Chapter 8 Single-Lane Roads
Single-Lane Roads
She’s made her fair share of impulsive decisions only to regret not slowing down long enough to think them through.
It comes with being the type of person who is constantly moving—constantly striving—toward something.
Some goal, some new hobby, some check mark on the never-ending list in her mind of accomplishments or successes that will scratch the constant itch in her brain.
And because she can’t sit still for one single second, sometimes she ends up flinging herself off a cliff before she checks to see if she’s packed a parachute.
As she drives down a narrow road somewhere in the Scottish Highlands, an ancient stone wall to her left, an oncoming van to the right, she wonders if this might be the one time she truly will meet her end at the bottom of a cliff.
Her knuckles go white as she grips the steering wheel tighter, the van barreling down the road toward her like it’s in a grand prix.
It’s not just that she’s driving on the wrong side of the road.
It’s that she’s driving on the wrong side of the road, and said road is practically three feet wide, and the rental car company upgraded her to an SUV against her will.
Unless she wanted to wait four hours for something else, she had to make do with driving the equivalent of a tank on road that should clearly only be one lane.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Sage squeals, instinctively shifting her body toward the wall as the van drives past her, as if that will help at all. Her breath releases from her lungs as the van clears the car, and she checks her driver’s side mirror to make sure she didn’t knock it off.
At least she has a wall. The other lane is bordered by a loch, which is probably gorgeous, but Sage can’t tear her eyes away from the death trap that’s supposedly a two-lane road to really appreciate it.
She should’ve taken the train.
At least it isn’t snowing.
As soon as she has the thought, it starts to rain.
Ah, the universe. Always happy to prove it’s listening by flashing a metaphorical middle finger.
Sage frowns as she tries to figure out how to turn on the windshield wipers.
She really, really should’ve taken the train.
Sage’s GPS had her arriving at her Airbnb—a small guest cottage just outside of Portree, the most populated town in Skye, clocking in at 2,310 people—at 5:15 that evening.
It’s 7:45 when she pulls up a gravel drive to what she hopes is the right place. She can’t really see much, given it’s pitch-black outside. Her headlights illuminate a corner of a house that looks way larger than what she’s booked, but the rest is lost to the dark of night.
It’s probably the main house, she assures herself as she turns off the car. Her hopeful inner monologue isn’t enough to stop her from slumping back against the seat and letting out a long breath as she triple checks the rental app against the address she put in the map.
Everything looks right, but if her navigation skills here are anything to go off of, then there’s at least a chance she—
Someone knocks on the driver’s side window, startling Sage so thoroughly that she screams. She jerks sideways, her phone flying from her hand and knocking the Coke she swore she wouldn’t drink unless it was an emergency out of the cupholder and all over the passenger seat.
Fucking Margot and her connection to the universe. She’s controlling her pop intake even now.
Sage struggles to breathe, a hand on her chest, as she looks out the window. A woman stands in a mirror position, and Sage can see her chest heaving, even beneath the woman’s heavy jacket.
“Shit,” Sage mutters again as she stumbles out of the car.
“I’m so sorry, are you okay?” She isn’t quite sure why she’s apologizing, especially because her heart is still jackhammering against her rib cage, but she has enough decency to check on a woman who looks like she’s one jump scare away from a heart attack.
“Gave me a right scare,” the woman says, still clutching at her Barbour coat like it’s the only thing keeping her standing.
“Sorry. Thought you saw me coming,” she says, as if Sage hadn’t been frowning at her phone trying to figure out where the hell she is.
“Wanted to make sure you find the guesthouse all right.”
Her voice is lilting, her Scottish accent sending her sentences rising and falling like a wave. Her curly gray hair is wild under the hood of her jacket, which she tugs closer to her chin. It hasn’t stopped drops of rain from settling on her light brown skin.
The deluge has eased into a sprinkle, but it’s cold enough that Sage curls her arms around herself as she says, “Greta, I take it?”
“Aye, that’s me. You’re Sage?”
“That would be me.”
Greta’s smile is kind, if not a bit mischievous. “We were starting to worry you’d driven into a loch.”
Sage winces. “No lochs. Nearly took out a wall or two, but”—she spreads her arms wide—“here I am.”
“Well, come on, then. Let’s get you situated. Did you eat? Everything in town closes ’round seven on a Sunday.”
