I follow his eyes to one of the pictures on the wall, where the both of us are no more than thirteen, our eyebrows singed off, grinning like maniacs.
The nostalgia of that question is touching, honestly.
“Yeah, alright. We’re probably too old to be grounded.” I scoff but still feel all mushy inside about it. I didn’t realize how much I missed this kind of bonehead shit. “Aiden, you in?”
He grins wide and takes an ale from the pack. “Burning all the leg hair off our shins is gonna be such a great look for the wedding. We should all wear shorts to show it off.”
Logan smiles back, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He looks tired.
18
Elise
It’s one of those dark, rainy mornings where the night holds on with both its hands, covering all the windows with dreary clouds. I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I texted Deanna that I was coming over early to get some work done. It’s been on my list to gather a bunch of the herbs Deanna’s been growing for a personal touch to the food, so I’ll have time to wash and chop everything slightly in advance. There’s still so much wedding prep left to do.
I turn on some of the greenhouse lights, grab some garden shears and a basket to carry it all back in.
It doesn’t escape my notice that it’s yet another morning like the ones in all my dreams where I wander into the woods and get cornered by a wolf.
But I’m awake this time. I’m sure.
I haven’t been able to sleep. Not since I overheard the brothers talking in the living room yesterday. I’d been just outside, packing my equipment up in my car, when I heard their voices. I hadn’t meant to listen, until those words—
She said you lied to her.
Of course I did.
I had hidden in the doorway, unable to stop myself. I couldn’t just go into the living room where they were and interrupt them, but I had to know. And now I wish I hadn’t.
I watched Shawn from the reflection in the glass cabinet, just the hunch of his shoulders as he leaned against the sofa.
It cracked something in my chest, to hear him say that.
I don’t know if I believe it, or if I just want to. That’s the treachery of him. It was always too easy to love him, to want to forgive him. And I can’t believe myself, how ready I was to want that. It’s like I learned nothing.
His brothers didn’t press him for more explanation than he gave, which is utterly baffling to me. They don’t want to know what he was lying about? They just kind of shrugged and accepted it as a normal thing.
My heart has been nonstop thudding in my chest for hours, the edge of unease that just won’t peak.
I don’t know where my head’s at. Shawn insists he lied to me for a good reason. I’m having the weirdest stress dreams about this wolf I keep hearing doesn’t exist.
This is only happening because I stupidly let myself care about him again. It shouldn’t matter that he admits he lied, that he still thinks it was the right thing to do.
I don’t know that I even care what he lied about.
I don’t know what to make of any of it. I don’t know why stress dreams about the animal attacks would lead me to that. Or maybe it’s because I went to bed horny after getting rejected by my ex-husband. Truly a plethora of options, really.
After cutting dozens of chive blossoms, a bunch of lemon grass, and pulling some heirloom carrots and radishes, I walk across the lawn to the kitchen’s back door. I stop halfway through pushing it, when something catches my eye.
There are fresh scratches in the paint, cutting down through the wood.
Not many, like a frantic, frenzied clawing of an animal trying to get in, but a careful, deliberate slice next to the latch, suggesting that it could have opened it, but chose not to.
I let the door fall closed and stare out the kitchen windows again for several long minutes.
It’s dark enough outside that I can nearly believe that dreams are real. To fully believe there’s a creature out there, regardless of what Deanna says, and it’s stalking me. Is it the creature that ripped apart that deer, the source of the animal attacks? Or am I just buying into my own weird stress dreams?
I don’t know what makes me think a kitchen knife will defend me against such an enormous and ferocious beast, but I grab one before going over to another window that faces the woods. It’s still too dark to really make anything out, just shapes blurred by the rain.
