Chapter 2
I’ve spent enough time browsing the website and looking at the four million pictures Steph has sent me of the Lakeside at Wild Heart Acres to justify why it’s so achingly familiar. Why my dream was so accurate.
I drive slowly waiting for some anomaly. A welcome sign, a catering van. But it’s complete déjà vu. I pull up to the clearing at the top of the hill, and there’s the reception hall. The last time I saw it, it was burning.
I turn into the gravel parking lot, take the open space next to Evan’s red Civic. I park and rest my head on the steering wheel, in real danger of puking into my lap.
Deep breath. I lift my gaze, scan the lot, and see Cass and Luke’s van, Jace’s Jeep. An Audi hatchback that I’m guessing belongs to Steph’s sister, Olivia. I’m probably the last person to arrive. I always think I’m going to be early and end up late.
Another deep breath. I open the door.
Even the smell of the place is familiar. Floral and earthy. There’s a hint of smoke in the air that triggers my anxiety. I look for him, for too many eyes watching me from the distant tree line. I see you. What if it wasn’t just a dream? What if it was a warning?
“There she is.” Evan walks around the deck of the reception hall, hands on his hips. He wears khakis, a button-down, bow tie, brown leather oxfords, brown leather belt, tortoiseshell Ray-Bans. Wyatt is beside him in flannel.
They’re dressed exactly as they were in my dream, down to the polka dots on Evan’s bow tie. They both have signature styles, but still.
“What’s with your face?” Ev says, coming down the stairs. “And I say that with love.”
“I’m having the worst déjà vu.” I want to embrace him, hold him close, never let him go. I want to apologize. I want to cry.
I am. I’m crying.
“Pull it together,” he says. “Unacceptable.”
Wyatt claps me on the back. “There, there. You’re okay, kiddo.”
“Kiddo? She’s almost forty.”
That stops the tears right quick. “I’m thirty-one! And so are you!”
“Defamation. I’m twenty-five. And I’m suing,” Evan says. “We’re sharing a cabin. Did you know? You, me, Wyatt, Luke, and Cassie. We get our own rooms, of course. And bathrooms. But we share a common room.”
This weekend really will be just like college. It’s on the tip of my tongue. It’s what I said in my dream.
“How was the drive?” I say instead.
“Long enough that I’m reconsidering hypnotherapy.” Evan is terrified of flying. “Where’s your stuff?”
“In the trunk. Let me grab it.”
“Wyatt can get it for you. He loves to show off his brute strength.” He makes eyes at his husband, who turns fuchsia.
“No, no,” I say, turning on my heel and beelining toward my car. “I got it! I’ll do it!”
Anything to make my present reality as different from the dream as possible. Anything to escape this terrible déjà vu. There’s no safety in the familiar. Only fear.
“Jeez, we get it. You’re an independent woman,” Ev says. The two of them watch as I tussle with my suitcase. I finally manage to lift it out of the trunk, but it becomes unwieldy, clips my bumper as I’m trying to set it down, and lands hard on my foot. I fail to stifle a scream. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“ ‘She is beauty. She is grace,’ ” Evan deadpans.
“Are you okay?” Wyatt asks.
“Never better,” I say, slamming my trunk shut. I hobble forward, pulling the suitcase behind me.
“This is pathetic,” Evan says. “Accept our help.”
My foot throbs, and the wheels of my suitcase keep getting stuck on rocks, nearly tipping it over on the uneven terrain of the path. I relent. “Okay. Help, please.”
Wyatt takes my suitcase and pulls ahead of us on the path toward the cabins.
“Thank you!” I shout after him.
“Yes, thank you! Such a stud.”
Wyatt turns around, pausing to flex a bicep, then keeps on walking.
“God, I love that man,” Evan says.
“He’s a good one,” I say through clenched teeth. My foot might actually have sustained a significant injury. I don’t know if I broke a bone. Every step is agony, but I don’t even care. If the only casualties tonight are my metatarsals, I’ll be happy. Beyond happy.
