5. Annabelle
Annabelle
Last night was…not great. I tossed and turned in my hotel bed alone, not sure if I should be mad or what.
Disappointed, maybe. Grant was nice, funny, hot, and very into me.
That kiss in the elevator was next-level.
He really put his back into it, as my Nana used to say.
We were halfway to my hotel room and then he just…
bailed. What kind of man turns down a sure thing?
Magnus did, says a nasty little voice in my head.
I hate that voice. And I hate Magnus. I hate the way he made me feel worthless.
All I wanted was to be close to him, but in the last year, the man didn’t touch me once.
He said no to sex, no to cuddles, even no to blowjobs—and I give exceptional blowjobs.
Magnus insisted that nothing was wrong, that he still loved me, that he wanted to make our relationship work.
He was an ideal boyfriend in every other respect, so the problem had to be me. I wasn’t desirable. I wasn’t worthy. I was ugly. Disgusting, even. That’s the story I told myself. I let that gaslighting jerk mess with my head and destroy my self-esteem, and I let it go on far too long.
Last night, I felt the opposite of that. I felt wanted. For a minute anyway. And then it was Magnus all over again.
“This is for the best,” I tell myself. I say it three times, making myself believe it. I’m looking for a real relationship, and Grant is obviously not relationship material, but I took one look at him and lost my mind.
That can’t happen. Not again.
I grab my phone and delete the photo of his driver’s license, glad I didn’t send it to Kat. From now on, Grant Neverly doesn’t exist.
I lie in bed, scrolling through the other photos on my roll.
The bakery’s treat case, the bookstore’s windows, the post office in a converted Victorian mansion, the tiny city hall.
My weather app tells me that the snowstorm is past and today would be a great day to film, especially if I can get down to the boardwalk before the sun is fully up.
I’m not meeting the lawyer until ten, so I’ve got plenty of time to make some content and get some breakfast before then.
I find my favorite playlist and turn on “A Beautiful Day” by India Arie, hitting the repeat button to make it loop. That song always gets my mind right, and by the time it’s on its fourth playthrough, I’m up and dressed, hair done, makeup on, ready to face whatever comes next.
I’m not going to let some stupid man dim my light. Not today. Because today’s a beautiful day, dammit.
It’s also a cold day. It’s fifteen degrees at the beach, with wind whipping off the lake. It feels like sticking my face in a freezer that hates me personally. Last night’s snow squeaks under my boots with a smug little noise that says yeah, try me.
I try her. Because the beach is stunning. The lake is edged with jagged shelves of ice that catch the light like cut glass. Tiny waves kiss the ice and slosh back. The air is so clean it smells expensive, like I’m breathing sapphires.
Back home, January means endless gray skies, slush in your boots, and repeated arguments about whose turn it is to shovel the driveway.
Up here, though? It feels like the landscape is offering a different kind of endless.
It’s one of endless possibility. Like if I’m tough enough to stand here, I’ll see something worth freezing for.
Just then, the sun breaks over the clouds on the horizon, glittering on the waves like a fairy sprinkling pixie dust over the surface. I pull down my scarf, let the wind sting my face, and grin like a happy fool.
I can’t keep this beauty to myself. I need to capture as much of this sunrise as possible, before it’s gone.
I grab my phone from my bag and scan the shoreline for the best place to film. The only other person in sight is a young woman with a slim build and REI-ish layers that mark her as outdoorsy. She steps off the boardwalk and heads toward the lake.
I’m panning over the frozen shore with its sun-kissed waves when I hear a “Yip!” as the woman slips on some ice and goes down hard.
Oh shit. I gasp a strangled breath and rush over to her. Is she okay? What was she doing walking so close to the water? Did she break anything in the fall? “Are you all right?” I ask.
She’s on one knee now, trying to get up. I extend a hand and pull her the rest of the way. “Oof, thank you,” she says while dusting herself off. “I’m all right.”
“Are you sure?” I have an urge to check her for broken bones or a concussion, although I don’t know what either of those would look like. “Should I call someone?”
“Like who?”
“I…don’t know?” Where’s the nearest hospital? What’s the ambulance service like up here? I’m actually no help at all.