“Um, no,” she confesses. Sage’s bloodstream is currently made up of Sour Patch Kids and three delectable sips of pop. “But I’m pretty jet-lagged, so I’ll probably just go to bed.”
It’s not like she’ll have much trouble convincing her brain it’s shy of midnight. She has half a mind to grab her phone and start using the flashlight feature.
“I’ll grab something from Edgar,” Greta insists. “Your kitchen is set with some breakfast items, but I imagine you’d want something a little heartier.”
“It’s really not a problem,” she tries, but Greta is already ushering her to the back of the car to grab her bag.
“Neither is giving you food. Come on, before we freeze.”
Sage knows stubbornness when she sees it. Emerson is, after all, her best friend and one of the most stubborn people she knows. And Sage … well, she owns a mirror. Pot, kettle, etc. etc.
So she follows Greta to a stone path she definitely wouldn’t have found easily on her own, if at all.
It wraps around the back of the house, small lanterns dotting the footpath where it stretches all the way to the small guest cottage that sits a little ways down a hill.
Greta walks her through how to use the keypad, even though the instructions are in the rental app, and waits until Sage flicks on the lights and puts her suitcase down before she bustles back out of the cottage to fetch food from Edgar.
Sage isn’t quite sure who that is, but her host talks about him with such a familiarity that she feels like she should, so she quickly pulls up the host bio on the rental listing and gives it another read.
Ah, right. Greta’s husband.
Sage uses the few minutes alone to meander around the cottage.
It’s a small but open space that’s at least twice the size of her LA apartment.
There’s a small bedroom painted in soft blues and whites, a bathroom, a kitchen with a built-in bar to eat at, and a sitting area with a cozy-looking couch, a fireplace, and a small TV on an entertainment center.
The back wall of the cottage—gray and brown stone—has four floor-to-ceiling windows.
Sage stands in front of one, arms wrapped around herself, reflection hazy in the glass, and takes a deep breath.
This is going to be good, she tells herself. This is going to be great.
Greta comes back with some sort of stew, the smell rich and homey and warm, and it has Sage’s stomach grumbling in an embarrassing fashion as she cups the Tupperware in her hands.
Greta makes sure Sage knows how to work the gas fireplace, and then it’s just Sage and an empty cottage, wind rattling the windows.
It’s not an unfamiliar feeling, being alone. She lives by herself. But out here, where the only noise is the whistle of the wind across the hills—out here where she’s 4,996 miles away from her friends and her life—Sage feels …
Isolated.
Which is what she wanted, she guesses. A real change, something to shock her brain awake and help her focus.
But it doesn’t feel like the relief she’d expected.
Instead, the loneliness feels thick in the air, like something she has to swim through whenever she moves.
Perhaps it’ll just take some time to get used to the weight.
Her phone buzzes in the pocket of her jeans with a text from Noah.
Glad you made it safely! What are you going to go see first? Take tons of pictures!
Sage sucks on her teeth and resists the urge to bristle. This isn’t a vacation. She knows that Noah knows that. She knows he’s just trying to connect.
She holds up her phone and snaps a quick selfie, the empty Airbnb looming behind her. She sends it along with her answer: my laptop.
The last thing she needs is to fall down a hyper-fixation research rabbit hole on how to spend free time she doesn’t currently have. She can do that once her word count gets on track.
You look jetlagged as hell.
Sage laughs. She takes another deep breath, inhaling that thickness into her lungs and letting it settle somewhere behind her sternum.
This is going to be good.
This is going to be great.
Thunder rumbles in the distance.
“Shut up,” Sage mutters to the universe.
Disaster
Nov 9 3:34 AM
Disaster
Any Jude Law sightings
Disaster
Or Cameron Diaz!
Nov 9 6:34 AM
Disaster
Hellooooo? Don’t make me call Greta and Edgar.
Nov 9 10:34 AM
Emerson.
It’s an eight-hour time difference, you utter pain.
I regret ever sharing the Airbnb listing with you.
Also what part of NO ACTORS did you not understand?
Nov 9 2:22 PM
Disaster
Jude / Cameron are METAPHORS, Sage.
Disaster
And you call yourself a writer.
Disaster
Speaking of … are we talking about your manuscript?
No.
Disaster
Good, good, so things are going well, then.
I’ve only been here four days!
Disaster
And yet you already almost killed a man on a bike when you looked the wrong way pulling out of the grocery store.
*Supermarket.