Assholes.
I peel a dry eyelid open. A bottle of water and a vial of ibuprofen greet me, along with some crackers. Who did that?
I sit up. The drumbeat behind my temples thrums impossibly harder. I close my eyes as I chug the water and down a couple of pills. Chasing them with the crackers,I study the room for a momentary reprieve from recalling how Durban watched me heave all over Bootleg’s parking lot. And myself.
“Wow,” I croak, both at my humiliation and my cozy surroundings.
Finished logs line the outer wall, and the others are adorned with nothing but a few simple pictures. One has a bear running full speed toward the camera. Another has three moose grazing in a valley. The frames are as rustic as the furniture. Nothing says mountain cabin like this room.
I like it. Daddy could do with more of this at the big house on the guest ranch, but the sprawling lodge was built to be majestic. To be inviting while at the same time astonishing that something so grand could be in a tiny Montana town. The aesthetic helps sell guest ranch packages worth thousands of dollars.
A little room like this makes me want to hide in it for the day. For the week. For the six weeks until the wedding is done and the bride and groom are on the Tahitian honeymoon I’d once talked about with Stanford.
I rub my eyes and wince at the pain. I need to check my phone and figure out how to get to my car without calling my knight in cozy flannel. Durban’s mustache-scruff combo should only work on actors and country music stars. The girls I hung out with last night kept asking if he was single. I took more than a little glee in dashing their hopes. That know-it-all downer is taken by some other woman I’m sure is super dull and responsible.
My purse is lying on the floor. It’s dry after my wobbly scrubbing last night. I was sober enough to do adecent job. If I hadn’t thrown up the last two beers I’d had, I’d have been a mess.Moreof a mess.
I dig my phone out and a groan slips free.
Jamison: Elodie said your car is still at Bootleg. Where are you?
Jamison: Hey, call me.
Jamison: Mom’s asking where you are.
Jamison: Call. Me.
Jamison: Now Daddy’s on my ass.
Avery: Why are Mom and Dad asking where you are?
Jamison: Campbell, where the hell are you did you go home with some guy are you dead in a field have you been dumped on the side of the road???
Jamison: No, seriously. If you’re not okay, I’m going to kill you. And then I’m going to cut off Can’t Stanford’s nuts and dangle them on your tombstone like a pair of steel hitch balls.
Avery: We could take turns displaying them.
I snort and prod at my aching temples. Jamison can’t stand Stanford, and she said it so often after the breakup—I can’t standStanford—the words slurred together and he became Can’t Stanford. When I blink, my vision goes fuzzy. A hot tear rolls down my cheek. If it wasn’t for my sisters, I’d have bought a travel van and found some remote camping spot to hide in for a few years.
I’d also probably have a broken-down vehicle, be lost in the forest somewhere, or dumped in a ditch. That’s how it goes for me.
Time to face my reckoning.
I text Avery first.
Campbell: I’m fine. I’m just not sitting atbreakfast and smiling pretty for Stanford and January.
Avery: Nor should you be.
I take a deep breath and call my oldest sister.
“You’d better be okay,” she says instead of hello.
“Is that offer to chop off his balls still good? I’ll hang them from my fender since I don’t have a tombstone.”
“Don’t tempt me. So—spill it.”
I pick at the hem of Durban’s soft, warm sweater. I eyed this one when Elodie first opened Dee’s Sweets, but Stanford hated the blue. I thought it looked like the Stillwater River in June after most of the spring runoff flowed downstream. He claimed it washed me out.
