Best Left Unfinished

by Sara Jamieson

  ~~~~~

  In one of the bedrooms of the cabin in the clearing, two women were each bent over their own stack of papers studying instructions and details. They were in the same place; they were working on similar things. They, ostensibly, were sharing the same goals, yet there was no more cohesiveness between the two of them than had been present between the five people sharing space in the living room earlier in the evening.

  They were two separate entities sharing space; there was no sense of togetherness. The room felt cold and vaguely clinical -- much like cubicle space in an office that had placed a ban on personal touches.

  Likewise, the vibe in the living room from the solitary figure still seated with his head bowed on the sofa was both detached and off putting.

  In a direct contrast, the other bedroom managed to feel both calm and welcoming. The two people occupying that space didn’t feel as if they were at odds with each other. Even in the silence that had settled over them, there was a unitedness that seemed to permeate the room. They might be thinking their own separate thoughts, but their thoughts were not in discord. It was the first time that any part of the cabin had been able to prevail with the feel that its decorations intended.

  The companionable feel between the two of them even remained after the silence was broken by David as he slid forward on the bed he had claimed and snapped his fingers in Katherine’s direction to get her attention.

  “So, the sooner you are out of here,” he inquired after his snapping fingers had caused her head to raise (and tilt as she surveyed him with a moderately confused expression). “The sooner you can figure out what you can do?”

  Her head maintained its confused tilt for a few beats before she shrugged her shoulders and let out a small sigh.

  “Yeah,” she commented. “That’s not pressure.”

  “It’s what we’ve got.” He pushed for a confirmation of his assertion.

  “I think so,” she conceded.

  “You need to go now then,” he told her. “Don’t linger trying to get Caleb okay with it or whatever it is that you’re doing.” He made sure to catch her eyes and held her gaze as his voice increased in intensity by several notches. “Listen to me when I tell you that more time here isn’t going to help. You just need to go. I’ll look after him for you.”

  “He’s not a puppy,” she scoffed at him rolling her eyes and shifting so that she was propped up with a pillow under her chest as she rested with her elbows on the bed and her ankles crossed in the air behind her.

  “No,” he agreed sliding to a prone position himself (lying on his side facing Katherine with his head propped on his hand). “He’s also not so used to functioning without you around. I’ve kind of been there and done that. I’ll handle it.”

  The two of them lapsed into silence again as they rested in their comfortable positions. It was Katherine’s turn to speak first.

  “Thank you,” she told David after a few minutes had gone by in quiet contemplation. He nodded his head in acknowledgement.

  “When you’re clear of here . . .,” he started to ask, but Katherine didn’t allow him to finish.

  “One of my first three phone calls,” she promised him with an understanding smile which he returned with a grateful one of his own.

  “Thanks.” David rolled to his back and folded his arms behind his head. He stared at the ceiling; Katherine’s eyes drifted closed.

  “You don’t know what to say to him, do you?” He asked her.

  “He is so confused right now,” she told him by way of trying to answer (eyes still closed as she sank further into the pillow).

  “You’re afraid that you’re going to push him over the edge?” He prodded sounding as if he was trying to piece various trains of thought together into something that would provide an answer for which he had been searching.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted sounding as if the words were catching in her throat (as if she might be bordering on the verge of tears). “I’m so used to knowing him, David. I’m so used to the whole best friend perks of knowing what’s going on in his head without him having to tell me.” She trailed off and her voice was muffled when she continued (because she lowered her head down and scrunched it into the pillow). “It’s hard -- this whole being in the limbo type place where I don’t know what I’m going to get from day to day when I try to talk to him.”

  “Is that how Drake felt?” David’s voice blurted out. Katherine’s head popped up, but he didn’t look in her direction.

  “I know he talked to you before he went,” he elaborated as if he could feel the questioning stare that she was leveling at the side of his head. “Was that part of what he wanted to tell you? To warn you what you were headed for?”

  “Never mind,” he added quickly. “Don’t answer that. It isn’t fair to any of us.” He rolled back to his side so that he could look at her. “If I want to know what he was thinking, then I should ask him myself, right?” He muttered mostly to himself. “Or I should have listened to him back when he was trying to tell me.”

  “Neither of us expected this to be easy for either you or Caleb,” she told him in a soft-spoken, gentle tone. “We understood that it was a lot for you to try to work your way through.”

  “But both of you were sort of expecting that we wouldn’t crumble quite as easily as we did?” He offered in counter.

  “Something like that,” she replied. “I’m not always so sure that I can remember what I was thinking at the beginning.”

  “Well,” David offered with forced cheer in his voice. “I’m finished with the crumbling portion, so we can all move on now.”

  “You aren’t nearly as funny as you think you are,” she told him with a small, snorting sort of laugh.

