Chapter 6 Rowan
ROWAN
Idid not blindfold the contractors.
But they were randomly selected, flown out to the site, and tied up in a million NDAs, just like Pete. They were paid handsomely for their time and discretion. My name was never included in any of the materials or communications surrounding the project.
The moment I walk into my room, I shut the door and start to pace.
For some stupid reason, I have the urge to trust her. The urge to believe her story about being an influencer and filming only for that. Her face on the screen flashes back to me, her body getting smaller and smaller as the drone rose up into the sky.
But trusting people hasn’t really worked well for me in the past, and there’s something about her — something naturally inquisitive, something prying. When she looks at me, it feels like she can see straight through, and the idea of that is terrifying.
And she’s funny. Smart.
The last time I met a woman — anyone — that I clicked with like this, I’d given in completely to that feeling. Belonging was a potent drug, and I let it cloud my judgment. In fact, my judgment was so clouded that I didn’t realize how thoroughly I was being betrayed until the whole thing was over.
No, I decide; I won’t trust her. Especially not with the number of questions she’s asking. I’ll lock my door tonight, check the security cameras, and say nothing to her tomorrow when I help her to her car. Even with her left ankle swollen, she should be able to drive.
So, I go through my bedtime routine, let Cheesecake out through a side door — with an overhang and enclosed green space — and then towel her off before climbing into bed.
It takes me a long time to fall asleep, which hasn’t happened to me since I first left the city, and I’m not used to the feeling it brings.
When I finally do drift off, it feels like I wake up again almost immediately, though the time on the clock says otherwise.
Groggily, I sit up and try to figure out what woke me, but then I hear it.
Movement outside my door. A shuffling, the soft creak of someone’s weight on the floor.
I push Cheesecake to the side with my leg, stepping past her and into the hallway, feeling her hot breath on the backs of my calves as we move together to investigate.
When I flip the light on, I feel righteous, discovering the woman, still in her ridiculous hiking outfit, standing in the hall. Just to her right is a little in-set shelf of my things, but she’s not looking at it.
“What are you doing?” I ask, stepping toward her, voice icy. More importantly, why was I stupid enough to leave those things out? Pictures, some old awards. None of it matters now, and yet I cling to it, keeping it out on the wall. Stupid.
“I—” When she turns to look at me, there’s something on her face that’s decidedly un-curious. Instead, it’s tentative, a lot closer to fear. “I’m sorry. I was going to the bathroom, and then—”
A boom of thunder shakes across the trees outside the cabin, and she jumps hard enough that her hand flies out, catching one of the little awards and sending it tumbling from the shelf.
I reach out, catching it, watching her as she clutches the blanket around her shoulders a little closer to her body.
“S-sorry,” she says, her jaw looking like it’s wired shut. “I wasn’t trying to— I wasn’t—”
“Are you afraid of the storm?”
“No—” She’s cut off by another boom, her body jolting again like the lightning struck her, rather than a random spot out on the mountain.
My defenses start to lower. Maybe that’s a bad idea.
Maybe it doesn’t make sense to let her in just because she has an irrational fear of storms, but there’s something in my chest that’s already softening toward the sight of her like this, her golden blond hair mussed, the terror shining in her glassy eyes.
“All right, it’s okay.” I reach out to put a hand on her shoulder, and I’m surprised when she steps in, curling her body against mine in a hug instead. This woman doesn’t know me — not really — and yet, her fear of the storm is strong enough to propel her into my arms.
She smells like rain and mud, sunscreen and bug spray, and faintly, of lilacs. My body goes rigid as I try to remember the last time I touched someone else like this.
It must have been Hannah.
“Come on,” I say, because what else am I supposed to do? Leave her to her fear, alone? As much as I don’t like her prying eyes, the way she seems to look directly into my brain, I can’t bring myself to do that.
Ten minutes later, we’re standing in the kitchen together as I go through the motions of making tea. She stands about a foot away from me, her body trembling, her blanket wrapped snugly around her body.
She’s still in her hiking clothes, those little brown shorts which, I can’t help but notice, make her legs look amazing. But she must be cold.
“Your name isn’t really Lemon Meringue, is it?” she asks, watching me as I light the wood stove, fill the kettle.
I glance at her, knowing it’s a bad idea to share my name with her, then wondering if holding back might make me look more suspicious. Regardless, I want to tell her my name. Which is bad, actually. “Rowan.”
“I’m Lola,” she says in return, and I think, of course you are, because she looks like a Lola. Fun and bright, which I could see from the video on that drone. In fact, now that she’s said it, I remember seeing her registration information in the data I pulled from the drone. Lola Kennedy.
The name is fun, and it fits her. Lola looks like the kind of woman who lives life to the fullest, and if I had internet out here, I might have already looked her up. I imagine her social media is full of vibrant shots, her wide smile, that dimple on the left side of her mouth popping.
If I had a signal, I could probably spend a lot of time scrolling through her content.
But I don’t. And I won’t.
There’s no look of recognition on her face, no sense of putting the puzzle pieces together, and that quiets something in me. At least she’s not already figuring this thing out.
We let the names hang in the air. I put a tea bag in each mug, then pour out hot water over each. I carry them, and we move quietly together back toward the living room. It’s kind of nice to hear the shuffling of another person here with me, to smell that faint trailing of lilacs around her.
