Cabin fever, p.15
Cabin Fever, page 15
Knowing the moment before victory was often the most precarious, Morgan was more careful than ever scooting first one foot, then the other forward. Shockingly, she found there was still undeniably solid ground beneath her feet. After bending her knees and adjusting her grip on the bag, Morgan gave an almighty yank to dislodge the suitcase from the trunk.
That’s when everything went wrong. Morgan heard the snow beneath her left boot crunch and break away. Then she felt it slide out from under her. The fall felt like it took half a second and an hour all at once the way everything slowed down and sped up. Her right foot flew out from underneath her as her momentum carried her body down. Multiple impacts sent brief bursts of pain throughout her limbs. First her calf smashing into the bumper, then her ribs hitting the curve of the slope, then one arm against the side panel.
The one that hurt the most—the one that mattered—was the searing, stabbing pain when her left foot caught on the back tire while the rest of her body continued tumbling down the hill. Her body jerked to a halt and she heard a pop followed by a blinding flash of pain from her ankle. But the pain didn’t stop. She was hanging halfway down the hill, her body weight pulling on her trapped ankle and with each second that passed, the pain magnified and magnified until it was almost unbearable.
Morgan let out a primal scream like no noise she’d ever made before. She refused to look at her leg, but she knew the trapped ankle was twisting it at an unnatural angle. She had to free her foot to make the pain stop, but no matter how she scrambled and jerked and rolled, she couldn’t get it to come free. All she could do was change the character of both her pain and her scream.
Just at the moment she thought things couldn’t get any worse, the car shifted again. All her flailing was making it slide down the hill of snow. She thought she’d been frightened before, but nothing compared to the absolute terror that gripped her as the car slipped another inch, the back side tilting toward her. She was literally pulling the car down on herself and, if she didn’t get out of here, she would be crushed beneath it at any moment.
She lost all track of time and thought. Pulling frantically at her leg and screaming with each new burst of pain, all she managed to do was get her foot wedged deeper under the tire. That and she managed to make the car slide sideways toward her another few inches.
Where was everyone? Where was Shelby? Surely someone had heard her screaming? Someone would come and help, wouldn’t they?
Snow trickled down the back of Morgan’s neck and the shocking cold finally snapped her out of it. She forced herself to stop screaming and grit her teeth through the pain. Holding herself still, she was able to take a deep breath and think. She was like a fox caught in a hunting trap. The more she struggled, the tighter it clamped around her leg. If she wasn’t calm, she might do something stupid like chew her own leg off.
After a few deep breaths, she was able to think straight. She needed to get her body weight off her foot because that pressure was keeping it trapped under the tire. Her path to freedom was clear, but it would hurt. She knew that. It would hurt and it might not work.
Morgan took another slow breath and then allowed herself to cry. She slipped deep into her fear and her pain and let herself feel every inch of it. She let herself cry for her bad luck and her stupidity and her humiliation. She let herself feel all of it now so she wouldn’t have to feel it later, and it felt really good to let herself be sad and angry without anyone watching or judging. Then she closed all that emotion and self-pity in a box and snapped the lid on tight.
Dragging herself up to a sitting position didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would. Her fingers were so numb with cold now that she didn’t even feel it when she wedged them against the snow under her butt. She took three quick breaths, then a slow breath, then she pushed herself up on her hands and kicked her trapped leg up the hill. It popped free easily and she rolled the rest of the way down the hill until she was at the bottom with her face planted in the snow.
Lying face down in the snow seemed like a good idea, so she stayed there for a moment. Her ankle was still blindingly painful, and she didn’t think she could walk on it all the way back to the cabin. She knew for certain that she couldn’t stay here. There was snow inside her coat and all over her face and hands. Everything down to her underwear was wet and cold and getting colder by the minute.