“I have to wipe out once a year or my winter isn’t complete. I was overdue.” The woman laughs and my worry drops to zero. She rubs her left butt cheek, then kicks a stone out of the way. “Wish I hadn’t gone down on a rock, though. Geez, that’s going to leave a bruise.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Tell me you didn’t film that. I don’t need my high school frenemies watching that on TikTok.”
I shove my phone into my bag. “I don’t film people without permission.”
“Refreshing.” The woman smiles and holds out a hand. “I’m June.”
“Annabelle.” We exchange a fuzzy-gloved handshake. “Isn’t it safer to walk on the boardwalk?”
“Boardwalk’s for tourists,” June says. She points to a cluster of small houses farther up the shore. “I live right over there.”
“Wow. Nice.”
“I made my husband promise we’d always live near the water, because I have to see the lake every day.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t hard for him to agree to lakefront property.”
“It was summer,” June says, as if that explains everything. “What about you? Are you here with your family?”
“I’m not married.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Nope. I, uh, haven’t found the one yet.” I haven’t even found the one-night stand.
“Are you a travel influencer? Because we don’t need—”
“No, no, no. This was just b-roll for my Instagram. Background stuff. I like to show my followers where I get my inspiration.”
Her eyebrows slam together and she tilts her head like I’m not making sense. “Do you have a lot of followers?”
“Define a lot.”
“No idea,” she says. “I have, like, thirty.”
“I have a few more than that.” Last time I looked, it was over ten thousand on Instagram alone. I have a decent following on Facebook and TikTok too, but Instagram is my bread and butter.
“Can I follow you?” June asks.
“Sure.” I’ve never had someone ask before. It’s sweet.
I show her my Insta and a moment later, I get a new follow from @OneJuneSolstice. I follow her back.
She looks at my pinned posts, where I show my best greeting cards. “Damn, you’ve got talent. You sell these?”
“I do.”
“Where?”
“Online mostly.”
“Emerald Gifts might take some. My aunt owns it. I could ask her.” She’s still scrolling. “Do you have a card for every occasion?”
“Only happy ones.” I make cards for birthdays, new babies, graduations, and my personal favorite, weddings.
She shoots me a silly grin. “Are you saying ‘I’m sorry you fell on your ass twice this winter’ isn’t a greeting-card occasion?”
I grin back. “Not yet.”
“Give it a few months.”
I’m still thinking about June’s words as I leave the boardwalk and head toward Cedar Street. By the time I finish my French toast and bacon at The Up and Away Café, I’ve got the whole card designed in my head.
Front of card: A serene scene of pine trees and snow, contrasted with a cartoon figure flailing mid-spill, her purse flying one way, coffee flying the other.
Front caption: Sorry you fell on the ice twice this winter.
Inside caption: Gravity is undefeated. But so are you. You keep getting up.
I dismiss the idea as I walk down the freshly shoveled sidewalk. I’m not going to make that card. It would have a very narrow audience.
Trying to make a viable business means my greeting cards must have mass appeal. At the same time, I can’t lose the handmade aesthetic. People need a reason to buy cards from me instead of at the drugstore. It’s almost impossible to thread that needle, but I’m determined to keep trying.
The lawyer’s office is on Elk Street, in the building next to mine. It shares space with an accountant and a vacation rental agency. I locate the right office and a woman about my age meets me at the door, takes my coat, and introduces herself as Lia Sellers.
She’s striking, with dark hair parted down the center and a warm, open smile. Her eyes seem to take my measure, but with acceptance rather than judgement.
“So glad to finally meet you,” Lia says. “I feel like I sent you a hundred emails. But let me tell you in person, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. It’s hard to believe it’s been—” I almost say three years, but Lia isn’t talking about my Nana. She’s talking about Stan Piro, Nana’s husband. “He was a good man,” I finish and sink into the visitor chair.
“Everyone loved Stan,” Lia says. “His funeral outgrew the church. We had to have it in the school gym.”
Nana met Stan on a Mississippi riverboat cruise.
The engagement was short. Nana said that at her age, she didn’t have time to waste.
Six weeks later, she was married and living in Echo Creek.
She was deliriously happy. Nana adored Stan and he adored her.
We knew they’d be together for the rest of their lives. Which for Nana, was less than a year.
It was so unfair. They loved each other so much, and ran out of time to enjoy it. I never had the chance to celebrate their new life, or get to know Stan well, or even visit Echo Creek. We had phone calls and FaceTime and plans to get together, and then we had nothing at all.