Emily sighed. “Hope?—”
“I don’t want him to worry. The last thing I want is to mess up Mason’s life, too. He’s filming doomsday scenarios and selling mosquito nets to preppers. He’s really happy. And if he thinks something is seriously wrong, he’ll try to come rescue me.”
Mason was currently out of the country on business, creating content forCrisis Command, his YouTube channel all about doomsday prepping. He was gaining major success at survival expos around the world. I didn’t want him to halt his dreams to come deal with my problems.
“Maybe he needs to?—”
“No,” I interrupted. “I need to get away. I need to figure out what it is I want, and I need to do it on my own. And who knows, maybe once I find a job I’ll actually sit down and finish my novel. I don’t know. But what Idoknow for sure is I’m not the same since everything that happened a few months ago. The numbness, the panic attacks, the night terrors…”
Emily reached across the console and took my hand. “You really think Big Bear’s the place for an identity crisis?”
“I just really need to get my head on straight and sort some things out. I want to find a job I actually like, and I want to feel capable of figuring things out on my own. I’m tired of everyone making decisions for me. I feel like distance will help me do that.” I gave her a pleading look.A look that said:Please just support me in this. You’re my best friend. You have to help me even if it’s ridiculous.
“Alright,” Emily said, nodding with more confidence now. “Then I’m here for you, if this is what you need.”
“It is.”
“Then, Big Bear, here we come.”
CHAPTER 2
“It’s giving Stephen King,” Emily said, stepping out of the van and eyeing the cabin with skepticism. “Wait, was that a cabin? Or a hotel? Am I mixing upThe ShiningwithPsycho?”
I didn’t respond mainly because I was already second-guessing every decision that had led me here and because I realized the mailbox was only being held together by bright orange duct tape.
“This is the address,” I said, double-checking my phone. “Mason said the key’s in a flower pot somewhere.”
“Okay, but like, how long has this thing been here?” Emily asked. “It looks a thousand years old.”
From a distance, it had been sort of charming. But up close? It looked like something a group of teenagers would dare each other to spend the night in right before one of them mysteriously disappeared.
There were multiple cracked windows. The porch sagged, and the railing was caving in. The bushes andplants in front of the cabin were climbing into every single crevice imaginable. It was all just a big mess.
My stomach twisted with dread, and my eyes started to sting with tears.
“Hey,” Emily said gently, pulling me into a hug. “Don’t freak out. It’s sorta… cute.”
I let out a sad laugh and a pathetic little sniffle. “It’s a dump, Em.”
“With a little pruning and some bleach,” Emily continued, “it could totally have cozy Airbnb vibes.”
“This was a mistake,” I sighed.
“It’s not a mistake,” Emily insisted, turning me back toward the van so I’d stop spiraling while looking at the cabin.
She flung open the double doors of her Mercedes Sprinter and pulled out my three suitcases like they were filled with feathers instead of a thousand pounds of books. Okay, it wasn’t all books: more like 20% essentials, 80% books.
I bit my lip. “You could just… stay with me.”
Emily smoothed back a tangle of red curls that had fallen into her face, grinning. “Or, you could come stay with me.”
I pointed at myself and gave her an incredulous look. “Do I look like someone who would survive a ten-mile hike?”
Emily laughed because she knew I couldn’t. “And you know I can’t stay in one place too long.”
Our differences were indeed laughable. Emily climbed literal mountains. I got winded when browsing through IKEA. But when we both got dumped on homecoming night our junior year of high school and bonded over a gasstation pizza and Coke, we discovered a unique kinship. And now we were lifelong friends, though we were long-distance most of the time.
“Okay,” Emily said, pulling me in for a final hug. “If you really need me, I’ll always come back to rescue you.”
