by London Casey
All this moving and fighting was for no reason whatsoever. Because he didn’t move an inch. He just watched me.
I was standing again, further away from the door than when I had started.
“Feel better?” he asked me.
“Who are you? Why am I here? What did you do to me and my friends?”
He laughed.
The guy laughed at me!
His chuckle was deep enough that I thought it was going to make the cabin rattle.
“This isn’t fucking funny,” I said.
He opened his mouth to say something but there was a knock at the door.
I found another way out of there.
“Help!” I screamed.
“What is wrong with you?” he snapped at me as he walked to the door.
When he opened the door, there was a police officer standing there.
I ran toward the officer.
“Osiris,” the officer said. “Morning. Sorry to bother…”
I put on the brakes.
I then stood right next to the guy. Osiris? What a name. So beautiful. Yet fitting for him. Something about the name, his physique, his look…
“This is Lara,” he said. “She got herself lost last night in the woods. Drunk. I brought her here to sleep.”
“Ah, so you’re the one we got the call about,” the officer said.
“What?” I asked.
“About an hour ago we got a call for someone missing from a campsite. Do you have your phone?”
Osiris opened the door all the way and waved the officer inside the cabin.
My mind was racing as fast as my heart.
“You need some coffee, Jimmy?” Osiris offered the officer.
“No. I’m good. Thanks. I’m at the end of my shift, actually. I should be home by now.”
The officer glared at me.
I felt like a moron.
Osiris handed me my phone.
Sure enough, there were over a hundred texts. Fifty calls. Forty-five voicemails.
“I fucked up,” I whispered.
“So, let me get this straight,” the officer said. “You got drunk. Wandered away. Syi found you…”
Syi? Can this mountain man get any hotter?
“… and you woke up here?”
“Yes,” I said.
“She was on the stone bench out there,” Osiris said. “I carried her back here. She slept on the couch. Scared as hell this morning. Which I guess makes sense.”
Osiris looked at me.
My face burned red again. “I’m so sorry.”
“You need to contact your friends,” the officer said. “Right now. I’ll call this in that everything’s okay.” He looked at Osiris. “I got nervous. Didn’t need this again…”
I heard the comment and saw the look on Osiris’s face. A deep angry, sad look that spread really fast.
“Come on,” the officer said. “I don’t think you realize how much trouble you made for a lot of people.”
“I feel like an idiot already,” I said.
I stepped forward and then looked back to see Osiris. To thank him for keeping me safe. To apologize for acting like a paranoid fool.
But Osiris was gone.
“Hey, where…”
The officer grabbed my arm. “Come on. Out of there.”
I followed him to his police SUV and climbed into the passenger seat.
As we drove through the woods, I shook my head, realizing how stupid I was for leaving the campsite. But as the night came back to me, I remembered wanting to go home. Wanting to be somewhere else.
“He lives up here all alone?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Wow. And he likes it like that?”
“I don’t know,” the officer said.
He made a turn and I saw all the vehicles from the campsite.
“Why would he live up here if he doesn’t like it?” I asked.
The officer stopped his SUV. “My advice? Go apologize to your friends. Buy them breakfast. Then get your ass home.”
“There was a missing person sign I saw yesterday,” I said. “Was that another camper?”
“No.”
“Did you ever find the missing person?”
The officer turned his head. A few seconds later he answered my questions. “No.”
Kim dug her nails into my back. And then when the hug broke, she slapped me across the face. Really hard.
“Kim!” Megan yelled.
“I wish I could do that,” Matt said.
“Fuck off,” I snapped at Matt.
“Enough,” Josh growled. “We’re all tired and messed up right now. She’s safe. She’s here. Let’s all call it a trip and go home.”
“Agreed,” Rachel said.
“I’m so pissed at you,” Kim said. “What the hell…”
“Not now,” I whispered. “Please.”
“Fine,” she said through gritted teeth.
Alex didn't even look at me. Which was fine. Megan, Rachel, and Ryan said goodbye to me. The others didn’t.
When we started to drive, it took Kim a good ten minutes to even talk to me.
“What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” I said.
“How…where…”
“I got lucky,” I said. “Someone found me and let me stay on their couch.”
“Someone? Up on the mountain?”
“Yeah.”
“Who was it?”
“Some guy named Osiris.”
“Named what?”
“Osiris.”
“What kind of name of that?”
I didn’t get a chance to respond. Instead, I got the mother talk from Kim.
“Are you crazy? Some strange guy? And you were drunk? You could have been killed, Lara. You could have gone missing for good. That guy could have hurt you. Taken advantage of you. He could’ve…”
“I get it,” I said. “Okay? I get it. That’s why I said I didn’t want to go.”
“Right. So, it’s my fucking fault.”
