Turns out, shocker, I can’t do it with Lorelai Jones. Not this time. It’s too much, too close to what I’ve always wanted, and now I’ve gone and hurt her.
Icarus, meet the fucking sun. She’s sure pretty, ain’t she?
By midmorning, it’s already scorching. The pavement ripples, potent and pungent under a cloudless Tennessean sky. I turn my bike down the unmarked but familiar dirt road that leads to the cabin. Within minutes, I’m dropping the kickstand, hopping off on slightly unsteady feet, and removing my helmet, letting a gentle breeze off the lake lift and tug at the damp ends of my hair. I remove my leather road jacket, slinging it over the seat, while I unbelt my pack and the small cooler of food I brought.
The front door isn’t locked. As far as I know, it’s never been locked. My great-uncle used to leave the cabin stocked with canned goods and firewood over the winter months for strangers who found themselves without shelter, and I’ve kept up the tradition. It’s rustic up here. No electricity, water via a well pump. Outhouse dug downwind from the back porch. It’s not the kind of place someone with nefarious intent would bother taking advantage of, but it’s just enough for someone in need.
Today and tomorrow, that someone is me.
I ignore the only locked building on the property, the pottery shed. Not even the promise of mindlessly creating with my hands, allowing my muscles to take over and shape something unseen, can tempt me. Maybe another time. This visit is about avoidance and feeling.
It shouldn’t make sense, but it does. I’m here to write.
I shove open the heavy hand-hewn door with an almighty creak and leave it propped with a brick that’s been used as a doorstop since before I was born. Light streams in, revealing an uncluttered dusty space. I make my way through the cabin, which doesn’t take long, as it’s only one great big room. I open windows and wipe off surfaces before sweeping it all out. Once everything is habitable once more, I pull out the bedding I brought from home and make the bed.
And that’s it. Luxury, it is not.
My stomach grumbles and I eat a banana but know that’s not gonna hold me over for long. I pull my phone out of my pocket and confirm there’s no signal out here. Since there’s no point in keeping it on, I power it off and tuck it away in my back pocket. Arlo knows where I am in case I don’t return, but there’s not much else I can do to be accessible.
Which is kind of the point. Being unreachable is the best part of this place. No phone calls from lawyers, no texts with sexy siren songs, and no fucking thirst trap social media posts using my fucking songs to further someone else’s career.
Just me and the fish. I grab the old cane pole leaning up against the log wall in the corner of the room, along with a tiny rusty tackle box, and head out back toward the dock.
My older brother and I fixed up this dock a few years back, but it could already use another coat of finish and some basic maintenance. I roll some rocks back along the shoreline and find a few juicy night crawlers, jabbing them through with my hook and tossing it out into the water. After a while, I perch on a boulder we creatively named “the fishing rock” as kids and cast. In general, I don’t eat meat, but lake perch fresh-caught from the fishing rock is my one exception. It takes most of the afternoon to catch my dinner, but that’s all right. I end up cleaning and cooking my catch over an open fire out back, tossing the guts and bones out into the woods to make it real easy for the bears, before sitting by the fire until long after sun fades from the sky, sipping straight from a bottle and thinking.
About her.
I write some lines down. A few stanzas. Some are even good. Maybe the best I’ve ever written.
Stark honesty usually is.
And then I rip the pages out of my notebook and throw them on the flames so I can watch them curl and turn to ash before floating on embers up to the sky.
Eventually I throw dirt on the fire and make my way to the dark cool of the empty cabin.
Grabbing the battery-powered lantern hanging by the door, I switch it on and light a fire in the small iron stove. It’s cooler in the mountains, but mostly I just want the friendly firelight and soothing crackle to keep me company until I fall asleep.
But as I lie on top of the quilt, in the near perfect dark, the quiet feels deafening. Repressive. Smothering. I usually love this part—being left alone with only my thoughts to keep me company. I’ve always been an introverted extrovert and have long felt comfortable with my own company. I didn’t think it would be possible for me to ever feel lonely.
So when I woke up this morning with the itch to escape the loudness and color of Nashville, I thought this would be the perfect reprieve.
Turns out I was wrong. I do have the capacity to feel lonely. Just without her.
The uncomfortable truth makes me squirm in the dark, scratching at my own skin and rustling against the bedding. I exhale loudly into the silence just to hear something.
I miss my friend. I need to find a way to make this work.
* * *
Decision made, I drift off uneasily sometime in the middle of the night and wake blearily with the sunrise. I boil some water over the stove and make myself some coffee in an ancient French press I’ve tucked away in the single cabinet before eating an unsatisfying breakfast of a protein bar and another banana. I finish cleaning up after myself, double-check the stove is cooling, and close the door behind me.
I stop on the porch, sucking in the crisp clean air and absorbing what remaining refuge I can from the silence. Eventually, though, it’s time, and I tug on my helmet and kick-start the engine to my bike, putting the Smokies behind me. I don’t stop, except for gas, until I’m pulling down my street. Our street. I’m unshowered, smell like a firepit, and have barely slept, but I know in my gut this won’t wait another minute.
She’s sitting on our balcony, pretty feet perched on the railing and guitar in her lap, when I pull up, my bike revving. I pull off my helmet just as she stands, guitar forgotten, gawking at me.
“I thought you got rid of your bike!”
I shake my head, grimacing at the sweat matting down my hair. “What gave you that idea?”
She lifts a shoulder. “Guess I don’t know. You always walk and I haven’t seen it all year.”
She’s not wrong. I do prefer walking everywhere around town. Especially since my apartment and my work are only blocks apart.
But I’ll never get rid of my Harley.
“Wanna go for a ride?”
She takes a moment to consider, and my chest constricts because I need to fix this thing between us. She doesn’t need to go for a ride with me, obviously, but it’d help. At least that’s what I’ve convinced myself in the last five hours coming down from the mountains. If she’s not into it, I probably should head up to my apartment and shower before banging on her door to plead my case. Either way, I have to talk to her.
“You sure?” she checks, already collecting her things, which definitely include the shredded pieces of my pride.
I move closer so that I’m right under the balcony. “Wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t. I think I have a spare helmet in the garage.”
She grins, and the next words out of her sweet mouth knock my heart clear out of my chest. “No need. I still have mine.” She turns for her house, closing the sliding glass behind her, and I wait, trying to breathe, practicing what I’ll say.