Page 66 of On Dry Land

“Yes, that will be enough,” I agree tonelessly.

Opening the door, I step into a wall of cold, dark air. An excavator looms in the distance, sitting beside my house, waiting to tear it down. The wind pushes at my chest as I walk toward the Porsche, arcs of light spreading across the grass as I click the key fob. When I climb into the driver’s seat, I close my eyes and lean forward, forearms braced on the steering wheel. I’m exhausted. My bones ache, and my head throbs. I want to turn around and go back to the cottage. I want warmth and softness and Spencer. I want things I no longer have.

Having understood the silent subtext in the words he spoke, I wait. I wanted to go for a drive, after all, and there is no reason I can’t be the one to drive him away. Poetic, I suppose, since I’ve been emotionally doing the same thing. His bag always packed and ready to go, I do not have to idle long before the cottage door opens and he emerges, dressed for the road. His backpack is hooked on one shoulder, and my scarf is curled around his neck. I stare out the windshield as he climbs in, not yet ready to take my final look at him.

I drive him until he asks me to stop, the time passing silently until his quietly spoken “Here is fine.” Dutifully, I pull the car into the rest stop, feeling ill. When I rest my hand on the gear shift to put it in park, Spencer’s fingers ghost across mine.

“A few weeks,” he reminds me. I wonder if he can hear what I can—the lie and the false hope.

“Yes,” I agree. Closing my eyes, I add, “Call me if you need anything. Please.”

He won’t. He and I are similar in that respect, the both of us stubborn and independent and so used to being alone that anything else feels wrong.

He doesn’t linger, which is a relief. Now that we are here, I am eager to be done with this part. Spencer slips from the car, closing the door gently behind himself and situating his pack on his shoulders. I watch, hand resting on the gear shift, skin tingling from the press of his fingers, and keep my eyes on his back as he walks away until he’s far enough down the road that I can no longer see him. I’ve lost my bad mood from this morning, I realize, looking at the empty stretch of asphalt in front of me. Now I feel nothing at all.

On the way home, I pass Shiloh’s house and experience a strange, stabbing pain in my stomach as I catch movement in the downstairs window. How typical of me to be jealous of Shiloh and Ewan when just hours ago I told Spencer I wanted space. I should be happy. I have plenty of space now.

My heart pounds as I slowly approach my house, almost running into the garage door, unable to tear my eyes away from the guest cottage. Spencer left a light on inside, although the exterior is just as still as it usually is. It doesn’t look empty, even though it feels that way.

I sit in the car, staring at the house, sick to my stomach. Part of me wants to turn around and keep driving. The other part is wishing self-sabotage had waited until another time, and today could have been spent in bed with Spencer, listening to the wind, arguing over hockey stats for players he doesn’t know, and eating my weight in junk food. Opening the door, I leave the Porsche and click the locks, putting my hands in the pockets of my sweats as I cross the lawn.

The breeze bites its way through the sleeves of my sweater as I unlock the door to the cottage. The inside is pristine—the kitchen counters clean and the bed made with military precision. The bathroom, through the open doorway, is dark and empty. Demon meows as she walks toward me, tail held straight in the air, tiny bell jingling on her collar. On the bed is a note, and Spencer’s backpack is gone from its usual place against the wall. The cottage is empty, and I have all the space I thought I wanted.

Chapter Twenty-One

SPENCER

Inever used to wonder who might come through for me in an emergency. I’m young, and bad things happening to young people somehow always felt like something you might see on the news but was impossible. It wouldn’t happen to me. I didn’t need to plan for it.

And then I’d started sliding down that slippery slope. I’d reached the bottom only to find there was further to fall, and by then, it was too late to wonder if anyone would catch me; I just had to hope that someone would. In the end, it was my friend Grace who had a couch with my name on it, a hot-water bottle, and a face mask while we sat and talked about her hopes for receiving a proposal from her partner soon. She’d said it was like an extended sleepover—me living with her—fun and exciting. And for a while, it was. But the thing people don’t understand is the toll charity takes on both sides—the giver and the receiver.

