Chapter 26 Phoenix
PHOENIX
Iwake before dawn.
The cabin is still dark, the only light a pale gray glow seeping through the window as the sun begins its slow climb over the mountains. I lie motionless for a long moment, orienting myself to the unfamiliar space and the familiar weight of the woman beside me.
Jade is curled up on the extreme edge of the mattress, balanced so precariously that a strong breath might send her tumbling to the floor. Even in sleep, she's trying to get away from me. Her body is a tight ball of defensive tension, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around herself.
But her face tells a different story.
In sleep, the hard edges of her anger have softened into something more vulnerable.
Her dark hair spills across the pillow in a wild tangle, and her lips are slightly parted, her breathing slow and even.
The furrow between her brows has smoothed away, leaving behind the face of a woman who hasn't yet remembered why she's supposed to hate me.
I want to reach for her. I want to brush that strand of hair from her cheek and pull her against my chest and hold her until she stops running from me. I want to feel her body relax into mine the way it did before everything fell apart.
Instead, I ease out of bed as quietly as I can, careful not to disturb the mattress too much. She stirs slightly but doesn't wake, and I stand there for a moment longer, watching the gentle rise and fall of her breathing beneath the quilt.
Seven days. I have seven days to make her understand.
Looking at her now, soft and peaceful in the early morning light, I almost believe I can do it.
I pad barefoot to the kitchenette and start the coffee maker. It's an old machine, loud and temperamental, and the gurgling and hissing seem obscenely loud in the silence of the cabin. I wince, glancing back at the bed, but Jade doesn't stir.
While the coffee brews, I stand at the window and watch the forest wake up around us.
The trees press close on all sides, a wall of green and brown that blocks out the rest of the world.
There are no neighbors or roads. There’s no cell service.
Just us and the wilderness and the things we need to say to each other.
That’s why I wanted to come here. I wanted a place where we could be alone together, away from the noise and distractions of our regular lives.
The coffee maker sputters its final breath, and I pour two mugs. Black for me. I realize that I don't know how she takes hers. Despite all the time I’ve spent watching her, I somehow forgot to make note of this simple thing.
I hear the rustle of sheets and I turn to see Jade sitting up in bed, her dark hair a mess around her face. She blinks her eyes in the gray morning light.
For one perfect moment, she looks almost happy to see me.
Then reality crashes back in and her expression shifts to confusion and anger.
"Day one of seven," she says flatly. "Six more to go."
"Good morning to you too."
She doesn't respond. Just sits there on the edge of the bed, her borrowed flannel rumpled from sleep, her bare feet dangling above the cold floor. She looks small and tired and absolutely determined not to give me an inch.
I cross to her and hold out one of the mugs. "Coffee."
She stares at it like I'm offering her poison.
“I'm not trying to poison you, if that's what you're worried about."
"I wasn't worried about that until you said it."
"Just take the coffee, Jade."
She accepts it. Her fingers brush mine in the exchange, and I see the way she flinches at the contact, pulling back quickly. She wraps both hands around the mug and stares down into it searching for answers.
"Thank you," she doesn't say.
I'm getting used to that.
The day stretches ahead of us, long and formless and full of tension.
I'm acutely aware of everything we don't have here. There’s no cable TV or wifi. The only entertainment is what lines the far wall of the cabin: a bookshelf stuffed with hardcovers and paperbacks that have been accumulating here for decades. Their spines are cracked and faded from years of use. There’s also a small collection of DVDs stacked beside an ancient television that still requires a built-in player.
The movies are relics from another era, the kind of thing my parents left behind when they stopped coming here.
Romantic comedies from the nineties. Action films with actors who've long since aged out of leading roles.
A few animated movies from when I was a child, brought up here to keep me occupied during rainy afternoons.
"We should go for a walk," I suggest. "There's a trail that leads down to a creek. The view is beautiful this time of year."
"No."
"The fresh air might—"
"I said no."
Her voice is sharp enough to cut, and I bite back the retort that rises to my lips. Pushing her won't help. I know that. But the alternative is sitting here in this suffocating silence, watching her hate me from across the room.
"We could talk," I try instead. "That's why we're here. So we can actually communicate without—"
"Without what? Without me having the option to leave when I've heard enough?" She laughs bitterly. "That's not communication, Phoenix. That's a hostage negotiation."
"You're not a hostage."
"Then give me my phone and let me walk out that door."
I don't answer. We both know what my silence means.
Jade shakes her head slowly. "That's what I thought."
She sets her coffee mug on the small table beside the bed and rises, padding across the cold floor to the bookshelf that lines one wall of the cabin. She runs her fingers along the spines before pulling out a battered copy of something I can't see the title of.
Then she curls up on the sofa, tucks her bare feet beneath her, and opens the book.
For hours, she doesn't look at me. Not when I make breakfast and set a plate beside her that she ignores for twenty minutes before finally eating. Not when I get my own book and lay down on the bed reading the same sentence over and over again.
A few times, I catch her watching me. I see it in the corner of my eye. She glances up as I pour another cup of coffee and start a fire. But every time I turn to look at her directly, her gaze snaps back to the book.
I feel her studying me and I study her back. I watch the way she turns the pages. I watch the way she shifts on the sofa, trying to get comfortable. I watch the way she plays with a loose thread on the sleeve of her flannel.
The tension between us builds with nowhere to go. By midday, I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin. By late afternoon, I have to restrain myself from pacing back and forth.
Standing at the stove and stirring a pot of soup, I feel her behind me. I didn’t hear her move or walk on the creaky floorboards, but suddenly she’s behind me.
"Why me?"
Her voice is quiet. Stripped of the anger and sarcasm.
I don't turn around. "What do you mean?"
"I mean there are thousands of women you could have chosen for your little charade.
Rich women. Connected women. Women who would have been thrilled to play the adoring girlfriend for a room full of investors.
" I hear her take a shaky breath. "So why me?
Why go to all the trouble of paying off my debts and flying me across the country when you could have just hired an actress? "
I turn off the burner and set down the spoon. When I face her, she's standing a few feet away, arms wrapped around herself, looking up at me with those dark eyes that have haunted me for longer than she knows.
"Because I didn't want an actress," I say. "I wanted you."
"But why?"
The question hangs between us, heavy with everything I haven't told her. Reading her blog. The years of watching. The obsession that started long before Marcus ever mentioned needing a girlfriend for the investors.
I could tell her now. Could confess all of it and let the chips fall where they may.
But I look at her standing there, so fragile, and I know that truth would break whatever thin thread still connects us.
"Because you're real," I say instead. "Because every other woman I've ever met has wanted something from me. Because when I'm with you, I feel like I can breathe for the first time in my life."
Her eyes search my face, looking for the lie. "That's a pretty speech."
"It's the truth."
"Is it? Because I don't know what the truth looks like coming from you anymore."
The words hit harder than I expect. I've been called a lot of things in my life, but liar was never one of them. I've always prided myself on being direct and on saying exactly what I mean.
But she's right. I have lied to her.
"Jade—"
"I'm tired." She cuts me off, turning away. "I'm going to bed."
"It's barely seven o'clock."
"Then I'll stare at the ceiling for three hours until I fall asleep. Either way, I'm done talking for today."
She crosses to the bed and climbs under the covers, still wearing the flannel and leggings, turning her back to the room and to me. Within minutes, her breathing evens out and it sounds like she might actually be asleep.
I stand there in the middle of the cabin, the soup growing cold on the stove, watching her body rise and fall with each breath.
Day one is over.
Six more to go.