Chapter 183: Play pretend

By the time we got close to the cabin, the sky had turned the particular shade of gray that made the whole drive feel suspended between afternoon and evening.

Then, without warning, the sun broke through.

It lasted maybe thirty seconds. A shaft of light spilled across the windshield, catching the glass and scattering over the dashboard. The trees surrounding us seemed to brighten all at once, every shade of green suddenly more vivid, wet leaves flashing silver where the light touched them.

Ryan turned toward his window and I heard a click. The third picture he'd taken since we'd left the city. I glanced at him, then back at the road. I thought about the evening we'd sat with his parents and gone through all those photographs he'd taken. Places that hadn't seemed particularly important when we'd been in them. A coffee shop. A park. A street we'd wandered down because we'd missed a turn. His camera had somehow made them worth keeping.

There would be more now, I knew there would. And some stupid, hopeful part of me imagined showing them to his parents again someday.

Maybe in Ryan's hometown. Maybe sitting around a table with his mother talking excitedly and his father pretending not to smile at half the pictures. I held onto the thought for a little longer than I should have.

The beach came into view a few minutes later, a pale strip beyond the trees. The cabin was apparently about a twenty-minute walk from it. On paper, that sounded like nothing. But yesterday morning, Ryan had sat up in bed and looked toward the bedroom window. I'd watched him push himself to his feet, watched the effort travel through his body, and then he'd sighed and looked at me.

"Could you open them?"

The window had been less than ten feet away. So twenty minutes was a lot. It could also be nothing....

That morning, we'd walked around the airport for longer than I'd realized. Ryan had been moving slowly, but he'd been moving. I'd started doing the math in my head because apparently that was what my brain did now...turned everything into distances, numbers, probabilities. The steps we'd taken would probably average out to a walk to the beach. And if he couldn't make it back, we'd stay there. If he needed to stop, we'd stop. If it took an hour, it took an hour.

The cabin was better than the pictures. Much better. It sat tucked between the trees, with weathered wood siding and a wide porch that overlooked enough greenery to make the world feel temporarily empty. Inside, it was warm and open, with high ceilings, enormous windows, worn wooden floors and the kind of furniture that looked as though it had been chosen for comfort rather than appearance. There was the promised fireplace, too. A proper one.

Ryan immediately looked at it. I carried two of the bags inside along with Ember's carrier. Ryan took a couple of the smaller bags, then he went back for Lily. He carried the lavender plant inside with both hands, pot and all. He'd said he didn't want to risk her drying out while we were gone. And when I'd countered that she'd definitely survive a few days without supervision, Ryan gave me a look, and simply said, "She's been through enough."

I couldn't argue with that.

He found the perfect place for her beside the kitchen window almost immediately. He adjusted the pot twice, then stepped back, studying the angle of the light.

"There, perfect," he said.

The cabin had more space than we'd expected. Two bedrooms, a large living area, a kitchen that opened into everything else, and windows everywhere. The kind of place that made you instinctively lower your voice. Ryan wandered toward the fireplace and crouched down in front of it.

"We should play pretend."

I stared at him. "Again?"

He glanced over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow, "I'm sorry for trying to add some whimsy into our vacation."

I gave in and set the last bag down. "What were you thinking?"

He settled onto the rug in front of the fireplace, his back against the edge of the couch.

"Hawaii," he said.

I smiled.

"Obviously."

"We're on our honeymoon."

"Of course we are."

"You just finished writing your book."

"I did."

"And I'm halfway through reading it before it's published because I have extremely good opinions."

I laughed. "You have extremely unsolicited opinions."

"They're still good."

"Fair enough."

He gave a small nod, eyes fixed on the bricks surrounding the fireplace. I shook my head, then turned and glanced out the window. "You brought papers to grade. I'm considering hiding them because you get too absorbed."

"I have responsibilities."

"You'll sit there for hours correcting essays and forget all about me."

Ryan looked at me for a moment, then his expression softened. "Never."

"I know."

His voice changed into something quieter, hopeful. "We wake up whenever we want. We make coffee. You write if you feel like it. I read your book and tell you when you're wrong. And then we walk to the beach.”

"The beach," I agreed. "And at night, we come back here. Make something terrible for dinner. Sit by the fire. Maybe read."

"My terrible Spanish poetry?"

"Obviously."

I walked over to him and squeezed his hand. For a second, it was almost easy to believe in the life he was describing. The future didn't feel like something we had to outrun. It was just a cabin. A fireplace. A beach twenty minutes away, and Ryan's hand in mine.

We put everything away slowly, the way you did when you were trying not to admit how much there actually was to put away.

I'd asked Ryan to handle the groceries. Nothing complicated. Just cans, fruit, bread, bottled water, a few things for breakfast, things we could heat up without much effort. He took the bags into the kitchen while I opened the bedside drawer and started arranging the medication.

Pill bottles first, then the thermometer. Then the small pouch of medical supplies I'd packed. The folders with his records went underneath everything else, neatly aligned, because apparently even on vacation I couldn't stop myself from organizing things that terrified me.

I wanted to do it alone. I wanted him to have ten minutes where the bedroom wasn't a reminder of what we'd brought with us. I also wanted the drawer to look ordinary. Like something you'd find in any cabin. Chargers. A book. Maybe a pair of glasses. Not a small pharmacy disguised beneath a stack of documents. So I closed it carefully when I was finished and left it alone.

Ember had already discovered the back porch, she'd barely moved from it. Every few minutes, she'd make some strange little sound at the birds beyond the railing, her body going completely still as she watched them flit between the branches. I'd been mildly terrified she'd decide the cabin was her opportunity to finally become a wild animal.

"She's going to run away," I'd told Ryan earlier.

Ryan had looked at me like I'd suggested Ember was capable of filing for emancipation. "She won't."

"She's staring into the trees with interest."

"She's just curious. Ember's too lazy to ever fend for herself."

That had ended the argument. He'd said it with such certainty that I'd found myself believing it too. And she hadn't. I had come to love that cat somewhere along the way. Genuinely, she wasn't my boyfriend's cat anymore, she was ours. Sometimes, when Ryan was asleep, I'd find myself watching her from across the room. She always had that same mildly judgmental expression.

I'd quietly talk to her. I'd ask if Ryan was going to be okay. I'd ask if she thought he'd eaten enough. I'd tell her I was tired. She'd blink at me, sometimes she'd flick her tail. I knew she probably didn't understand a word but it didn't stop me from talking.

We were only going to be there for four days. Four days to pretend the world had loosened its grip. Four days where we could be something other than patient and caretaker.

I finished putting away our clothes and went looking for Ryan. I found him on the couch. He was lying on his back, one arm resting loosely across his stomach, his gaze fixed on the wooden beams running across the ceiling. He looked small against the couch, not physically, exactly. Just quiet.

I sat in the chair opposite him. For a couple of minutes, neither of us spoke. The cabin had its own sounds. Wind moving through the trees. Birds outside. The occasional creak of old wood settling beneath us. Ryan kept staring upward. Eventually, I got up. I walked around the coffee table, carefully climbed onto the couch, and eased myself down over him.

His eyebrows lifted slightly as I settled my head against his chest.

"Comfortable?" he asked.

"Very."

His fingers slipped into my hair. He began playing with it, slowly combing through the strands with his fingertips. I closed my eyes and didn't think about anything.

Not the drawer beside the bed, not tomorrow. Just the rise and fall beneath my cheek.

After a while, Ryan spoke.

"There's a hammock outside."

I opened one eye. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"Where?"

"Back porch."

I lifted my head slightly. "That's nice."

His fingers returned to my hair, I settled back against his chest. Neither of us said anything else.