Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
I exhale hard, putting thoughts of the crash out of my head. That won’t help my anxiety.
What if Lincoln is close to the cabin and he just can’t make it all the way back? I run over to the wall hooks and put on the flannel hanging there, then try to force my injured foot into one of my boots.
“Shit,” I mutter because it hurts so badly.
But my foot fit into this boot when my ankle was more swollen than this, so I’ll get it in there again. Holding my breath, I force my foot into the boot, then quickly get the other one on.
I open the door and walk outside the cabin for the first time since arriving here. Icy snow slaps me in the face.
The outdoor light illuminates the sparkling snow, where I can’t see any footprints from when Linc left. I get dizzy, my pulse pounding frantically.
“Linc!” I race into the snow, looking in every direction. “Lincoln, can you hear me?”
There’s not a single sound in response. Just the snow, which slowly trails from the sky, unbothered.
“Fuck!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Linc, where are you?”
We’re supposed to be eating rice and playing Boggle. I’m supposed to be flirting with him and feeling a thrill at the way his spine stiffens when I do.
I yell his name as loud as I can until my throat aches and I can’t feel my soaking wet feet. It’s not that I don’t want to be alone in this cabin; it’s the agony of thinking about what might have happened to him.
The way I feel after a long, intense bout with anxiety is like a hangover. I’m spent in every possible way as I drag myself back into the cabin and close the door behind me, pressing my back to it.
He’s a good man. A really good one. I can’t bear the thought of him freezing to death. All alone.
I kick off my boots and walk over to the fire, poking the logs to bring it back to life. If I’m going to be mentally strong, I have to push back against the worst-case scenarios my mind always ends up imagining.
Maybe he’s been gone so long because he found help. Maybe he took shelter somewhere. I hope my friends and family haven’t given up on me being alive, and when Lincoln’s only been gone for—I look over at the clock—nearly nineteen hours, I won’t give up on him.
I walk into the storage room and scan the contents of the shelves. I grab a few items, walk into the kitchen and set them on the counter.
Then I close my eyes, clear my mind, and set my palm on my chest below my breasts. I picture Linc, his hand on mine as he counts while I breathe.
I can’t control so many things right now, so I focus on this—the only thing I have complete power over.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lincoln
Everything looks the same. Snow and trees and more snow and trees. How the hell did I let myself get lost?
I stop walking and take a few deep breaths, measuring the depth of the snow by how far it comes up on my boots. It’s close to the top and still snowing. At this rate, it’ll be up to my knees soon.
If I let myself, I could go to sleep right here in the snow. It’s only knowing I’d never wake up again that keeps me moving.
I have no idea how many hours I’ve been gone, but it’s a lot. My exhaustion is bone deep. At some point, I crawled underneath a massive pine tree and rested for a couple of hours, but I didn’t really sleep.
As I start trudging ahead again, I think about Trinity’s Chicago apartment. Is she a neat freak, with everything in its proper place? Or would I find a few dishes in the sink and a chair in her bedroom layered with clothes?
I’ve been imagining sitting next to her on her love seat. My arm is around the back of it and she’s close to me, giving me that playful smile that makes me wonder what she’s thinking.
In this daydream, it’s summer in Chicago, of course, and her apartment windows are open. It’s a balmy eighty-five degrees and we’re both sweaty. Her cat is perched on the arm of the love seat next to me. She laughs about how she was Karma’s favorite person until I came along.
She has to be going out of her mind about why I haven’t returned. If only I could text her and let her know I’m alive, trying to find my way back to the cabin.
Surprisingly, I don’t miss my phone much. Well, other than my guilty pleasure, the AITA subreddit thread. They’re almost always the asshole, and I love grabbing a bag of Doritos, getting comfortable in my recliner and taking a deep dive into the comments.