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It takes him a long time, after Sarah leaves, to get used to the quiet. Every time he hears a sound of crunching leaves from out in the woods, he thinks it’s her – thinks she’s coming back. Which is stupid. What does he expect? What, does he think she’ll come trotting out of the woods sly as a fox, holding ten thousand dollars in cash in her hands, smiling sheepishly and saying Sorry, it was an accident?
He does, actually. A little bit. Part of him still thinks that there’s an explanation for this, all of this, a way to tie together Sarah’s absence and the image of her in his sweater, perched on the counter like a migrating bird, and by doing so make them both real.
So he orbits around his empty cabin, cleaning things that are already clean, holding his breath to listen for footfall.
His bed still smells like her. There is a chance she could come back.
Fall turns to winter, and there isn’t enough wood in the pile; he’s afraid to leave the cabin – irrationally – like she’ll come back when he leaves, see he isn’t there, and turn around and go again. But he’s getting colder and his breath comes out of his mouth in silver-white puffs of air.
“I know,” he tells himself, his voice loud in the quiet. “I know, I’m going.”
Come on, you sad sack, the memory of Sarah chimes in from where she’s curled at the kitchen table. You’re gonna freeze your tits off, mopin’ around like that.
“I’m going!” he says again, spreads his hands wide.
It takes him two steps outside to consider the fact that he’s going insane. Then he decides to dismiss it.
Outside the cabin the world is silver-white and glittering, biding its time, waiting for spring. It’s times like these Cal feels peace pushing at his chest like air bubbles in water, demanding release; it’s times like these he never understands why he would ever, ever live anywhere else. With the trees buried like this he doesn’t even see Sarah with him – she only stayed for a month, after all, not even long enough to see the leaves turn.
(He wanted her to. Wanted to rake the leaves with her – the both of them, they’d know there’s no point to it, and Sarah would laugh in that husky familiar way and he’d see the flash of tongue behind her teeth and he’d kiss her, easy as anything – and curl up with her on the couch, let the snow bury the cabin and reduce the world to silence, the sound of their breathing.
He wanted a lot of things. Maybe that’s why it was so easy for her to—)
Cal trudges out into the trees to find dead wood to chop, bring back with him. It’s going to be a long winter, isn’t it. He’s going to need a lot of fuel to burn.
He leaves a trail of footprints behind him; it’s nice knowing he’ll always know the way home.
(He wakes up late in the morning, that time of day when the sunlight falls golden through the windows and Cal can taste the potential of the day on his tongue but isn’t in any particular hurry to grab it. Diems can wait to be carpe’d, he thinks with the sort of assurance that comes from a groggy mind that’s just woken.
Sarah’s already awake; she’s sitting on the edge of the bed, turned away from him. Her naked back is painted gold by the sun, and her hair falls dark over her face. Cal loves her spine more than anything he’s ever known, except maybe her face, her voice, her laugh. He’s stupid in love considering it’s only been a few weeks. Doesn’t matter.
“Hey,” he says, voice made rough by sleep, “what’re you doin’ up?”
Sarah jolts and the twitch rattles down her spine like dominos collapsing. Then she stills and turns to him, an easy grin swinging across her face, and leans over so her hair’s falling over the both of their faces. It smells like Cal’s shampoo.
“None of your business,” she breathes against his lips, and then kisses him, soft and sweet and slow. Cal’s reaching up to brush a thumb along her jawbone when she leans back, strokes fingers through his hair, and breathes, “You…”
“What?” he says, suddenly afraid – she looks so serious, eyes big and dark and latched onto his, and his heart is suddenly stone.
“You…” she says again, solemn, “…need to brush your teeth. God, you stink.”
Then she falls back against the pillows, hiccupping with laughter, and Cal lets out a fake growl and reaches behind him to pull out a pillow, whack her with it right across the face.
“Oi,” she yells, still laughing, “this is war, you realize.”
They spend the rest of the morning in a haze of golden sun and pillow down. Sarah ends up sprawled across Cal’s chest, arms folded underneath her, Cal rubbing a lazy thumb against her shoulderblades. He thinks maybe this could be forever.)
(He should have known. He should have known.)
There comes a point when he can’t take it anymore, when he’s going crazy from the way he can hear Sarah laughing in the crows outside; the way the creaks of the cabin, once so familiar, now sound like her footsteps; how he thinks he can see her around every corner and every time he wakes there’s a smudge like a dark thumbprint on his eyes that will never, ever resolve itself into the curve of her spine. He’s sick of it. Sick of it. Sick.
He drowns himself in beer and when that doesn’t work he drowns himself in anger, throwing himself like a wounded bear all over the cabin, smashing everything in sight and knowing it’s not going to be enough, that it’s not going to fix anything. Come on, Sarah says urgently in the corner of his vision, are you serious, stop, what’re you doin’, and that just makes him louder, angrier, he can’t believe there was ever a time when he was happy alone.