Morgan knew she couldn’t make it back to the cabin. Even if her ankle wasn’t broken it was injured enough to make walking that far out of the question. She also knew she couldn’t lie here in the snow or even climb into the car. Both options would lead to her freezing to death, alone in the middle of nowhere. She couldn’t go and she couldn’t stay, so what was the point? It was hopeless.
She’d almost decided to just lie there until hypothermia made the decision for her, but then a voice spoke up in her head. Normally, the voice in her head was Gail, telling her she was strong. Gail was easy to argue with because she was so obviously wrong. But the voice that popped into her head this time wasn’t Gail’s.
You’re sabotaging yourself. You’re looking for an escape route.
The sound of Shelby’s voice in her head made her blood run hot with anger. Shelby acting like she knew her. Shelby possibly being right. That’s what upset her so much, though, wasn’t it? The possibility that Shelby had read her correctly. That she was frozen in place in her professional life because she was already convinced she’d fail and so she was afraid to try. After all, that was Morgan’s instinct right now—to not even try. To lie there in the snow and slip into oblivion rather than face the possibility of trying to get back to the cabin and failing.
Well, fuck that. She wasn’t going to just lie here and take it. She wasn’t going to prove Shelby right. She was going to march back into that cabin and show her that Morgan Allen was not the kind of woman to lie down and take it. She was going to live just to spite Shelby.
It was easier than she thought, pushing herself up onto her hands and knees. Once she was there, it was easy enough to crawl over to the hood of the car and pull herself up until she was standing on her uninjured foot, her busted ankle hanging limply beneath her. She decided the best way to deal with the inevitable pain was to hurry through it.
She made it three steps before she fell. She clenched her teeth rather than screaming until the pain subsided. The second time she made it five steps. This time she did scream and her body begged her to give up. To lie down in the snow. After all, she had tried now. That should be enough.
“I won’t let her be right about me,” Morgan said.
The only way she could prove she was right was to make it back to the cabin and tell Shelby. If she couldn’t walk, she could crawl. So she set out on hands and knees. Every time she put one hand in front of the other, she told herself it would be worth it to laugh in Shelby’s face.
By the time she made it to the tree line, she knew she wouldn’t be laughing in anyone’s face. Her hands were now unbearably cold and wet. Ice was cutting into her palms and her foot was absolute agony. Her ankle had swollen so much it was pressing against her shoe, which pressed against the inside of the oversized boot.
Morgan rolled onto her butt and yanked the boot off her injured foot. The sight of her swollen ankle was shocking and she forced her numb fingers to untie the shoe and toss it aside. The release of pressure was immediately soothing, but it didn’t take long for her to recognize her mistake. Her ankle was far too swollen to get the shoe back on and it was already starting to freeze in the chilly air. If she put the boot back on without the shoe, it would fill with snow and her toes could get frostbite.
Hopelessness washed over Morgan. She’d done it again. She’d made everything worse. Tears poured out of her as she scanned her surroundings. Now she was too far from the road to use the limited shelter of the car and she couldn’t trek back through calf-deep snow with no protection for her foot.
How did she manage to keep doing this? No matter what she tried, she fucked it up. She was a failure in every sense of the word. Just like with her sales job and her dating life and her friendships and her family. She fucked everything up. She tried and all she ended up with was a townhouse she could never afford without the job she was a complete failure at. She made everything worse. She was halfway between her past and her future with no hope in either direction.
She let herself fall back into the snow, her arms stretched out to the side and tears running down her face. She stared at the sky full of insubstantial pale cloud and trees draped in blankets of snow. She lay there, staring at nothing, until the chill seeped into her bones and her eyes fogged over. All she could feel was the crushing weight of life’s expectations on her lungs, the throb of her broken ankle, and the small, familiar weight of a stupid pink quartz stone in her pocket.
The last of her tears slipped into the corner of Morgan’s mouth, then she pushed herself to her feet and hobbled off in the direction of the cabin, the boot on her injured foot quickly filling up with snow as she struggled.