  “You’re pretty desperate for me to find funny things to point out to you because the seriousness of it all is about to make your head explode.” He insisted with a teasing smile. Katherine rolled her eyes, sat up, and chucked her pillow at him all in one smooth motion. He caught it without sitting up himself and sort of chucked it back at her (sort of because he did it from his prone position which gave him very poor aim and not much oomph behind the throw). Katherine had to dive forward a bit to catch it.

  “I have missed you.”

  “I think I’ve kind of missed me,” David responded. “He’ll understand,” he told her as he sat himself back up on the bed. “You leaving, I mean. Caleb might not like it.” He took in her raised eyebrow and winked at her in reply. “Okay, I think that we both know that he won’t like it, but he will understand -- you know, after the pouting, deep thinking withdraw portion of the adventure.”

  “He isn’t you.”

  “True enough, but I’m starting to think that we’re all genetically predisposed toward brooding type behaviors.”

  A loud thump came through the wall and sent both of their heads turning in the direction of the other bedroom.

  “Any clue?” David asked after no further sounds were forthcoming.

  “Nary a one,” Katherine quipped back.

  “Do we care enough to go find out?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know that I would be motivated enough to intercede if Devon has snapped and is choking Eris anyway,” he shrugged.

  “David,” she chided.

  “What?” He defended. “I’m allowed to dream, aren’t I?”

  “Maybe we should confine ourselves to more constructive avenues of dreaming.”

  “I happen to think that that would prove to be very constructive,” he informed her reaching toward the head of the bed to snag a pillow that he threw at her head. “You should let me have my simple daydreaming pleasures.”

  “You don’t have any idea what you’re going to do on the outside, do you?” He asked looking reflective even as he pouted a bit over the fact that she kept the pillow instead of throwing it back.

  “None,” she admitted.

&
nbsp; “But you’re going to think of something.” It came out as a cross between a plea and a question.

  “I’m thinking more along the lines of there being a we involved in there somewhere.”

  “I don’t know if I want . . .,” he began, but Katherine held up a hand as if to halt the flow of words.

  “It’s not your call,” she interrupted as if she had read what he was about to say from the expression on his face. “If he wants in, then he’ll be in. You don’t get to decide that for him any more than Caleb gets to decide that for me.”

  He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he came to his feet, crossed the space between the two beds, and held out his hands for her to take. When she complied, he pulled her off the bed and to her feet where he stood looking down at her as they spoke.

  “It doesn’t have to be your fight,” were the words he finally settled on saying.

  “Yes, it does.” She denied.

  “Only because you’re making it that way,” he told her dropping her hands that he had been clutching up until that point.

  “Did you really want me not to?” She challenged placing her hands on her hips.

  “No,” he commented as if he was thinking of something else that was distracting his focus and causing him to miss the tone of the question. “I’m pretty much counting on you sticking with it. I’m trying really hard to convince myself that I can believe that you will.”

  “How’s that going?” She asked him.

  “I think I’m buying it.” He smiled at her fondly.

  “Drake’s kind of good at winging it -- just keep that in mind,” he added. “It might prove useful.”

  “We’ll figure something out; we have to. I’m actually more concerned about leaving the two of you here.”

  “We’ll manage.”

  “They want to break you.”

  “We’ll just have to be unbreakable. Although, it might be best if you figure out whatever it is that you’re going to do as quickly as possible.” He broke the potential tension of the moment by cracking a goofy grin. “Besides, it isn’t such a bad beginning of a plan that we’ve got going here -- I’ll look out for your family, and you’ll look out for mine. It’s not like they’ll be expecting it. I think the concept of family is a little warped for them.”

  “That was mildly understated.”

  “I think I like you better when you aren’t being sarcastic.” He reached out and pulled her into a quick hug before spinning her around and giving her a small push in the direction of the dresser. “There will be no more mushiness. You’ll talk yourself into some crazy notion of things working out better if you spend more time with Caleb, and I’ll talk myself into letting you because I really, truly have no desire to have one less buffer between me and Eris.”

  “You should probably get your stuff together,” he added (probably unnecessarily).

  “Yeah, I gathered that was what you were thinking when you started pushing me.”

  “Ha, ha,” he replied. “I’m going to make myself scarce for a bit -- maybe make sure that certain parties don’t interrupt at inopportune moments. You and Caleb are going to need to say some things, and Miss High Strung with a Bad Attitude doesn’t need to be breathing down your neck while you do it. Unless, of course, we could get some sort of dramatic exit where you figure out a way to lay her out cold or give her a black eye before you go?” He asked with a hopeful eyebrow quirk.

  “Not going to happen,” she told him with a smile over her shoulder as she pulled a messenger bag out of the closet.

  “No?” He teased. “That’s a shame. So, I’ll see you when I see you?”

  “I’ll see you when I see you,” she repeated.

  “Sooner over later, let’s hope,” he told her as he made his way to the door. “Just remember, no matter what he says to you, you’re doing the right thing.” He closed the door behind him leaving Katherine alone with her packing and a very few minutes to figure out what she was going to say when it was her turn to walk through that door and face Caleb.