His rage peaks in him but drains, abruptly, when he sees his guitar—
(“You know how to play this?” Sarah asks him, eyeing him skeptically as she pads past the guitar; her fingers brush along it, unexpectedly fragile where they stick out of the sleeves of his shirt, and he catches something wistful in her eyes for just a second before she’s back to Sarah, she of the prickly grins and jagged edges.
The both of them pretend there isn’t something else; Cal thinks maybe if he does it he’ll get to see more of that something else. Maybe if he does it she’ll stay.
He doesn’t say that, just shrugs and slides around her, twangs a string, says, “Early brainstorming stages, I needed something to do with my hands.”
“Must be pretty good with ‘em, then,” Sarah says nonchalantly, leaning her weight against the rough wooden walls of the cabin. “Your hands.”
She’s grinning, but her eyes are dark. Cal takes one step forward, two, and then her arms are rising to wrap around his neck and his shirt is riding up on her and he forgets about the guitar entirely for much better things.)
(They have time, and time and time – one night he plays for her, stupid shit, whatever comes to mind as the crickets chirp and Sarah watches him, curled in on herself in the chair next to him. He’s all folded limbs too, but he doesn’t wear it as nicely as she does; when he folds his legs he just looks gangly.
“Does the lady have any requests,” he says, and Sarah snorts before saying, sharp and almost angry, “Teach me.”
“I don’t think I know that one,” he says, but his fingers have stilled on the guitar and he’s slipping the strap over his head; he stands up and rests the guitar against Sarah’s body, slings the strap over her shoulder. Her fingers are awkward on the strings and she looks vaguely uncomfortable, like she’s going to bolt.
This was your idea, he wants to say, but he doesn’t. Instead he shuts up and teaches her a few chords, crouched down next to her, his fingers a cage around hers. She’s a fast learner, although she still looks strange and small trying to hold the guitar – it’s too big for her, maybe, too big to hold.
“There you go,” he says, softly, listening to her strum in the twilight. “You’re gonna put me out of business in no time.”
“Don’t think there’s any chance of that,” Sarah mutters with a hissed shit as her fingers slip. Then she looks up and smiles at him, unexpectedly soft and fond, and murmurs, “Thanks, Cal.”
“Yeah,” he says, mouth dry, “yeah, no problem.”
“I just wanted—” she says urgently, then strums a few angry chords. He can’t see her face where it’s bowed over the wooden neck of it on her lap.
When she doesn’t say anything else, he prompts, “You wanted…”
“Never mind,” she mutters, voice strained and tight. She breathes one, two shuddering breaths, then looks up. Her grin is fake on her face, too big, and her eyes are shiny and red around the edges.
“You know anything by the Clash?” she says, and they both pretend her voice isn’t rough with tears. Cal’s getting good at pretending.)
—leaning against the wall. He slams his fist against the wood and rests his head against it, feels his breaths shudder in his chest.
I just wanted somethin’ to remember you by, Sarah says; he doesn’t look up, knows he’ll see her standing next to him, knows the exact way her face will look, knows her.
“Fuck,” he whispers, and pushes off the wall to go clean up.
His computer sits at the edge of his table like a hunting dog, waiting with its ears perked; Cal feels like a dog too, feels like a big dog on a short chain snapping with frothing jaws at something just out of his reach. He feels rabid.
He could find her, probably. It’d be easy. Even cash leaves trails and his cash, well…it wouldn’t take him very long, that’s all. He could find her. He feels it itching in the tips of his fingers, the need to put them on keys.
He gets chickens instead. Builds them a coop, sends the zinging static energy out of the tips of his fingers and into wood, instead, which can hold it. Picks up a used truck from a guy in town for dirt-cheap, fills the bed with chickens and drives slowly back to the cabin. Pretends he can’t hear anyone laughing at how ridiculous it is, the whole bloody thing. The whole thing. Ridiculous.
It’s spring by now, the tender hopeful growth of new life on the tips of trees, sticking out from the mud that snow’s left in its wake. He breathes in deep; the air smells rich and new, like healing. It’s been almost a year. His bed doesn’t smell like Sarah at all; almost every corner of the cabin is safe, now, from the memory of her. The air smells rich and new, like healing, and Cal thinks: maybe.
(He doesn’t remember who bought the first drink, only that it’s been a fair amount of drinks and the girl across from him is still just as pretty as she was when he was sober, desperately pretty, like a bone stuck in your throat. Part of him wants to shrug off his jacket and drape it around her shoulders – she’s wearing a thin tank top and leather jeans and this isn’t the weather for it – and part of him knows if he touched her he’d burn; she’s too sharp for him, maybe, burning too hot to hold.
They end up kissing in the alley behind the bar – or maybe kissing is the wrong word for it, the way it seems like she’s eating him alive, hungry hands and hungry mouth.
“You got a place,” she pants, and he says “Uh—” because he’s not sure how to say I live in a cabin miles and miles and miles and miles from here, the woods are lovely dark and deep, miles to go before we – well.
(Too much to drink, and she’s so lovely, dark and lovely, like something that stepped out of the heart of the forest and got lost.)
