“Since you already have your bags packed and in your car, then this will be quick,” my father said.
“What will be quick?” I asked.
“I’m not sure what in the world has gotten into you, but I know someone who can sort it out. My sister does wonders for the women in our family. I’ve placed a call to her.”
“You called Aunt Myrtle?” I asked.
“She’s expecting you,” he said. “The family is headed back to Seattle in a few days, but you will be heading to Spokane.”
“I’m not going to Aunt Myrtle’s,” I said.
“Well, you’re most certainly not coming home with us. My sister will be able to figure out what in the world has gotten into my beautiful daughter, and when she corrects it, she will send you home.”
“There’s nothing to be corrected. You’re just pissed that I have my own free will and I’m finally discovering it.”
“That is enough. I am your father and those clothes on your back are mine. I have provided you with everything. A home. A room. Food. An education. Suitable men who could’ve loved you had you given them the chance and the ability to free yourself of the working class. I gave you a life of ease and luxury, and it turned you into a petulant, selfish child.”
“There’s no need for name calling,” my mother said.
“You will do well to stay silent during this,” my father said. “Part of this lies on your shoulders. On how you were so hell bent on shielding her from me when I could’ve corrected this before it ever escalated to this point. You failed your daughter. I suggest you start coping with that.”
“You don’t get to talk to her that way, she has nothing to do with this,” I said.
“All daughters get their dispositions from their mothers,” he said.
“No, they don’t. And you can’t force me to go anywhere,” I said.
“I can, and I will. Aunt Myrtle put Bernard on the road an hour and a half ago. He will be here any second to follow you to their home.”
“Uncle Bernard is going to tail me all the way to Spokane,” I said.
“He will. Once you learn to clean up your act and become the respectful and obedient daughter I know I raised—”
“Mother raised me. You had nothing to do with it.”
“Then you will be permitted to come home and take your rightful place within this family.”
I heard a car rumbling up the driveway and my stomach sank. My brothers stood in the window, their eyes dripping with anger. I turned around and saw my uncle getting out of the car, a stern expression on his face as he walked toward us.
“Are you ready?” my uncle asked me.
“Yep. I was just leaving,” I said.
I stormed off to my car as tears crested my eyes. What the fuck was happening? How the hell had things gotten so screwed up? I slammed myself into my car and waited, watching as my father and my uncle interacted briefly. My mother’s head rose from the porch, her eyes locking with mine as a redness crossed her cheeks.
I couldn’t blame her for what was going on. No matter how much the childish side of me wanted to. I knew I was going to face obstacles if I stood up to my father. I knew I was going to encounter terrible tasks I’d have to accomplish in order to be freed. And while the prospect of spending time with Aunt Myrtle terrified me, I knew I could do this.
This was the escape I had been looking for, even though it was hard to see past the hell I would be in once I got to Spokane. My aunt was a stickler for tradition. So much so that she used old school techniques to get people to fall in line. Corporal punishment was something she stirred into her morning tea, but it was almost hypocritical in a way. Everyone knew that Aunt Myrtle ran her household, even though she was “just a wife and mother.” All of my cousins had fallen in line and led perfect lives because of how she had raised them, but I knew they were all secretly terrified of her.
But getting out from underneath her meant I had already gotten out from underneath my parents. If my father was desperate enough to send me away to a house like hers, then it meant he had run out of options. In an odd way, I had defeated my parents. I had pushed them to their limits and this was their way of washing their hands of my future.
Now, all I had to do was make sure Aunt Myrtle did the same.
Twenty-Two
Travis
It has been six weeks since I had heard anything from Ava. Not that she could have called me—she had no way to—but she hadn't come over. I ventured into town more often to see if I could run into her accidentally, but she was nowhere to be found. She wasn't at the coffee shop she frequented, she wasn't at the library, and after talking with an old woman there and figuring out where she lived, I figured out she was no longer at her home.
I wasn't sure what I expected and I wasn't sure what would have been easier to stomach. I didn't know if I wanted the house to be deserted or if I wanted the house to be full of life. Deserted meant that she had left me like I knew she would. Just a fling for her to get her rocks off and feel like an adult for a little bit. But deserted also meant her father had swung her back into his traps, and that worried me. But if her home was full of life, that meant she was intentionally shooting me down. She was intentionally dodging me, which only reinforced the idea of my being an escape for her.
Either way, it was the same situation as before.
I drove past the massive compound Ava apparently called home in Kettle as a feeling of loneliness washed over me. I found myself in the same situation I had endured years ago and I felt my chest being crushed. Her house was completely deserted, not an ounce of life in sight. The garage was empty, the yard was eerily quiet, and there wasn’t a light on in the house to denote any sign that someone was still there.
I had been left behind by a woman who had greater intentions than me for her life. Ava had left me, deserted and alone after promising me she would come back. After telling me she would make sure to come visit me once she worked things out with her parents. Once again, a woman had promised me the world before leaving me in her dust, and it made me sick.