“I was hoping to get a moment alone with you before the festivities begin,” Evan says. “How are you?”
“Um, yeah. I’m good,” I lie. “I had this weird, scary, intense, super realistic dream last night that’s put me in a funk. Otherwise, I…I think I’m okay.”
“I never remember my dreams. But sometimes Wyatt will have a dream I did something awful to him and I can tell he’s upset with me even though I, the real me who exists in the real world, did not commit any such crime.
Then I get annoyed and it’s a whole thing,” he says.
“Anyway. I don’t believe for a second that you’re okay.
You’re sending me ‘I love you’ texts before nine a.m. and crying in public. ”
“You don’t need to worry about me,” I say, dragging my busted foot behind me. “I’ll snap out of it. I’m glad to be here. Genuinely. Maybe I needed to have that nightmare to make me appreciate today or something.”
“Sure,” Evan says. “You seem astonishingly well-adjusted for someone about to be reunited with their ex-fiancé.”
“You’re the first person to ever accuse me of being well-adjusted.”
He laughs.
“It is what it is with Ravi,” I say. “I don’t know. I’m not spiraling. Not about him, not currently. Just the dream. I’ve never had a dream like that in my life.”
“Are you taking melatonin? CBD? THC?”
“Gummies. Sometimes,” I say. “I didn’t last night. At least, I don’t think. I can’t remember…Maybe? You think that could have something to do with it?”
He shrugs. “Have you been taking care of yourself? Hydrating? Eating well?”
“No.”
“Seeing a therapist?”
“I hate finding a new therapist. Going through my whole history with a complete stranger…”
“Then enjoy the nightmares,” he says. “I don’t want you to be sad, Willa.
Don’t you know you’re too hot to wallow in a pit of despair?
You need to be good to yourself. Heal. Go to a wellness retreat.
Clear your mind. Eat pray love. Find peace.
But let your journey start tomorrow. I don’t want you self-immolating in the middle of the ceremony, but I can’t be the lone hater at this wedding. It’d be no fun.”
“You’re not a hater. You’re just intuitive and have a low tolerance for bullshit.”
“You’ll never guess who Steph and Jace invited.”
“Vicky Moldando.” The piercing sound of her screams echoes in my head. A flare of pain between my eyes—quick but ruthless. “I take back what I just said. You are a hater.”
“Please. We both know I’m the nicest person you will ever meet.”
We come to the cabins. Each has its own porch, porch swing, rocking chairs, windows with flower boxes brimming with purple impatiens and jolt pink dianthus and red snapdragons…
All the cabins are identical, but I still recognize the one that’s ours. It’s the third down the row. I keep hoping that Evan will change course, pass it and walk on to a different cabin, but no such luck.
Everything looks the same. Is the same. I’m about to hyperventilate.
As we climb the porch steps, I notice there’s a small black “3” painted on the door, and just above it a cast-iron knocker with an intricate carving of a bird. It’s the first real variation from my dream. It’s proof. I reach out to touch it, the relief at my fingertips.
The door swings back, and there’s Cassie. She wears the cutoff sleeveless T-shirt, cigarette pants, fuzzy slippers. Her bleach-blond bob is pulled into that low nothing ponytail.
“Thought I smelled gossip,” she says, drawing me in for a hug. “Come in. Let me show you.”
I trip over the threshold, my foot on fire.
“This is this room…”
I don’t need the tour.
The walls are white shiplap, adorned with framed postcards from the camp’s bygone era.
There are leather chairs and couches, plaid blankets, dried flowers in vintage milk jugs.
There’s a fireplace mantle but no fireplace, a TV mounted above it.
I count three doors, two at the back, and one directly to my left.
My room. My suitcase is in front of it. I grab the handle and push it through the door.
Everything about the room is familiar—the twin bed, the clunky wardrobe, the retro alarm clock, the thick burlap curtains.
“Someday my kid will be old enough to bribe with treats, and when I tell you I cannot wait for that day…” Cassie says, leaning on the doorframe, holding up a canned margarita. “You want one?”