“I didn’t say that,” I said. I sighed. “I- I’m sorry…”
I watched as the forest slowly changed back into something that resembled reality. Towns popped up, and finally, the city came into sight.
Kim drove right to the flower shop. She parked around back, in between her mother’s giant SUV and her father’s small luxury car.
They were both outside, standing there, watching me as I climbed out of the car.
“Kim…did you call your parents?”
“I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I freaked out. They called the police.”
“Right.”
I stared at her parents.
I was too old to be looked at like I was some irresponsible teenager.
Then again, I wished I was one right about now.
Nobody would understand why I walked away from the campsite and why I wanted to get lost.
Well…maybe there was one person.
But I’d probably never see him again.
6
Flowers I Don’t Want
(LARA)
The heat died down after just a couple days. I was fine. Everyone was fine. Life moved on. I loved the way Kim’s parents looked after me. But they knew I was an adult. I was far from being some dumb teenager who’d gotten lost up in the woods. Plus, there was a line between personal and business with them. I was their employee, not their daughter.
Calvin just hugged me, told me I was a fool, and reminded me the schedule for the following week was posted.
Besides working at the flower shop, I had been looking for another finance job. The thing was, I wasn’t in the mood for a big corporate job. So, I kept my eyes on smaller, part-time jobs. And by looking, I mean would literally look online but never apply. As long as I had enough to survive, I didn’t care.
It was a vicious cycle to be trapped in, but it was my life. I promised myself that someday soon the clouds would lift and it would all somehow make sen
se.
I apologized to everyone in our group via text, because that’s what people did anymore. Personal conversations were sacred, but that was okay. The longer I didn’t have to speak to anyone who knew about what happened to me meant more time to sort it out myself.
“Hey, Squint,” Percy said as he jumped up on the counter, a piece of a black licorice hanging from his mouth.
He called me Squint because the first time I met him was outside in the summer ten years ago, and I had my eyes squinted. Now, at that time, Percy was the super cool guy. He was twenty-one when me and Kim were fifteen. I had the hots for him until I realized what a goofy dork he was, and he was way too much like a brother to me.
“Get off the counter,” I said.
“I own the place.”
I grabbed a pair of shears and brandished them at him. “Off.”
Percy put his hands up and jumped off the counter. “Damn, Squint.”
“You don’t own the place anyway,” I said. “Your parents do.”
“And when they croak, it’s mine.”
“That’s seriously a dick thing to say.”
Percy grinned and chomped on the licorice. “We’re all going to die, right?”
“Hopefully not soon.”
“Whatever.”
“Why are you eating black licorice? It’s disgusting.”
“It’s amazing,” Percy said. “Puts hair on your chest.”
“Oh, so that’s why you’re eating it. Still waiting for puberty to kick in?”
Percy clutched his chest. “Oh, she’s so funny. And to imagine you’re single…”
“Seriously?” I asked.
“I warned you. I never liked that fool.”
“I’m not talking to you about this,” I said. “Go away.”
“Okay. Fine. Wanna talk about what happened on the mountain?”
“No.”
“You just walked away, on purpose.”
I looked at Percy. “So?”
“Were you trying to hurt yourself?”
“What?”
“What?” Percy asked. “That’s the question nobody will ask. I don’t give a shit. I’ll ask it.”
“You…no,” I said. “I didn’t want to go to begin with. I had too much to drink and walked away.”
“Sure. I believe you.”
“Seriously, Percy, lay off.”
“Right. Oh, before I forget…” Percy walked away and returned with a small box. “This came for you in the mail.”
“What is it?”
“My guess? A package.”
“Smartass,” I said.
Percy winked and walked away.
I looked at the work I still had to do. I didn’t actually mind it, though. Getting lost in designing flower bouquets. Taking custom and special orders. Talking with customers. Seeing their reactions to the bouquets. Yet every flower I touched, I calculated the cost. Every vase, every little add-on, everything that went into the business, I had it all flowing through my head.
Now I stared at a small package.
It looked a little beat up and had no return address on it.
I used one of the blades of the shears to cut it open.
Inside, there was a stick-type flower with tube-like flowers that were a rich red color. The stem was wrapped in a damp paper towel that managed to keep its moisture. The flowers were wrinkly and wilted, mostly dead from lack of sunlight. In a sealed baggie, there was a piece of paper.
I opened it.
Saw this and thought of you. It’s called a scarlet bugler. The color made me think of you because it means courage and passion. That’s you, Lara. You’re going to be okay.
I’m sorry. And whether you believe it or not, I do miss you.
Please don’t contact me back.
Thad
I gasped when I realized it was from Thad.
For a quick second, I thought it was from…Osiris. Yes, the super-hot guy from the mountain. The one who saved me from hurting myself. The one who gave me his couch, some medicine for my headache, and coffee.