The property was eerily vacant. Like no one had been there to begin with.
I sped back to my cabin that same day and tried to erase all memories of her in my home. I washed all of my sheets, I vacuumed all the carpets, and I disinfected all of the surfaces I had taken her body against. I threw out the chair I had pulled up to her body that night when I feasted on the depths between her thighs and I bleached the shower she had cleaned herself in multiple times. I had someone come in and deep-clean all my furniture to try and rid her smell from the cabin.
I even scrubbed my skin red for days, trying to remove the memory of her lips upon my skin.
Nothing, however, could rid my mind of her memory when I closed my eyes.
She was gone and there was nothing I could do about it. Just like I had stood at the altar, helpless and confused, I wandered around my cabin wallowing in my own self-pity. At least when I have been alone before, I had gotten used to it. Loneliness had become a way of life for me, and I had forced myself to make my bed in it. I had put enough time between myself and my ex-fiance for me to forget what it felt like to have someone at my side. I had nothing to compare the loneliness to, and that somehow made it easier to bear.
But having Ava in my arms, having her in my bed, having her in this cabin... it gave me something to compare it to. Gave me a juxtaposition that brought to light how lonely I had truly become. And now, her absence hurt. I laid down in my bed at night and would roll over to see if she was there, and my soul would be broken all over again. I knew it was ridiculous. I knew I was going crazy. I hardly knew anything about this woman. In the back of my mind, I knew I had only known her a few weeks at best. Maybe even a shorter time period than that. But she had touched a part of me I had allowed myself to ignore and forget for years.
And I didn’t know how to shut it off.
So, I did the only thing I knew how to do. I threw myself into work. That was what I d
id when I was stood up at my own wedding and that was the only thing I had now. Breathline Energies still breathed down our necks about the property we owned in Kettle, which meant I had more meetings with my lawyer to figure out what we can do. They had stopped the threats of government intervention, but they brought up valid points about the way we did business in the mountains. And they were points that had me worried.
Every year, my father wrote off our property in the mountains as a business expense. He could get away with that because we purchased it for environmental purposes and sometimes had to take a chunk of money from the company just to help with the property taxes. We took out licenses for the land and worked to get it permanently protected in the state of Washington. My father tried to get it nationally recognized as a park because the mountains held a couple of species of animals that were closely considered to being extinct.
But, we did run a few seasonal businesses out of the mountains. Hunting and the camps, specifically.
Breathline Energies threatened to sue us under the assumption that we were writing this land off wrong on our taxes. Which would bring the IRS down on our back. Even if the judge sided with us, we would be so inundated with paperwork to prove ourselves to the tax department, and I could see that mound of paperwork forcing my father to sell the land just to get rid of the headache. I began to get nervous and I threw all my energy into making sure Breathline Energies didn’t strongarm my father into selling our land.
We pulled all the documents we could and did all of the research we knew we needed to. We began to build a case against Ava’s father’s company once they served us with official paperwork. They were taking us to court under the prospect of fraudulent tax write-offs, and I knew we had to prepare ourselves. And so far, our lawyer thought we had a strong case.
Because the licenses and the camps did not provide my father's company any sort of profit, the lawyer would argue that they were only set up to help us pay the yearly property taxes on owning the land. During some years, we could even prove that my father had to chip in money from the company just to make the tax payments as well as to make sure the camps were kept up to legal standards set forth by the state.
That gave us the ability to not only argue the environmental aspect of us owning the land, but it gave us an avenue to argue non-profitability.
The lawyer believed if we played our cards right and got in front of the right judge, they would not only favor our case, but they would push through the Environmental Protections we sought for the land. We could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, so I set my sights on that goal. It was a lofty goal, yes, but it was a goal that helped to take my mind off Ava.
I knew she had been too good to be true. I knew that a woman like her, with the spunk and the fire she held in her soul, could never be confined to a lonely cabin like mine. I knew I would never be able to offer her the life she dreamed of. The freedom and the exploration of the world she craved. She had fires that burned in her gut that had died in me long ago. I was content with staying on my mountain, only venturing into town when I had to. When it was necessary. When I had to interact with people to get food or supplies for my home.
But a woman like Ava could never be confined to a lifestyle like this.
No matter how hard I worked, there was always something reminding me of her. A voice that sounded like hers or someone walking around town that had her same hairstyle. Everywhere I turned, I could see her in something. I could hear her laughter echoing through the crowd of people in the grocery store. I could see her every time I picked up a bottle of dried spices. Memories of her would drown me whenever I drank a mug of coffee in the mornings, and soon I found myself not eating breakfast to rid my memory of her for just a moment.
Just a second’s peace without being inundated with a mesmerizing woman that had never been mine.