Chapter Fourteen
Shelby stared out through the cabin window, watching the bright, clear daylight turn to the orange-salmon glow of evening. It would be dark soon and Morgan wasn’t back. Shelby wrapped her arms tightly around herself and paced across the living room, then back to look out the window. On her third trip around the room, it registered that this was exactly what Morgan had done earlier that had so annoyed Shelby. It didn’t make her stop though. Nothing would make her stop this anxious, almost frenetic pacing except Morgan walking back through that door.
Thinking back on their fight that morning, Shelby couldn’t quite piece together how it had all happened. Especially since they had passed much of the previous day by flirting. She had thawed—albeit slowly, but thawed nonetheless—to Morgan in the last few days. She was even starting to think she might like Morgan. Like her more than she had liked anyone in a long time. Then Morgan had woken up nervous, jittery, and worried and Shelby hadn’t been sensitive to that. Not just insensitive. She’d been a Grade A bitch with all the bells and whistles. She had practically pushed Morgan out that door and now she was the one who was nervous, jittery, and worried.
The bottom line was Morgan couldn’t stay outside all night. Shelby had taken a trip out to the porch earlier for an armload of firewood and it had been frigid. Well below freezing and that was before the sun had gone down. Surely Morgan was chilled to the bone by now. Even if she was still mad at Shelby all these hours later, she couldn’t possibly think it was a good idea to stay out all night in this much snow. She’d freeze out there all alone.
Suddenly, a new fear struck Shelby. What if she wasn’t alone? What if she had gone to the road and had been rescued, but was so pissed at Shelby that she hadn’t sent help back to the cabin? She could easily say she was the only one in the car. After all, it was only her name on the rental. She could simply tell a rescuer that she had been alone when the car crashed and leave without another thought.
Morgan wouldn’t do that, would she? Sure, Shelby had been pushy and unkind that morning, but it was stress, not an unforgivable sin. Wasn’t it? A voice popped into Shelby’s head unbidden to remind her that other people had abandoned Shelby for far lesser sins. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the nagging voice and the fear. Morgan would come back. No matter how much of a bitch Shelby had been, Morgan wasn’t that kind of person. She wasn’t like Shelby’s family. She was mad, but she wasn’t cruel. Right?
Shelby thought back to the story Morgan had told. She was sure there was more to it, but what she did know made Shelby deflate like a two-day-old birthday balloon. Morgan wasn’t out there mad. She was terrified. Terrified they’d never be rescued. Terrified she was failing at work. Terrified what that professional failure would do to her, financially and emotionally. Terrified of failing a ghost.
She should never have let Morgan go out there when she was so upset. She should have chased after her and dragged her back into the cabin. Maybe not physically—Shelby wasn’t nearly strong enough to toss Morgan over her shoulder and carry her back—but she could have talked Morgan out of it. Shelby was good at talking. She was good at connecting with people.
But would Morgan have listened? After all, she thought Shelby was a two-faced liar. Morgan’s voice echoed in her mind.
Is there anyone in your life who knows the real you? Is there a real you?
Even thinking the words made her cheeks burn so hot it felt like little needles pricking her face. It wasn’t anger this time, though. It was shame. Was there anyone in her life she was truly honest with? How long had it been since she’d trusted another person enough to be vulnerable with them? Maybe some of her girlfriends back when she was too young to be truly jaded, but certainly not for a very long time. She hadn’t really thought about it that way before.
She’s always thought she was so clever for adapting her sales style to her client, but was Morgan right? Was she doing more than adapting her sales pitch? Was she adapting her whole personality? She had to admit it wasn’t just when she was making sales that she adapted to the people around her. Most of the women she picked up at Riveter’s and the other lesbian bars she visited back home in DC didn’t see the real her. They saw exactly what they wanted to see so she could seal the deal. Shelby cringed at the thought. It sounded really bad when she put it that way.
