The towel shifts. I feel it start to go at the same moment my grip adjusts, forearm clamping the terrycloth against my ribs, and for one suspended, humiliating second I am managing both at once, the weapon and the coverage, while three strangers watch. The fury that moves through me is so clean it almost steadies my hands.
"Get out." My voice doesn't shake. I'm grateful and surprised in equal measure. "Get out or I call the police."
"We should be the ones calling the police." The curly-haired one says it without heat, which is somehow worse than if he'd been angry. Matter-of-fact. Like the situation is obvious and I've failed to grasp it. "You're trespassing."
"I'mtrespassing?!" I slightly raise my voice. "You kicked my door in."
"This isn't your cabin."
"I rented this cabin."
The big one moves then. A single step forward, positioning himself slightly between me and the curly-haired one. Not crowding me. Just cutting off the argument.
"There's been a misunderstanding," he says. His voice is low and even. "This property belongs to Mrs. Smith. She's been in Florida for close to two years."
"I rented it from Mrs. Smith."
The curly-haired one makes a sound in his throat and looks around the cabin with open disbelief. "Yourentedthis place?"
The particular quality of his skepticism makes me want to throw something. He's not wrong about the cabin. I stood in this same room hours ago with my wet bag at my feet and the photos from the listing still loaded on my phone, and I looked at the water-stained ceiling and the warped floor and the kitchen that bore no relation to the bright, clean space I'd paid for, and I almost laughed-cried.
"The photos were better," I say.
The quiet one speaks. He's been so still I'd almost stopped tracking him. "The January storm," he says to the room. "Mrs. Smith probably doesn't know the damage it caused."
I put the axe on the table. Not because I trust them. Because the fear has burned down to a low, steady anger. I drag my backpack to me, pull out my phone, open my email. The rental confirmation sits at the top of the chain. Mrs. Smith's name. Her signature on the digital agreement. Her Florida address in theheader, the Briarhaven property address in the body, the dates and the amount I paid and the confirmation number.
I slide the phone across the table.
The quiet one picks it up. His eyes move across the screen once. He turns the phone toward the big one.
"It's legitimate," he says.
A beat. The big one looks at the phone, then at me. His expression moves from skepticism to something closer to guilt. "That still doesn't explain the screaming," he says. "That's why we came barging in. We heard you from the trail. We thought someone was in danger."
I am so tired. The kind of tired that sits behind the eyes and presses forward. I have been running on fumes and adrenaline for two thousand miles, and whatever reservoir I've been drawing from to hold myself together has been draining since the moment these men came through my door, and what's left is not composure. What's left is the raw, fraying end of a day I do not have the capacity to narrate with any grace.
So I narrate it without any.
"My car broke down," I say. The words coming fast. "About 4 miles out. The road was already iced over. I grabbed one bag because it was all I could manage and hiked the rest in the snow, and by the time I got here I was soaked through every layer I had. The wood was around the back of the cabin so I had to make four trips in wet clothes to get enough to start a fire, and then I draped everything I owned over every surface near the hearth and I got in the shower because I couldn't feel my feet and the hot water lasted approximately forty-five seconds before it started cycling between scalding and freezing. So yes, I screamed. Because it was that kind of day, and I was alone, and cold and naked, and then three men kicked my door in."
I stop.
My chest is heaving. My face burns despite the cold air still pouring through the broken doorframe, and I am acutely aware that I have just delivered the least dignified monologue of my adult life to three strangers while wearing a towel.
The quiet one is looking at the floor. The tips of his ears have gone slightly red.
The big one is quiet for a moment. When he speaks, his voice has changed. The steadiness is still there, but something sits underneath it that wasn't before. "I'm sorry," he says. "We'll fix the door. I'm sorry we frightened you."
The curly-haired one isn't looking at me anymore. He's looking at the fireplace. At the clothes draped over the chair backs, the boots positioned as close to the heat as I could manage without scorching them. He says something under his breath, not quite to any of us. I catch two words.
Shit quality.
The last of whatever was holding me upright leaves.
"Please leave," I say.
The three of them look at each other. Something passes between them. I watch it happen and I don't have the energy to be curious about it.