The case against my family’s company was mounting and tensions were rising. I lost sleep and slipped on my duties to the company. My father and mother had to come back from Florida early to make sure the case was stable. And to make matters worse, Jasper and Leo started taking it upon themselves to check in on me. They knew something was wrong, even if I wasn’t talking, and that was never good. That meant Mom and Dad knew something was wrong, and I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.
I wasn’t ready to admit to them that I had made the same mistake twice.
Every once in awhile, my twin brothers would knock on my door and for a split second, my heart would slam in my chest. I would convince myself it was Ava until I opened the door, taking in the sight of my brothers standing there. Disappointment would pool in my chest as they peppered me with questions, and all it did was bring Ava back to the forefront of my mind.
I deserved better than this. I knew I did. And Ava did, too. She deserved better than the life I could have ever given her. This much I was sure of. But I wanted her. The selfish part of me wanted her more than I could understand. I was worried about her. I wanted to know what her father had done with her. I wanted to know if she was still making it okay. I wanted to know if her brothers still stood at her side and if her mother had found her strength. I wanted to know if she was fighting her battles or if she had caved. Because if she caved and if she needed it, I had no issues knocking on her father's door and taking her away forever.
But I had no way of knowing anything. I had no way of contacting her. There was nothing. Only myself, my wandering thoughts, and my dreams. She was there one second and gone the next, like waking up from a nightmare and feeling the panic quickly wash from your veins.
I went from having hope to having nothing. And as I looked in the mirror and stared at the haggard face of the man I’d become, I relinquished myself to the truth.
I had allowed myself to love Ava, even though she had never loved me back.
Twenty-Three
Travis
As I walked through the woods and ventured toward the edge of the mountain, I gazed out over the sight. I breathed in the freshly scented air and took in the birds and bugs chirping around me. The ground beneath my feet felt sweeter than ever. Like it carried me along my pain as the wind whipped around my body.
We had won the case. Breathline Energies put up an incredible fight, but our lawyer was more prepared than ever. My father appeared in court with all the documents he needed and took Ava’s father head on. Not only did we win the lawsuit to keep our land, but we were also able to push through our protection paperwork. The judge had ruled in our favor to protect the mountains of Kettle we owned because of the endangered species that dwelled within these forests.
But then, the judge dealt a final blow to Breathline.
The judge ruled that Breathline Energies was, in fact, harassing us. The courts ordered them to pay a fine not only to the government, but to us as well. That money was then going to sit in an investment account my father could draw from to pay the property taxes on this land for the next ten years.
I smiled as the warm sunshine beat down upon my skin.
It had been three months since I’d seen Ava, but it wasn’t getting any easier to forget her. Now that this debacle with her father’s company was behind us, I hoped I could get my life back to normal. No more meetings in town with the lawyer and no more mentioning of her father’s company. I knew once I could unload those reminders of her off my back it would be easy to forget her.
At least, I hoped it would be.
I stood at the edge of the mountain and looked out toward the horizon. As far as my eye could see, there were lush, rolling mountains. And we owned all of it outright. Putting protections on this land meant my father no longer had to deal with companies wanting to purchase it for their own personal gain. No longer would my father be harassed by other companies wanting to strongarm us into selling. Now, our family’s company could get on to bigger and better things.
Like my father handing it down to myself and my brothers.
The lawsuit took a great toll on him. The stress and the late
nights almost did him in, putting him in the hospital twice. My mother was insistent that he step down from the board of the company, but he wasn’t having it. He was determined to fight my mother every step of the way.
Until he had his heart attack.
After a double bypass surgery and many touch-and-go days in the hospital, my father made the decision to transfer ownership of the company to myself, Jasper, and Leo. It would take a couple of months to arrange everything, but it was time we all stepped up. The stress of this lawsuit almost buried our father, and our mother deserved better than this. She deserved her Florida lifestyle with my father at her side. They deserved fresh key lime pies and tangy margaritas and morning mimosas while sitting on the porch. The two of them had worked tirelessly to build up this company, and now it was time to rest.
As I stood there watching the sun set, I was reminded of that night. The night of the storm and how Ava came barreling into my world. How easily it could have been for her to die had I not been listening out that night for her father’s own land poachers. It was ironic, how her father’s devious wants had inevitably saved his daughter's life.
I drew in one last breath before I made my way back to the cabin. The walk was long and dark, and it gave me time to think. I wondered how Ava was doing. If she was okay and living the life she wanted. I swallowed my anger at the situation and forced myself to look at this from her perspective. To try and see all of this through her eyes. She only had so much control over her world, and if her father had forced her out of Kettle, there was nothing she could do about it. There was nothing I could have done about it.
There was nothing anyone could have done about it.
I emerged from the woods and started down the path toward my cabin. The mountain became darker and the stars began to twinkle. The nighttime air grew colder and my toes began to turn numb. No matter what time of the year it was, it always seemed like winter when the night blanketed my lonely mountain.
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