The flight attendant announces early boarding over the speaker, cutting through our conversation. Signing off with Willa, I stand and grin at the grannies who eyeball my cane and mutter “faker,” loud and clear.
Even when your illness isn’t invisible, people can still be blind to it. But I’m done being embarrassed or humiliated or defensive. I’m being me. Because that’s enough. And for the first time in too many years, I know that I’m loved for exactly who I am. The person who reminded me of that waits for me in a little cabin in the woods. I can only hope he’ll forgive and love me still.
30
Ren
Playlist: “The Night We Met,” Lord Huron
“Easy.” Aiden drops the axe and wipes a hand across his sweaty forehead. “What did that log ever do to you?”
I glance up, meeting my brother-in-law’s gaze. “Just staying busy.”
Aiden rolls his eyes. “Could you be any more tortured?”
“I didn’t ask you here, Aiden. It’s my stretch at the cabin, my time here that you’re crashing.”
My parents own an A-frame in Washington State, which is where I spent a lot of my childhood, up to my sophomore year of high school. We moved to LA because Dad got a great offer at UCLA Medical, and while I enjoy Southern California, I like coming back to the Pacific Northwest. Bundling up, seeing my breath in the air when I wake up. Surrounded by evergreens and deep blue sky.
The siblings all get use of the cabin, but the older ones have to come during our scheduled time and do maintenance to keep that privilege. My time is usually mid-summer since my work schedule is most flexible then, but Ryder swapped with me and gave me this stretch of late spring when I essentially begged him.
“Bit of a theme I’m bumping into lately,” Aiden says roughly. “I’m unwanted here. As I’m also unwanted in my own home. The one I worked really damn hard to buy and fix up.” Aiden lifts the axe and swings, splitting a log in two. “Thank you for reminding me. Not that you’ve asked why I’m here or what’s wrong.”
“You’re right,” I grunt, hauling an armful of wood over to the stack and dropping it. “I haven’t.”
“Which is very unlike you,” Aiden calls.
“Guess I turned over a new leaf.”
I swing and split another log, feeling the ache in my muscles, the burn in my back. All I’ve done is try to exhaust myself around here. Otherwise, I can’t sleep to save my life.
Three weeks.
Three weeks and those two words still ringing in my head. Get out.
After I got home, I beat the hell out of the punching bag, cried in the shower—yes, you heard me, I cried—and then I took advantage of Ryder’s willingness to trade times at the cabin and came straight here. If I spent another moment in my house with Pazza’s chew toy lying on the floor or Frankie’s scent all over my sheets, I was going to lose my mind.
Aiden just showed his punk butt up here two days ago, looking disheveled and under-slept. I didn’t ask him what was going on with Freya, because I didn’t want to know. I have enough of my own problems.
In the hospital, I told Frankie I’d give her time, that I wasn’t walking away for good. I’m about at the end of my rope with that waiting, though. I promised myself after a month, she was going to hear from me, see my face, and have to talk this out.
“You surly is weird. When you scowl, you look like Axel.” Aiden drops to the ground and leans against a massive hemlock, sipping from his water between pants for air. “Shit, when did I get out of shape?”
“Happens when you work all the time.”
He levels me with a look. “So, you do know why I’m here.”
I glance at him over my shoulder before I turn and swing, splitting another log. “I have no idea why you’re here. I just know you’re a workaholic.” Aiden’s a professor at UCLA. He’s actually the one responsible for pairing up Willa and Ryder when they were both his students, largely against their will at first. “You teach, grade, lecture, guest panel, publish constantly. When would you have time for exercise? Or anything else, for that matter.”
Aiden’s jaw tics. He has near-black hair, a shade darker than Frankie’s, and three days’ worth of scruff, a sharp contrast to his blue eyes and the dark circles below them. He looks angry and exhausted.
Welcome to the club, Aiden.
“Freya kicked me out.”
My head snaps up. “She kicked you out?”
He sighs, eyes shut, head against the tree. “Say it again. I love hearing it repeated.”
“Aiden, I don’t have the capacity for your sparkling sarcasm. I’ve got my own…” I exhale roughly, feeling a swell of emotion tighten my throat. “I’m dealing with my own stuff. Say what you need, but I can’t be your cuddle buddy right now. Call Ryder or something.”
Aiden chucks his water at the ground. “What, so he can drive here and beat the snot out of me for hurting his sister? No, thanks. You’re the listener in the family.”
I drop my axe to the ground with a thud. “You hurt Freya?”
Aiden lifts his hands and leans away. “Not physically. Jesus, Ren, what do you think of me?”
“Doesn’t matter. Emotional wounds are just as painful, sometimes more so.”
Scrambling to stand, Aiden locks eyes with me. “I didn’t mean to hurt her, Ren. I don’t even know when it happened. All I know is that I got off-track with her at some point. I’ve been busy lately, a little distracted.
“I missed something, I’m not sure what, but she’s angry with me. Really angry. I begged her to talk it through, told her I wanted to fix it, but she said…” He scrubs a hand over his face and looks toward the water nearby. “She said she needed time. That she doesn’t know if it can be fixed.”
When he glances over at me, his eyes are red-rimmed and bloodshot. He looks shattered. “I can’t lose her.”
“So don’t. Go home and fight for her.”
He laughs but it breaks with emotion. “How do you fight for someone who doesn’t want to be fought for? How do you repair something that they say is irrevocably broken?”
“You show up and demonstrate hope. You show her that, yes, things break, and they’ll never be what they were before, but when you piece them together, they can still be beautiful, only different.”
Thunder rumbles in the distance, followed by a fat raindrop that lands on my cheek and slides down.
Aiden sighs. “She’s never been like this. I’ve never seen her so bleak. That light that’s always in Freya’s eyes was gone.”
“So go put it back.” I shove a handful of wood in his arms. “Quit hiding here and go fight for what you promised to fight for. Love for a lifetime, thick or thin, sickness and health…”
God, the words just rip through me, like a hot knife. I kick a pile of wood and storm off. Aiden’s wise enough to leave me alone. I hear him dump his armful and traipse back into the cabin. For his own good, I hope it’s to pack up and go home.
Droplets of rain become a waterfall. The sky blackens, thunder booms, and though I’m under a canopy of trees, I flagrantly avoid caution and wander through them, scooping up twigs and smacking anything I can like I would line up pucks for drills.