Of course, Thad would send me something like this. That was how he did things. Micromanaging and manipulating anything that could possibly threaten his version of perfection. Which he now obviously had with his new job in San Diego and his new… family.
I dropped the letter and the flower in the box.
Then I laughed.
The color scarlet also represented lust, sin, and infidelity.
So, take that, Thad.
I curled my lip and grabbed the box. I threw it out before going back to work.
I had to forget about it.
I tried to forget about it.
I couldn’t forget about it.
I spent the rest of my shift in a blur.
When I got home to my apartment I promised myself I wouldn’t do anything stupid. Like look at old pictures. Like look around the apartment and imagine all the things that had happened in there. That the apartment was just supposed to be a temporary place until we found a house.
Then something popped into my mind.
I had seriously thought that Osiris was going to hurt me. The way he stood, blocking my phone. The way he talked, his huge body, his bigger presence. I tried to thank him when I left, but he’d somehow slipped away.
And the police officer who drove me back to Kim…he wouldn’t answer my questions about him.
My phone buzzed.
A text from Kim.
Drinks and pizza at my place. Friends are coming. Alex is asking about you.
I rolled my eyes.
I didn’t even reply.
Instead, I bit my lip until it hurt as I thought about something.
Something really crazy.
I didn’t want to be home. I didn’t want to be at the flower shop. I didn’t want to be at Kim’s place.
I wanted to thank Osiris for saving me. Like a legit thank-you. Not some police escort away after offending him by the way I acted and screamed for help.
I grabbed my keys and knew I could find my way back up that mountain and find his cabin.
The only problem—I should have checked the weather.
7
A Surprise Visit
(OSIRIS)
I swung the axe for the last time of the day. It smashed into a thick stump and I stood up and looked around. The land was flat and beat up from all the tire treads of the equipment. I was the last guy standing for the day. Three guys called out with the Irish flu as we all jokingly called it. Some guys just couldn't handle a night of drinking and know the importance of waking up the next morning and getting your ass to work.
I turned and sat down on the stump and took my hard hat off. I preferred to work without anything on my head, but there were rules and insurance bullshit things to worry about, so Jerry rode everyone’s ass hard about keeping safe.
Speaking of which, Jerry came out of the office, which was a small trailer right against the edge of the woods. He was carrying a black folder and looking somewhere between confused and pissed off.
When he saw me, he stopped and opened his arms.
There was nobody else around the site. And why would there be? The other guys had left over an hour ago. They saw the value of the five o’clock whistle and left on the dot. Me? I had a different outlook on things. Blame that on my former life.
“Go home,” Jerry said to me.
“You go home,” I said.
“What are you doing here?”
“Enjoying the scenery.”
“I’m not paying you for the OT.”
“I never asked you to pay me for it.”
“You’re just sitting.”
I nodded to a pile of logs.
“You did that?”
“Yeah.”
“Solo?”
“Nobody else is here.”
“Christ, Syi, are you human?”
I put a hand to my chest. “Heart’s beating. So, I’m at least a living thing.”
“Not
human though. Move over, I need to sit.”
“You look like you need a beer,” I said.
Jerry started to sit but stopped. He then tossed the folder to the wide tree stump and waved a finger at me. “Don’t move, Syi.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” I said.
Truth be told, what else did I have to do in life? I mean, I could give up why I was up on the mountain. I could answer all the texts and calls from those who showed care. I could maybe find a fucking nice shirt to wear. Shave my beard. Give up the whole lumberjack look.
But up here, it was quiet. It was actually easy to survive up here, as long as you didn’t do anything stupid and get yourself killed.
I lowered my head and felt anger course through me.
Then I grabbed the folder that I probably wasn’t supposed to be looking into. But I needed distraction.
Inside was a picture of a machine called a fell-buncher. It was a machine used to help fall trees in a controlled direction. It had this giant mouth where it would put the trees into piles. This model worked well on steep slopes. Which made sense because there were several rides all around us and a lot of those trees were a pain in the ass to get to, let alone try and cut them down and pull them up to the mountain.
So, Jerry was looking at equipment.
“Six figures.”
I looked up. Jerry had a beer in his hand for me. In his other hand was a beer for him.
“What?”
“That’s what I’m looking at.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “It’s a big machine, Jerry.”
“I need to finance it, if I decide to get it.”
“Right.”
“You did this…I mean…before, right?”
“Not heavy machinery.”
“But you did all this shit.”
I glanced at Jerry. Sometimes I wondered how much he dug into my life without telling me.
“What do you think? Company offered me a really good deal. This one is used. Which is fine. I’ll get a warranty on it. The financing end though…these payments are low.”
