Chapter 8
eight
. . .
I couldn’t fall asleep.
Evan tried holding my hand.
Why?
How?
There were things that happened today that I could have chalked up to my warped perspective, but his fingertips brushing against my hand was very real. The ghost of his failed touch lingered on my skin.
Synapses actively formed to create new types of anxiety. Even in the pitch darkness of the cabin, my mind flashed with images of the little moments that bewildered me today. It was unavoidable.
I envisioned mundane tasks to neatly box up my thoughts, getting gas, grocery shopping, chopping vegetables. I fought to pull Evan free from my imagination. It started working.
Right as my eyes grew heavy, a loud scratching sound shook me awake.
It could be branches tapping against the window in the breeze, or a deer walking by and crunching on a twig.
The scratching started up again.
There were no floodlights or street lamps to cast a glow on the ground. The only light I had was the soft glow of the moon and my phone flashlight, which I was silently fumbling to find.
What if I touched whatever was making the scratching sound? I slapped my palm against my phone and shrieked. Once I realized I hadn’t accidentally touched a massive, flat bug, I flicked on the flashlight.
The dim beam of light panned up the wall until it met the black beady eyes of some…creature.
Another shriek, and my phone tumbled out of my hands onto the floor, the flashlight shining directly into my eyes. I jumped up and grabbed the phone, panning around in search of where this thing ran off to after I screamed at it.
The light hit its tiny, furry body and before I could identify what it was it leapt and glided across the bedroom to the other side.
Somehow, a flying squirrel managed to get into not just my cabin, but specifically, my bedroom.
I threw a sweatshirt on, pulling the hood over my head so it couldn’t land in my hair, and saying a silent prayer of thanks that it hadn’t already.
My phone flashlight wasn’t enough. I had to illuminate this cabin with every gas lamp inside.
So, like a character in a Charles Dickens novel, I ran from lamp to lamp, shakily lighting the mantle with a match.
The room was heating up and I was beginning to sweat in my hoodie, but I refused to give this rodent a nest.
The squirrel disappeared from my sight again, and I crouched on a chair as still as I could manage so it would reappear.
The cabin door opened and I shrieked again. I assumed it was a mutant, larger squirrel coming to hunt me down as payback for frightening its child.
Instead it was a very tired looking Evan.
Apparently my panic woke him up.
A cherry on top of the awkward way our night ended.
“Oh god, Evan, fuck, sorry, did I wake you?” I asked from my perch. My eyes kept darting to the floor beside him, hoping the animal would scurry out the door on its own.
“No, no, I was still awake,” it was apparent this was a half lie, but he seemed intrigued, as though this was the more interesting alternative to his own restless thoughts.
I couldn’t think about that right now. I had a squirrel to chase out.
“Can I ask what you’re doing?” He put a hand behind his head, barely lifting up the white cotton t-shirt he was wearing to reveal a strip of his abs.
Focus. Focus on the problem at hand here.
“There’s a flying squirrel somewhere in here,” I said, still in disbelief that the animal made its way inside.
“A what?” he stammered.
I was too flustered to properly answer, “the, uh, little rodents that can glide around?”
There wasn’t time to play Audubon Society with him, I was pacing around searching dark corners for any sign of it. Evan crossed his arms and haphazardly also looked around the room.
“I know what a flying squirrel is, I didn’t think that they’d be here?”
“Well I certainly don’t think I invited it in,” I said in a huff.
Before we could continue bickering about the logistics of how the squirrel entered in the first place, it skittered across the tops of the kitchen cabinets.
I reached for the broom resting against the fridge and swiftly attempted to guide it off, to which the squirrel leapt and glided to a shelf on the opposite side of the room.
“This is going to be never ending,” I sighed. “You don’t need to stay, your second night here shouldn’t be spent trying to get a rodent out of a stranger’s cabin.”
“I don’t think we’re strangers anymore,” he looked me up and down, smirking a bit at my frazzled state. “Do you need some assistance here?”
It wasn’t lost on me that he asked if I needed help rather than if I wanted it. Needed it, I did, wanted it, I certainly didn’t.
Once again, here I was. Not quite a damsel, but very much in distress. If it weren’t after midnight, and if I wasn’t already on the verge of tears from frustration, I likely would have shooed Evan away so I could handle it myself, but I was desperate and tired.
“I certainly wouldn’t mind it.” I resigned myself to being the damsel in distress once more.
Evan smiled at me and pulled the broom out of my hands, “I think we both know I have the height advantage,” he laughed.
I feverishly attempted to find something to actually catch the creature in, there was an empty tote bag hanging from the doorknob and I held it open.
“Do you have a plan?” I looked to Evan who was slowly climbing onto a chair.
“No,” he said with complete confidence. “I thought I would brush him off and you catch him.”
The broom slowly inched up in his hands getting closer to the squirrel. Evan waved it around aimlessly swatting at the rodent.
This man frantically swinging a broom around my cabin was absolutely not the same Evan McLeod who broodily smized on a poster that I hung in my college dorm room. And he was absolutely not the same Evan McLeod I’d have shameful sex dreams about.
I walked closer to the shelf and held the bag out in front of me, already knowing it wouldn’t work, and would more likely backfire than anything.
“Solid plan then,” I said.
Evan turned to me, now frustrated as well. Small beads of sweat were forming on his brow from standing so close to the burning lamps. “Do you want my help or not?”
There was a scratching sound and a quick flash of gray fur.
“Shit,” Evan looked back on the shelf that had been the critter’s hiding spot moments before.
“What?”
He searched across the wood to see if it hid closely to the wall. I tracked his gaze. The squirrel was completely gone. “I lost it.”
“Okay, okay,” I rubbed my brow, and realized all this time I still had my hood up, “I’ll grab my flashlight.”
Dejected, Evan leaned against the wall. “Why don’t you prop the door open and let it leave on its own?”
I raised a brow at him. “You’re crazy, right? That’s an open invitation for bear or moose or whatever else.”
A vision of a family of skunks settling at the foot of my bed flashed through my mind.
Evan’s eyes narrowed, offended at my comment. “Not all night, just for a bit,” he inhaled deeply. “I can wait with you if you want.”
I was too exhausted to read into this deeper than surface level. “Sure, fine, whatever.”
I brushed him off and sat on the edge of my bed, placing my head in my hands after sliding my hood off.
I’d resigned myself to complete insomnia tonight.
Even if the rodent ran off and Evan left, I’d still lie awake for hours trying to forget he was ever here.
My answer was hardly an acceptance of his offer, still, Evan perched himself on one of the chairs in the kitchen.
His stiff stance was uneasy, barely sitting on the small wooden chair like a haunted porcelain doll. The only other open seat was on the bed. I couldn’t believe what I was about to do after I wordlessly rejected him barely more than an hour before.
“You can sit on the bed, it’s a lot more comfortable.” I winced. Evan looked over at me, baffled. I shrugged and stiffly patted the space beside me.
For an actor, he had a horrible poker face. A smile split across his cheeks.
He positioned himself at the edge of the bed, a chaste space between us like there had been on the dock.
We both sat in silence and watched the door.
Appearing too eager about this newly close proximity could be off putting, so I flashed a quick smile whenever he met my gaze and then snapped my focus back to the door.
There was no more movement from the squirrel, and the scratching seemed to have magically stopped.
My eyes were growing heavy, the bed was painfully tempting. I stifled a yawn, and Evan did the same.
I could relax, at least for a bit.
I leaned back on the bed, “I’m gonna lay down for a few minutes, I promise you I’m not falling asleep.”
I drifted off the second my head hit the pillow.