The trek to the cabin felt like miles, and when I was finally out of the storm I shucked all of my clothes in a waterlogged pile and examined my self-inflicted stab wound. It wasn’t deadly but there was no way it would heal without stitches.
I waited until the storm blew over to make my way into town. As far as fishing villages went, Cutler was as authentic as they came. It was a stone’s throw from the Canadian border, and in the right light you could see Nova Scotia across the Bay of Fundy. I hadn’t set out for the easternmost village in the state when I left Boston, but I was glad this was where my truck decided to take me.
The people were pleasant; they were curious about a mid-winter newcomer without being nosy, and I appreciated that. The words to explain why I’d fled an otherwise charmed life escaped me, and my baggage didn’t need a seat at the town diner. I only ventured that far from the cabin when I required more supplies or a cell signal to text Riley. There was a respectable barbershop beside the grocery store, but I hadn’t been looking in the mirror with enough frequency to care about my hair.
The doctor chattered about snowfall totals and hockey while he patched me up, but my mind honed in on the sear and tug I experienced with each stitch. It was a reminder that I still felt, but it forced me to acknowledge that if I could feel pain, I was capable of feeling everything else, too.
I capitalized on that pain, and I grounded myself in it every day. I hiked the forests and craggy shoreline, and I made it my goal to bury another bucketful of resentment among the rocks and trees and waves.
At first, I thought it was Angus and God and asshole kids that I was trying to forgive, but as the days passed and my leg healed, I discovered I was the one who needed forgiving. There was so much—my mother’s death, my father’s abuse, childhood bullies, losing Tiel, my long-term self-destruction—and it was time to send all that guilt and loathing away.
I’d experienced terrible things, some of it at my own hand, and I was leaving it all behind.
More rocks were thrown, trees heard my screams, wood was chopped, and slowly—too slowly to notice when it happened—I started feeling better. With the constant supply of ocean-caught fish, I was eating well, and my daily anger exorcism excursions guaranteed I slept long and hard. My blood sugar still had a mind of its own, but I was paying enough attention to handle those swings properly.
On the rare evening when I had enough energy to keep my eyes open past sunset, I lay on the floor in front of the wood stove and listened to the playlist simply titled ‘Tiel.’
The tracks sounded different without her humming and tapping the beat beside me. But those songs,fuck,they gutted me.
I read every morning, devouring my weathered and well-loved copies ofThe Count of Monte Cristo,The Cask of Amontillado,Les Miserables,The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,andThe Lord of the Ringstrilogy. In my haste to get out of Boston, I’d accidentally tossed Tiel’s copy of that Johnny Cash biography into my rucksack. One morning when my longing for her was a tangible being in this tiny cabin, I started reading it just to be close to her.
The life story was engaging, but it was the letters that grabbed my attention. Pages and pages of handwritten letters from Johnny Cash to June Carter Cash, and I remembered how Tiel described it: they went through intense, messy times but found a way to love each other.
And that was how I wanted this to end.
I dug through my bags until I found a small notebook with a five-year-old tide chart printed on the inside cover, and started writing everything I’d been storing up since I walked away from my life weeks ago.
I loved her, fully and completely, and she brought out the best version of me. She didn’t save me; no, this was something I had to do for myself. But she did keep me afloat.
Tiel was broken in certain spots, and strong in others, and we fit together that way.
I learned a lot about myself during that time. About the choices I’d made in defining myself and what I valued, and their implications. About the things I wanted to create—an identity independent of club-hopping, blackout drinking, and hook-ups. But more importantly, I wanted a family of my own, and I wanted it with Tiel.
I wasn’t that guy anymore, that angry manwhore who wanted to drown his feelings in sex and gin.
By the end of April, the notebook was full and the plan came together in my mind, and I couldn’t get out of Cutler quickly enough.
It was time to go home to my girl.
I was greeted at Tiel’s door with shriek. “Holy shit, it’s a Yeti!”
A short woman slammed the door in my face only to open it a crack and peek at me. Turning, I glanced down the hallway, confirming I was on the right floor before I said, “Hi. I’m looking for Tiel.”
The door swung open. “Tiel isn’t here right now. Is there something I can help you with?”
I rubbed my forehead, fighting back my frustration. I’d been rehearsing this goddamn speech for six hours straight, plus the past two weeks. Every one of the three hundred and thirty miles from Cutler filled me with optimistic tension, and I was ready to tear the door off its hinges. “I’m sorry, this is sensationally rude but who are you?”
“I’m Ellie—”
“Oh,” I laughed. “Ellie, I’ve heard so much about you. I’m—”
“Sam the freckle twin,” she said with a grim expression. “I didn’t expect the beard . . . or, any of this.”
She gestured toward me, and when I looked down, I laughed. I couldn’t remember the last time I paid attention to my appearance. My primary concern in Maine was preventing frostbite, and I hadn’t once shaved. I was still wearing flannel-lined jeans, beaten-to-shit hiking boots, and a thermal shirt, and my hair was a shaggy, overgrown mess. I hadn’t accounted for the arrival of spring in Boston when I left the cabin.
“It’s about time you showed up.” She leaned against the door frame, her arms crossed and her eyebrow cocked, her chin jutting in my direction.
“You’re right about that,” I murmured. “When will Tiel be back?”