But she wasn’t always like that. Sure, she needed to play a part when she was looking for a hookup, but that was a reasonable defense mechanism, right? And she didn’t always avoid making honest connections with people. She’d been connecting with Morgan these last few days. She’d connected more—been more honest about herself and her past—with Morgan than she had been with anyone in years. Of course, that sort of proved Morgan’s point and also gave her more ability to see through Shelby to the truth.
“Whatever.” Shelby ran her hands through her hair and slammed a full kettle on the stove, intending to make herself a cup of tea to relax. “That’s not important now.”
While she waited for the water to boil, she marched back over to the window. Pressing her face to the glass, Shelby scanned the visible horizon. She’d become intimately familiar with that horizon in the last several hours, which was why she immediately spotted the distant dark shape that hadn’t been there before. It was right at the edge of what she could see, and the darker it got, the harder it was to make out.
When the dark spot on the horizon moved, Shelby jumped. It had to be Morgan. It just had to be. The dark spot was alive and moving, but it was far too low to the ground. Why would Morgan be lying in the snow? She watched the far-off spot for a long time, waiting for it to get closer so she could be sure it was Morgan and not a bear. But it wasn’t moving anymore. It wasn’t getting any closer, it was just lying there in the snow.
“Not it, you idiot. Morgan. That’s Morgan lying in the snow.” Saying it out loud made the pieces click into place. She must be hurt. That’s why she’d been gone so long. She hadn’t abandoned Shelby by being rescued. Something had happened out there and she couldn’t make it back to the cabin on her own.
“Fuck,” Shelby shouted to the empty cabin. She bolted for the door, not bothering to stop and get her coat. If Morgan was hurt, she didn’t have time to waste. She could have been lying in the snow for hours, just now able to drag herself close enough to be seen. She was probably halfway to hypothermia at least.
The snow was ankle deep even this close to the cabin and it slowed Shelby down. The cold bit into her arms and cheeks and snow filled her ankle boots by her third step, but she struggled on, never taking her eyes off Morgan’s crumpled form. Fear seeped in as persistently as the snow, but she set it aside. All her focus was fixed on Morgan.
Shelby collapsed onto her knees at Morgan’s side, and for a moment her fear got the better of her. Morgan was lying face down in the snow and she had one of her shoes in her hand. Before she took the time to wonder why Morgan had taken her shoe off, she saw how deathly white Morgan’s hand was. She wasn’t wearing a glove and it looked just about frozen.
When Shelby shook her, Morgan stirred and tried to push herself up. Her relief that Morgan was conscious was short-lived. She was mumbling incoherently and kept fumbling in her attempts to get to her hands and knees. Then there was the shivering. Her whole body shook like a leaf in a hurricane. Hypothermia was definitely setting in.
“Come on, we’ve got to get inside,” Shelby said.
Morgan mumbled a reply, but Shelby didn’t bother trying to decipher it. Instead, she dragged Morgan’s arm over her shoulder and tried to haul her to her feet. They were almost standing when Morgan screamed in pain and fell back to her knees, dragging Shelby with her.
“Well, that explains the missing shoe.” Shelby brushed snow out of Morgan’s hair. “But I’m sorry, we don’t have time for an injury.”
The sun was setting so fast, and the temperature was dropping along with the light. They had to get back to the cabin and get Morgan warm. In the lengthening shadows Shelby could see a long trail of disturbed snow leading out of the woods. Morgan must have dragged herself a long way. Even as she followed the trail with her eyes, the darkness swallowed it. The only reason she could still see the cabin was the light spilling through the open door.
Shelby grabbed Morgan’s chin and forced her unfocused gaze to lock on her. “Look, I need you to work with me. I’m going to help you walk, but I can’t carry you. I know it’s going to hurt and I’m sorry, but you’ve got to do it, okay?”
Morgan was shivering so badly she couldn’t really maintain eye contact, but she must have heard. When Shelby wrapped her arm around Morgan again, she worked to stand up. It wasn’t easy and they moved so slowly Shelby wanted to scream in frustration, but eventually they climbed the few stairs up to the porch and into the cabin.