“Don’t throw it at me!”
“What? Jesus. Why would I do that?”
“In my dream Luke threw one at my head.”
“A canned margarita?”
“Yeah. I swear. It hit the wall and went everywhere.”
She sighs, walks the margarita to me, and places it in my hand. “You need this.”
I crack it open and take a small sip, then offer the can to her. She accepts, drinks, holds on to it. She sprawls across the bed, knocks back a few more sips. “Sorry. Turns out I need this. But there’s plenty more.”
The bathroom is the same, too. I poke my head in, flip on the light. Exactly the same.
“Willa. Honey. What are you doing?”
“I’m checking something.”
“Come out of there. I’m going to count to five. One…two…”
“All right! Yeesh,” I say, emerging from the bathroom and squeezing onto the bed beside her.
She kills the can. “I didn’t think I’d miss Theo.
I needed the break, but it feels weird being without him.
You know that feeling like you’ve forgotten something but can’t remember what?
It’s almost like that except I’m cognizant that I have a son and that he’s safe with my in-laws.
I’m just, like, what should I be doing? And can’t believe the answer is nothing.
Drinking! What? Why the face? What’s up? ”
“I know you’re going to roll your eyes at me, but I’m still really fucked-up from that dream. And I’ve been having the wildest déjà vu all day.”
“You’re fixating.”
“Yeah, I know but—”
“Is this about the dream, or is it about seeing Ravi again?”
“What’s going on in here?” Evan asks from the doorway. “Drinking already, I see.”
“You want one? Go ask Luke.”
“I’ll wait, thanks,” he says.
“Suit yourself. What time does it start again?”
“Five,” Evan says. “The cocktail welcome reception thing starts at five.”
“I’m going to start getting ready,” I say, tipping my suitcase onto its back and unzipping it. The zipper reminds me of the masked man. His phantom wheezing reverberates in my head, the sound of his strange laughter muffled behind his duct tape zipper mouth.
“You need three hours to get ready?” Cassie asks me, sliding off my bed.
“Approximately.”
“We’ll leave you to it, then,” Evan says. They shuffle out, closing the door behind them.
I walk over to the window and pull the burlap curtains closed for privacy before I undress. I hear whispers in the other room.
“She’s stressing me out,” Cassie says. “If she brings up this dream one more time…”
“What’s the issue, exactly?” Evan asks. “She seems fine.”
“I’m worried about her. I’m trying to be patient and understanding and, like, make up for lost time. For not being there when she needed me. I had a baby right when she had a life crisis. But I am drained. I’m desperate to relax this weekend and have it not be all about her.”
“Sounds like you’re making it about you,” Evan says.
She sighs. “Okay, but she’s our friend. Don’t you feel any responsibility?
I know she wasn’t happy before, but she doesn’t seem any happier now.
What if it wasn’t Ravi? She’s depressed, Ev.
And I feel like she’s been looking to me to reassure her, and it’s like, I don’t fucking know.
I can’t be her whole support system. I’ve got my hands full. ”
“Hey, Evan, can you help me with this?” Wyatt says, interrupting their little hush-hush gossip session.
I press my palms against the door, unsteady, knees weak, blood roaring through my veins. As I suspected, Cassie is losing her patience with me. She’s letting it fester—her frustration, her guilt, her resentment. Why won’t she just come to me with it? Does she think I’m too fragile? Too depressed?
Maybe I am, but it’s painful and scary and sobering to know I’m seen that way.
I see you.
I’m not trying to poison the weekend, to sabotage her good time. I’m just trying to get by.
I step away from the door, the floorboards creaking, my heart beating fast and loud—
louder, louder, louder, louder. I can’t escape the sound. It’s in me. It is me. Anxious and ugly.
I go start the shower, hoping it’ll calm me down. Take off my shoes. My socks. My right foot is slightly swollen, the skin marbling purple. It’s going to be hell to walk in heels.
As long as I don’t have to run.