thirty-one
Autumn
Ialwayssaidthingshave to get messy before they get better, but this was past messy. The craft shed looked like a bomb had gone off, and I stared at supplies with no clue how to start or why I was choosing to do this to myself now.
It may have been because I couldn’t even walk near his pod without tearing up.
Today, our cleaning staff jumped right into tearing down cabins just like they did every Thursday. Only this time, they winterized everything. There were no more sheets and pillows, no welcome baskets replaced for incoming campers. Every step was taken to prevent varmints from taking residence and locking us out. We almost gave a cabin to a nest of squirrels one year. True story.
Our day-to-day staff was cleaning individual buildings, pulling in supplies from activities, and making sure everything was locked up, not to mention packing individual belongings sincemost staff would be leaving tomorrow because the season was over.
Everything was over.
He’d been gone for two hours. And I was struggling.
I stared at the floor littered with macrame rope and pots, mugs for marbling, vases for painting. Pick one thing and start there.That was the best way to tackle any project.
I grabbed the leftover Mod Podge and started marrying jars together.
This was cathartic. Liquid poured into liquid until it transitioned into globs from the almost-dead containers. I leaned all of them against a shelf so they didn’t fall over and allowed the slow process to continue. Then I moved on to the yarn.
Most years, I found piles of it that needed separating and threw out the truly severe cases, but today, I started rolling them into balls, following colorful strand through colorful strand as if it were punishment.
We didn’t break up. We just went our separate ways.I’d known this was going to happen, and I was still torn up. So I separated yarn, even though I had months to do this. I looked at my task and figured that was how long it would take to make a dent and chuckled to myself, dropping the rat’s nest into the basket.
“Hey, Autumn, I’ve got the paint supplies you—Oh.” Nat looked as though she’d driven up to a car crash and didn’t know whether to call 9-1-1 first or jump out and do some triage.
“I have this handled.” My voice cracked. “The wind did this.”
She rolled her lips in as if she didn’t believe me. With a sharp nod, Nat toed aside a box of wax for a make-your-own candle DIY that had been a hit this year, walking inside one more step. She picked up a pile of boards for our string art kit and put them into a box with even more boards.
I stared at the box, knowing she’d done it right, and even though she was doing a nice thing, it annoyed me. That was how I knew I was not doing okay.
“Thanks,” I muttered under my breath.
“I’m guessing you have a system for this…” She carefully swiped her hand through the air.
“Yeah.” I nodded, my voice softer. “I start with an explosion and then trap myself in my man-made cave for the winter.”
She chuckled. She found a few more wood boards on the other side of the room and put them in the same box, straightening them when there was no need.
It seemed like she was working up to asking me something, so I cut that off at the pass. “I never asked. What brought you to Starlight?”
She didn’t make eye contact, just ran her hands along the box. “Oh you know, running from a breakup… It’s a tale as old as time.” It wasn’t an anomaly. She wouldn’t be the first staffer to work here on the heels of a breakup.
“Was it because of the traveling?” Nat was a travel influencer. The photos she posted were filled with interesting experiences, and her happy face was front and center in all of them. Other than that, I didn’t know her much. She and I just didn’t cross paths very often. There were only six counselors, but that wasn’t our entire staff. I was friends with everyone, and she and I were more like acquaintances.“Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“It’s okay, I’m not afraid to talk about my breakup. My ex and I had been at odds for a while. I loved what I was doing, and he didn’t love that I loved it,” she said, wistfully. “The trips led to fighting, and the distance thing… It’s hard.”
I nodded, twisting a piece of yarn around my pointer finger until it cut off circulation and the tip of my finger turned an angry shade of red. I quickly let go, and the throbbing sensation disappeared.
Nat dropped her eyes from my fidgeting and her tone took on a hard edge. “But then he forced me to choose between what I wanted and what he did.”
“Jamie would never make me choose,” I said without thinking, wishing I had a filter.
Nat didn’t take offense, opting for the tea instead. “So you twowerea thing.”
I didn’t need a reminder of that, but it was the truth. “We were more than a thing. We have… History.”