I started obsessing over how much money I was going to owe her once I found a job and got back on my feet. I’d felt trapped in that tiny one-bedroom apartment and ashamed for being so ungrateful about a space that she’d been selfless and kind enough to share. But mostly, I’d hated having to receive help at all. I’d wanted to be on my own, to get better and go back to work. I wanted one of these places I was “overqualified” for to actually hire me instead of using that as an excuse to turn me away. I wanted to sleep in a bed that was mine and not on a lumpy couch. I wanted to not feel like I had to vacate or hide whenever Grace brought Elizabeth home to spend the night.

And most of all, I wanted to leave. The hospital, that town, Grace’s apartment, and my own fucking head had become a prison. My body didn’t feel like my own, and my life sure as hell wasn’t. I spent hours watching a man vlog his adventures hiking fourteeners and would think, if I were on top of that mountain, I’d jump off.

It was Grace telling me that Liza was going to move in that gave me the final push. We sat up late that night, sipping hot chocolate at the kitchen table, laptop between us, making a plan for me as though I had any control over my world at all. Grace gifted me her old camera to use and a winter jacket that she’d bought for her brother but wanted me to have instead. I’d felt something close to hope as I loaded up a backpack I’d bought on a whim once and never actually used. Think of it like an adventure, I’d told Grace, who’d looked close to tears but smiled anyway. She wanted me to stay, and I couldn’t find the words to explain my certainty that doing so would kill me.

I’ve never quite forgotten that feeling of leaning so hard on someone’s love that I feared it would collapse. It felt like living with a guillotine poised over my neck, never knowing if, or when, it might fall; in the end, wishing it would, just to stop the misery of the anticipation. It was so much easier to be on my own, even when it felt impossible. There were good days when I felt invincible. And there were bad days when I remembered I didn’t matter. I survived them all, and I would survive this one.

Rudy doesn’t answer the first time I call. I wait fifteen minutes and try again, knowing I need to turn my phone off to conserve battery but not wanting to say what I need to say on a voicemail. He answers on the final ring, dogs barking in the background and a slightly harried note to his voice.

“Spencer,” he greets me, sounding a touch weary. “How are you?”

“I—” Clenching my fingers around my phone, I stare at the road in front of me. It’s so beautiful here, with the ocean close enough to smell and the woods hugging the road. Unconsciously, my steps slow. Rudy has been kind to me. He gave me a job and offered me options for a future, if I wanted it. I don’t like leaving him on such short notice. I don’t like leaving at all.

“Spencer?” he asks when I’ve been silent for too long. “You okay?”

“I—I wanted you to know that I have to leave. I know it’s last-minute, but…I have to go. Not forever. Just for a few weeks.” My eyes sting, and I blink away the burn. I could stay. I have enough money to try and rent a Libby cottage or even stay a few nights in a hotel. I could sleep in the woods, now that the weather has begun slowly melting into spring, the moisture falling as rain, not snow.

And then what? Knock on Dryden’s door in a couple of days, hoping that it was enough time for him to miss me, enough time for him to want me back? Or, perhaps more likely, enough time for him to realize he prefers it with me gone and I wasn’t meant to return at all.

Rudy is silent for a beat, nothing but the slightly echoing sound of a dog barking in the background.

“That’s okay,” he says, clearing his throat. “You can take a few weeks and come see me when you return, all right?”

I scrunch up my face at the offer and the kind tone it was presented in, like a friendly arm wrapped around my shoulders and giving me a squeeze. I haven’t stopped feeling like I might cry all morning, and this isn’t helping.

I reply with a slightly inarticulate agreement and gratefully hang up the call. Rubbing a hand over my face, I catch a rock with the toe of my boot, sending it skipping across the pavement. It feels strange to be carrying my backpack. In fact, it feels heavier, somehow, like the time I’ve spent in Siren’s Point has manifested into a cinder block I have to carry. I don’t want to be on this lonely stretch of road. I want to be home with Dryden.