Chapter 10
ten
. . .
The sun moseyed across the sky and we both sat reading in pleasant coexistence. His story from earlier was only a memory.
I wasn’t like that woman, I reminded myself again, I wasn’t like the rest of the crazed fans who’d hunt him down like he was nothing more than a prize to be won. Still, it had a grip on me, something I still needed to wash off and forget.
The heat skittered across my bare legs like tiny bugs and the lake was teasing me with its glittering ripples. The book was increasingly intensifying and my brain was becoming mush from the subject matter and from everything else it was trying to process.
Going for a dip in an ice cold lake could provide a much needed reprieve.
“I’m going to grab a quick bite and go for a swim,” I hastily sputtered out. My panicky tone was unintended, and hopefully imperceptible.
Evan didn’t look up from his book, he mumbled a few words of understanding as his eyes darted across the page. For being frightened by the content he was certainly engaged by it.
This time apart would be a good thing. Healthy space between us, he didn’t need to be my shadow nor did I need to be his. I could hopefully have an opportunity to quiet my brain.
I threw together a quick lunch in the cabin and sat at the table, briefly flipping through my notebooks.
Nestled between moody poems, half-assed to do lists, and doodles when I was bored on a phone call were small snippets of my actual writing.
Sometimes a sentence or paragraph would come to mind and I’d need to jot it down faster than I could open my laptop.
I read through the rudimentary framework to whatever “Ice on the Turret” was supposed to magically morph into.
This was my chance to legitimize my writing, and based on the few things I’d put to paper, it was terrible.
The plot didn’t make any sense, the concept only would require a suspension of belief.
It wouldn’t be realistic and it wouldn’t be fantasy, it would only exist in a poorly written purgatory.
I closed the notebook again. “Ice on the Turret” sat unopened on my laptop, and I knew I should read through it again to refamiliarize myself with the story. But I couldn’t, not here, not now. The world of Thorndown would remain untouched.
I peered out the window. Evan’s silhouette remained unmoving from his chair, nose so deep in the book that he could imprint himself onto the pages.
I tied the straps of my swimsuit and assessed myself in the antique cabin mirror.
My warbling, spotted reflection looked back at me.
In a way it’s how I felt, distorted and not quite myself.
Towing the line between real and uncanny.
Only pieces of me were fully in focus this week.
The water became more and more enticing.
It laid before me, crystalline and sparking.
I could succumb to the silence and freedom of submerging myself.
I snuck out of my cabin like Pink Panther, not wanting to be seen.
I walked behind Evan in his chair and he tilted back his head as I passed, about to offer a greeting then choosing against it.
I remained focused on the destination. No noise, no distractions, no thinking whatsoever.
At the end of the brightly painted red dock the water was deep enough to jump into.
It often served as a launching ramp for my friends and I when we were younger and more reckless.
As I made my approach I contemplated jumping off in the same way.
The water would be freezing, almost as bad as the falls.
The lake hadn’t had enough time in the sun to warm up from a harsh winter, the last of the ice melted at the end of March and two months definitely wasn’t long enough to move the temperature gauge from frigid to tolerable.
I decided to throw caution to the wind and make a run for it. Fuck being careful this once.
I cast off my towel and sandals to the side, placed my glasses on the arm of an unoccupied chair, and stood at the end of the dock, looking at the straight shot ahead. My feet rhythmically plodded across the boards, and then I jumped, and tightly held my breath in the millisecond I was airborne.
A splash echoed across the flat and silent lake.
Every one of my muscles tensed up as I was submerged into the icy water.
Somehow a word that meant colder than freezing was necessary.
I resurfaced, the warm air evaporating the droplets of water off my face.
It was exhilarating. I slicked my hair back and stared at the mountains and water before me, I was the only person in the lake.
Nothing existed besides the water, the rocks, and the fish. Floating in the lake I didn’t have a breakup, or bills, or work, or a terrifying new crush.
I could just be.
I swam to shallower waters where I could stand.
The water warmed up, or at least I warmed to it.
I’d finally stopped shaking so aggressively from the chill.
