In the Middle of Somewhere (Middle of Somewhere, #1)(29)

“Well, yeah, but not in that way.”

I start to giggle.

“He was skinny and smelled like cloves and he said he liked Kurt Vile.”

“Oh my god,” Ginger says, laughing, “it’s like you have your own little you. I remember when you smoked cloves. And, jeez, you were scrawny.”

Then she says something about the universe sending us pieces of our past selves to embrace so we can heal them and I must be drunker than I thought because I don’t follow her at all.

“Aw,” I mutter. “The wine’s all the way over there.”




AND THEN it’s morning. I must have rolled over onto the phone and flipped it shut at some point because it’s lodged under my left hip bone. The light’s still on and my wine-stained coffee mug is perched on the windowsill, right about where my hand reaches if I stretch. My teeth feel grainy and I’m starving since I fell asleep without ever ordering pizza.

But, despite feeling a little muzzy, I’m not hungover and I’m going to see Rex tonight, so things are looking just fine.

My phone buzzes with a text.

Ginger: You alive, kid?

I text her back, Alive. Wish you were here, and jump in the shower.




AN HOUR later I’m showered, I’ve driven to Traverse City and bought a bottle of nice bourbon to bring with me to Rex’s tonight, and I’m parking in the lot at the library, congratulating myself on remembering to drive since I have a bunch of books to pick up and won’t be able to walk home with them. I have my laptop and I’m planning to get a ton of writing done today. Then I’ll get my books and run home with enough time to shower and change and get to Rex’s at nine. It’s a plan.

The Sleeping Bear College Library isn’t particularly expansive and it isn’t particularly nice; it kind of looks like a book prison. It also doesn’t have windows above the first floor. Still, I have a faculty carrel with an actual door, so I can tear my hair out in privacy. I collect a teetering stack of books and haul them to my carrel, ready to start the new section that I’m adding to chapter two.

A major part of what I need to do to get tenure is turn my dissertation into a publishable book. That means not just polishing what I’ve already written, but tearing it apart and rethinking central questions from a different perspective. Now, instead of having to prove to my committee that I know what I’m talking about and can make an interesting argument, I have to prove to an academic publisher that I have something to say about literature that hundreds of other academics will want to read.

After about three hours of deleting every sentence the second I write it, I begin to get into a rhythm, and I’m actually drafting some not-terrible stuff when I finally look at my watch and see that it’s already 7:30. I had meant to be home by now. I scribble a quick half page of notes to myself so I’ll know where I left off, gather my things, and go to check out the books I have on hold at the front desk.




ALL MY life I’ve had this fear—no, not really a fear. A niggling thought that my annoying brain lands on again and again. I have it when I come out of a movie theater or a concert, or when I’ve slept all weekend without hearing from anyone. It’s this thought that just maybe, when I step outside, the world as I know it will be gone and it will have been replaced by another. It’s half horror movie and half wishful thinking, but I’ve had it ever since I was a kid. I remember I had it the first morning I woke up after my mom died. I woke up and she was there. For a second. But then I remembered that she wasn’t there anymore. That I’d woken up to a world where she didn’t exist.

Now, that’s exactly what has happened. When I got into my car this morning, it was a pleasantly chilly day, one that made me glad I grabbed a hoodie. I vaguely remember that when I walked into the library the wind had kicked up a bit, but it was only a few yards into the building. Now, nine hours later, it is a world of swirling, whirling winter. There has to be at least a foot of snow on the ground and more is falling heavily, gusting against the side of the library and the few cars in the parking lot. It’s wet snow, creeping down my collar and into my nose.

I heave my bags of books onto my shoulders and trudge to my car. The snow is up to my shins and it soaks through my beat-up Vans and jeans immediately. I throw my bags into the backseat of my car and jump in, freezing. I’ll have to kick the snow away from the back of the car so I can get out of the lot, but I figure I’ll warm it up first. I turn the key in the ignition and—of course!—nothing. Crap. Thanks, car.

I figure I’ll walk home and call a cab to take me to Rex’s. It’s only a mile and a half or so to my house from here, and it’s cold, but it’s not too cold. I dig out my phone to check the time and remember that it’s still on silent from being in the library all day. When I flip it open to turn the volume back on I see I missed a call from Rex about two hours ago. He must have been calling to give me directions. I figure I’ll call to get his address when I get home, but as I’m slipping the phone back in my pocket, it rings. It’s Rex.

“Hi, Daniel,” he says. “Sorry to call again, I just wanted to give you directions to my place.”

“Um…,” I say.

“Is it—do you not want to come anymore?” he asks, sounding wary. “I mean, I understand. The snow and all.”