Ten Below Zero(53)

I looked at the door, heard the shower turn on, and then looked at the clock beside the bed. 3:00 AM.

3:00 AM was a terrible time of day. It was too late to go to sleep if you had to be awake at a reasonable hour and too early to stay awake for the rest of the day. Even then, I wasn’t sure that I could go to sleep.

I laid back in the pillows. My hand reached over and felt the wetness of Everett’s pillowcase, so I grabbed it, intending to replace it with one of the spare pillows. Instead, I uncovered Everett’s journal.

I looked at it for a minute, lit only barely by the light from the moon outside our window. And then I looked at the bathroom door.

I told myself it was none of my business, to let Everett have his privacy. I told myself I’d be pissed if he invaded mine any more than he already had.

But my hands ignored the reasoning in my brain and reached for it anyway.

I kept my hand on the cover, running my fingers over the cloth-like material. And then I flipped it open to the first page.

I knew right away it was a drawing of me. My head was thrown back, my neck was exposed and my arms were wrapped around myself. My lips were partially open but my eyes were closed. It was sensual, and very intimate.

What stood out the most was the scar he’d drawn along my cheekbone. It was drawn exactly the same as my own scar. My fingers touched the drawing. Was this how he saw me? The girl he’d drawn looked sad. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t anything, except annoyed. But, I wasn’t annoyed at this photo. This photo made me feel the way the artist himself made me feel: confused. He’d written words around the drawing, but I was far too uncomfortable with the drawing to focus on them.

Deciding not to continue looking at the journal, I closed the lid and pushed it back to its spot and replaced his pillow with a fresh one from the closet.

The water turned off in the bathroom, so I rolled onto my side, my back to the bathroom door. I heard Everett come out and cough again. I made no move to acknowledge him, still processing my feelings.

The bed dipped and heard him slide in. And then there was silence. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to come to me, to cuddle me from behind, but I couldn’t deny the small ache I felt now that he’d put separation between us.





When I woke again, the room was dark except for the small lamp by the table. Everett was tying his shoelaces in the chair across from the bed. I noticed his hands were free of the bandages, the knuckles looked even worse than they had the night before.

He looked up from tying his shoes, his freshly-washed hair falling over his forehead. “Are you going to be ready soon?” His voice was lacking its usual warm quality. Gone was his playfulness. Something had changed him in sleep.

“Yeah,” I croaked, climbing out of bed. I was completely naked. Everett stood up and walked into the bathroom. “What time is it?”

“Here,” he said as he tossed a pile of clothes at me. I caught them clumsily and then stared at the bundle in my arms. “It’s four,” he said, moving out of the bathroom and gesturing for me to go in. I was cold, but not because of the lack of clothing. Everett was a totally different person.

“Four?” I said aloud. So early. Self-consciously, I grabbed my suitcase and wheeled it in the bathroom, shutting the door to change. I looked at my reflection. My hair was a wild mess, my eyes wide. Probably with shock. Everett had never treated me so coolly.

I washed myself quickly in the shower, drying hastily with the too-small towel.

As I was dressing, I noticed the small bag of cosmetics I’d brought with me. I bit my lip while I decided what to do.

When I emerged from the bathroom, I was wearing shorts and a tank, both more revealing than I usually wore. I was wearing makeup, not a lot, but enough that it should be noticeable. I wore my hair down, shivering each time a wet strand made contact with my skin.

Everett barely glanced at me. “Ready?” he asked, his gaze focused on his phone.

“Um. Yes.”

“Great,” he said without feeling, and grabbed both of our bags on his way out the door, without giving me his usual grin or sarcastic comment.

Something small cracked from within my chest. That was how I was introduced to a new emotion, one I hadn’t felt before.

It was unrequited longing. And it was the loneliest emotion I’d ever felt.



I was going crazy. Everett had turned the music off, his fingers stayed still on the steering wheel. All of the things that annoyed me about him were absent and, inexplicably, that annoyed me even more than before.

He still wore his sunglasses, though they seemed more to shield his eyes from mine than to protect himself from the sun. He hadn’t said a word since we’d arrived at the car. I’d gone from relishing in loneliness, from preferring silence to conversation to my current situation: feeling a gamut of emotions from sadness to anger. The sadness, the longing, was most predominate. I tried to imagine what I’d done wrong, but I couldn’t come up with anything.

It was as if I’d imagined funny, out-going, * Everett. In his place was something I recognized all too well: indifference. Indifferent Everett was frightening. Suddenly, I was wishing for something, for anything. For Everett to call me ten below zero, or five below zero, or whatever it was he’d decided on. For him to say something inappropriate. I’d take rude Everett over this Everett any day.

And that was an epiphany in itself, but something I chose to set aside, in the corner, until I was more able to analyze why I preferred the Everett that made me feel good things to the Everett who ignored me.