To go through all that effort to jump in and immediately get out felt like a fool’s errand, so I decided to muscle through staying in a little longer.
The lake looked like it was made of diamonds from the way the sunlight hit the ripples on the surface.
“How is it?” Evan called from his chair. I snapped back to the beach and looked at him propped up in his chair. Without my glasses on he was nothing more than a blurry Evan-shaped blob.
I glanced at the goosebumps on my arms and shuddered in the breeze that fluttered across the waves. “Somehow colder than the water yesterday.”
He walked to the shore and waded in up to his mid calf. “Doesn’t seem that bad to me.”
“It doesn’t count if you won’t even let the water touch your knees,” I teased and floated onto my back, eyes closed, body existing in the in-between of the cold water and warm sunlight.
The in-between was interrupted by heavy footsteps pounding on the dock and a loud splash. I turned back over and saw a figure reemerge. Evan resurfaced quickly, shivering from the shock and gasping for air.
“You couldn’t take my word for it?” I shouted, laughing at his teeth chattering dramatically.
“My trainer’s made me do cold plunges before, I assumed this would be no different.” He shook and exhaled quickly, his hands feverishly ran up and down his arms.
“And?”
“I’d say this is slightly better. Not by much though.”
He swam over to me, the great divide was closing in. My solitude and sanity floated away with the current as he came into focus.
He stood directly before me, and given our height difference, the water that was up to my shoulders was up to the top of his stomach, right above his navel. The lake lapped at his abdominal muscles in the same way I wanted to.
I was envious of water.
“You get used to it,” I spoke slowly.
Evan migrated towards me, like we were both magnets and couldn’t avoid the supernatural pull happening.
He was standing dangerously close now. So close I could see his chest gently rise and fall.
So close I could decipher his tattoo, a small McLeod family crest—a bull’s head flanked by two flags surrounded by a circular belt with “Hold Fast” written within.
Underneath was the family name in a gothic font.
On anyone else I’d find it a little self-righteous, on him, it was a marker of a history I wanted to understand.
He was standing so close that if he wanted to kiss me right now all he’d have to do is duck down his head.
What was happening? There was no plan, there was no agenda. There were only two bodies standing in the water, figuring out the next step.
I focused on the thin line of water between us. Looking at him would make this into something tangible and terrifying.
The hand holding attempt. The night in my bed. The glances. It was all converging.
“Can you please just look at me, Dani?”
Willing against my nerves, our eyes met in the midst of the silence.
He was still a little blurry without my glasses, a distorted version of himself.
It was for the best that he was out of focus.
He was so real when he was in front of me like this that the fuzzy edges helped soften the harsh reality of what was happening.
Evan gently bit at his lip. Warmth spread up my chest, across my collarbone, and crawled up my neck to my cheeks.
Warmth had also spread elsewhere, but I was actively trying to ignore that panging heat in my core.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful.”
My heart might have stopped. Somehow Evan’s hand managed to have wrapped itself around my waist; such a natural feeling I hadn’t noticed it there.
Like his fingers were always meant to rest against my hip bone, and the curve of my stomach was designed for his grasp.
Through the cold of the water I felt his small calluses against my skin, their roughness nearly intoxicating.
“Do you mind this?” he whispered.
My entire body tingled with fervent energy. He’d solidified this moment. I felt an overwhelming need to dunk myself back under the water. Running away would be so incredibly easy, I could pretend this wasn’t happening and build the fortress even higher. But I wanted this. I craved this feeling.
It had been so long since I felt such a spark with someone, and yet my heart was at battle with my head again. It was best to not think, to shut up that stupid cartoon brain I’d conjured as a devil on my shoulder and let it happen.
Logic was the killer of all things lovely.
Whatever the hell this was, I had to see it through. Evan pulled me in closer, until my body was up against his under the water. The way the sun rays reflected on the surface of the water made it look like we were in a pool made of stars.
“I don’t mind it at all,” I managed to choke out.
Finally, acting without thinking for the first time in days, maybe my life, I grabbed onto Evan’s shoulders. My fingers latticed around the back of his neck. I was relying on the muscle memory of a person I wanted to be, not the Dani who would run from this.