They end up in a hotel room. Cal pays. Afterwards he looks at her, curled up into a tight little ball – she flinches, every now and then, like a deer that hears the crack of breaking branches – and runs a hand through his hair, thinks, helplessly, fuck.
(He’ll end up thinking that a lot. Fuck. Really sums it up.)
The next morning she doesn’t say I don’t have anywhere else to go but when she kisses Cal he thinks he can taste it on the tip of her tongue. Something like hope gone sour. Something like the kind of desperation that leads you to hotel rooms with strange men – he’s not stupid. He’d do the same, maybe, if he was in her place.
But he isn’t. He has a place.)
(The drive to the cabin is long and Sarah fiddles with the radio absentmindedly for a little while before turning to look out the window. Cal thinks about making conversation, decides against it; there’s something fragile about this, the way the summer sunlight streams through the windows of his car and how Sarah’s humming, absentmindedly, a song that was on the radio an hour or so ago before static swallowed the melodies like a mouth.
The asphalt grows cracks, weeds, and then turns into dirt abruptly, like it’s given up. Cal navigates the bumps and feels a sense of peace settle over him, a weight lifting from his chest, as soon as they’re in the woods. He turns to look at Sarah and sees that at some point she’s fallen asleep – tree-shadows dapple her face and slide over her, briefly darkening her hair and making her eyelashes flutter.
She isn’t twitching anymore and Cal doesn’t know why. Doesn’t know what makes the difference. Likes to think, maybe, she feels safe here. Can’t quite believe it.
He pulls up to the cabin and turns the key, listen to the engine tick as it cools off. The silence suddenly seems very loud, but it’s the right kind of loud, it’s the right kind of place. Home.
People like him, well, they’ll always know the way home.)
Spring turns to summer, summer to fall, fall to winter and back again; it’s familiar, out here, the way the animals move and how the air tastes on his tongue. Cal doesn’t know how anyone in the city can tell the difference between seasons, besides relying on the seasonal specials at Starbucks and maybe an imperceptible change in weather. Out here – well. It makes sense.
Anyways. Time passes; Cal takes up woodworking, needs something to do with his hands besides guitar. He keeps busy, settles into his life like an armchair that’s learning his body, soft in all the right places and just steady enough to keep him up.
At nights he comes back to the cabin and has three beers – two beers – one beer – not even a beer, sometimes, just a joint, blowing a plume of smoke into the night air and watching it linger. Nights are easier, sometimes, but a lot of times he finds himself wandering through his own house like a ghost and he needs something to help him fall asleep and stay there.
The best nights are when he doesn’t even remember there was ever anything besides this. The best nights are those when he’s content to be alone.
He’s opening the door on one of those nights, thinking about the leftovers he’s been saving, maybe checking on that neat little code an old buddy of his has uploaded – when there’s a sound.
Then there’s a lot of sounds and things get pretty jumbled; he ends up with a hand wrapped around a guy’s throat, a guy in his cabin, fucking thieves, knew he should have gotten a fence or something but who would bother him out here—
There’s a voice saying, Cal, Cal, and Cal feels it like a punch in the gut, not now, not now of all times, what a terrible time to bring back old ghosts.
But there’s a hand wrapped around his hand and the voice is still saying “Cal, Cal,” and time stutters, stops, the gears of it catching around Sarah, the pulse of her heart beating like a bird against a window in her hand. Her hand clutching his.
“Sarah?” he whispers, and it’s like no time has passed at all.
(He wakes groggily to the sound of rain outside and the sound-feeling of Sarah crying next to him, making the bed move in small tremors. He can’t see her in the dark and he reaches out blindly, fumbling with his hand to find her shoulder, rub back and forth along the bone of it with his thumb.
“Hey,” he says quietly, “you okay?”
Stupid question, but: what else can you do?
Sarah doesn’t answer; instead she rolls over with a violent suddenness and buries her face in his chest. He folds his arms around her and makes low soothing sounds, sssh, sssshhhh. He can feel his chest growing damp with tears and Sarah murmurs something into his chest, tearily, and then hiccups and keeps crying.
“What was that?” he asks, and she sniffles and says, louder but more to herself than anything, “I don’t want—” before dissolving into tears again. Her bones are stiff underneath her skin underneath his skin; maybe she’s ashamed, and Cal feels an ache in his own bones to say there’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s okay, I got you.
“You don’t have to,” he says softly, “you don’t have to if you don’t want to, okay, I promise.”
That just makes her cry harder and so he stops talking, just keeps shushing her, a hand reaching around to cup the back of her head in his hand, sssh, ssssh.
Eventually she stops crying, sniffles a few times, and says – from where her head is, still, pressed up against his chest, right against his heart – “I’m so sorry, Cal. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “Nothing wrong with a few tears.”
“That’s not—” she says urgently, then pauses. “Yeah. That. Sorry for the waterworks.”
Then she sighs and squirms closer to him, and quickly her breathing evens out into sleep. Cal lies awake for a while to listen to the sound of her breathing, the way her chest rises and falls against his, and feels love in his chest like drowning.
Outside the rain is still falling, but Cal knows the morning will dawn bright and clear and gold. It’ll be like being new.)