but part of me wants to yell too little too late, and the other part wants to call right now just to try it out. Just to have Finn be there for me. A rewrite of history. But you can’t rewrite history. I get out of the car without another word.
“Take care,” Finn says after me.
Finn swings his car around, coming very close to hitting one of the cabin’s little porches, still a terrible driver.
It seems some things never change. I’m reeling from his apology.
Never in a million years did I expect him to come back, let alone hear the words I’m sorry from him.
Accountability was never Finn’s strong suit.
Even when he made that dent in his mom’s car, he told her he came back from the shop and it was like that.
But I guess we all grow up. What exactly did he mean by hang out? Does he want to date?
Not that it matters what he wants. It’s absolutely not what I want anymore.
I’m here to see Miles. I check our text thread for his cabin number.
Cabin eleven. I walk past one, then three, odd numbers on one side and even on the other.
It’s late, so I climb the porch stairs to eleven at almost tiptoe, but then notice all the lights are on inside.
I can just make out Miles’s shadow in the window.
He’s pacing back and forth and probably running lines.
Even though he says he’s been more distracted on this film, he works so hard, and he’s equally as hard on himself about it.
I think it’s one of the things we share—our persistence in the process, me with my writing and him with his acting.
I pause for a moment, watching him, when another shadow passes in front of the window, a distinctly female shadow.
My hand flies to my mouth to muffle my cry of outrage.
I creep a little closer on the porch, feeling like I’m moving through molasses.
Time slows as I peek through the small opening in the curtain.
Miles is in his jeans—the tight black ones that make me crazy—and no shirt, shaking his head.
The female figure comes into view and grabs his hands.
It’s Ava, in red satin shorts and a nearly see-through white tank top that hardly comes down past her taut belly.
She grabs his hand and leans her face up to his.
There is a scratch on his chin. From shaving? Or from her?
My stomach seizes as if from a physical blow. But no matter how hard I clench, it’ll never be as flat as Ava’s. I want to cry, but not here.
How long have they been seeing each other?
Have they been together the whole time we have?
Late-night shoots… Were they really late nights caressing Ava?
And their runs together every morning. Were they stopping in hidden places?
Was she giving him a diddy ride amongst the trees?
I know Miles and I said it was just a fling, but I just never thought he was sleeping around.
We never discussed monogamy. I just assumed.
I turn to leave, my bag swinging and hitting the house on the way with a thud. The door opens behind me, the creaking hinges as loud as a scream in the quiet night. I keep going.
“Skye. Wait.”
I stop but don’t turn around. I can’t look into his eyes now. I’ll break like that record carelessly yanked off the shelf by another American.
“Skye, it’s not what it looks like.”