Once again, I’m reminded of the strangeness of this situation. A woman I don’t know is turning to me for comfort in the middle of the night. I’m making a mug of tea for a stranger while my dog trots around our feet.
But I can’t deny that there’s something magnetic about her. Something that makes me want more, to get closer.
It’s not until we’re sitting down in the living room together that thunder booms again, and she jumps. I’m glad I’m the one holding the mugs of tea, and I set hers on the coffee table carefully before settling back into my recliner.
“It’s hot, but I think it will help.” I know it will. There are studies linking warm drinks and soothing chemicals in the brain. But most people don’t want science spouted at them when they’re upset. What do people want when they’re upset? “Do you want to… talk?”
She nods and leans forward to pick the mug up. I notice her trembling fingers, how she quiets them around the sides of the mug, lifts it to her. “Sorry. This is so embarrassing.”
Is she only talking about her fear? Or also the fact that she snuck onto my property, nearly fell to her death, and managed to sprain her ankle and trap herself here?
“It’s not,” I say, and then, because I apparently have no self-preservation instincts, “I used to be afraid of thunder, too.”
Her eyes widen and she pauses, the steam from her tea rising up and clouding her expression. “Really?”
It’s too late for me to pull back now. Besides, what will this detail give her? I run through my mind, trying to remember if I ever told the press about this. In years of interviews and friendly conversation, sometimes it’s impossible to remember everything I’ve ever said publicly.
I tell myself that it doesn’t matter. Plenty of kids are afraid of storms at one time or another.
“Yeah,” I whisper, watching with some satisfaction as she takes a sip of her drink. “I was a small kid. Easily frightened. Didn’t like loud noises, bright lights, that sort of thing. Then, when I was seven, a tree outside was struck by lightning. It fell on our house.”
She gasps, a bit dramatically, but I appreciate the immersion in the story and smile at her, shifting a bit and pulling a blanket into my lap as I do. The fire is going again, but the living room is still chilled through from the storm.
Cheese once again begs for access to Lola’s lap, and she once again grants it, taking the whole mass of my dog up onto her lap as though Cheese is nothing more than a Yorkie, rather than the sixty pounds of golden retriever she actually is.
“That must have been scary.”
“Everyone was fine,” I say, waving my hand, thinking of Belle’s screams that day.
How the tree had fallen on our playroom — the one right next to her bedroom.
After that, we’d had to share my room for a while, but I didn’t mind.
I liked having her there on the bunk below mine. Like it would help me to keep her safe.
“Yeah, but it probably didn’t help,” Lola shivers, takes a sip of her tea, and seems to settle down a bit. More empirical evidence about the effects of a warm drink, especially caffeine-free tea. “I actually wasn’t afraid of storms as a kid. It just kind of… started. When I went to college.”
“It didn’t help,” I agree, thinking of the counseling my parents put me through, the therapist recommending I make a safe space during the storms, crawling into the closet.
My mom and dad didn’t like that, but eventually I was able to sleep in my bed again, so it worked out. “Where did you go to college?”
Lola jerks her head in the opposite direction of the city when she says, “Seattle.”
It makes me smile — against my will — into my mug. Camping out here by herself with no instinct for the cardinal directions. I’ll definitely have to go with her, make sure she finds her car again, so she doesn’t get lost in the woods.
She tells me about living in Seattle, about her roommate, who’s a med student. I share more about my childhood — which seems the safest topic — though she wants to know more about my background.
Each time the thunder claps, it’s further away, and eventually Lola doesn’t jump at all at the sound of it. I keep things vague, and eventually, she stops pushing, just sleepily talking to the ceiling, holding her hands up like she’s framing a painting there.
“…and it’s like, this dream, you know?”
I don’t really because I’ve gotten too sleepy to follow the conversation, but I like the sound of her voice.
Eventually, the fire dies down, and stretched out in the recliner, I start to drift off, my head lolling. Through the dim light of the living room, I glance at her, marveling at the fact that I met her just hours ago. Gently, I call for Cheese, but my dog insists on sleeping in Lola’s lap.
Hours later, in the gentle blue light of the morning, I wake to find Cheese still curled up with Lola. I blink sleepily at her — her fine nose, the spattering of freckles over her cheek, the tangled and mussed honey blond hair in a loose halo around her head.
She has one arm thrown up on the arm of the couch, the other buried in Cheese’s fur, and despite being in a stranger’s home, she looks completely at ease. Despite accusing me of being a murderer the night before.
Maybe it’s naivety, or maybe it’s just something about her. The ability to know another person soon after meeting them.
I get the feeling that Lola can blend in wherever she wants, finding comfort in many situations. She strikes me as the kind of woman who’s adaptable, a sort of chameleon.
Blinking quickly, I sit up, pushing against the chair and getting to my feet, though it makes me briefly dizzy. I tear my gaze away from her and turn, stumbling to the bathroom.
What was I doing, staring at her like that? Thinking about her, categorizing her features? There’s only one other woman I’ve ever felt like this about so soon after meeting her, and that turned into a total disaster.
I decide I need to forget about the weird, intimate conversation last night. I know better than to let her in, especially considering the fact that she’s leaving today. I’ll be getting her things, helping her to her car, and seeing her off.
After she goes home, I’ll never see Lola again.
And that’s for the best.