Page 33 of Riff

Riff

I said something wrong.

I saw it in the way her face shut down, how the color she’d gained from food and warmth and safety drained from her face, leaving her ashen, in the way her pretty gray eyes went haunted and sad before she started to shut down, pulling into herself, huddling into her nest of blankets, and drifting off to sleep.

The thing was, I had no fucking idea what I’d said.

I exhaled hard as I tiptoed around the room in the early morning, the beeping and scraping of a snowplow somewhere nearby waking me up a while before.

I had a feeling that I would need to get accustomed to not knowing what to say, not understanding what might trigger her. I couldn’t even begin to understand what was going on in her head and heart. So until I got a chance to talk to someone who might be able to shed some light on how to approach Vienna, I was going to have to deal with sticking my damn foot in my mouth.

“Morning, Vernon,” I said to the cat as he walked out of the bathroom, flicking his tail in greeting before climbing back up in the bed with Vienna.

Well, at least we didn’t have to worry about him doing any damage to the room. Before he’d been dumped, someone had clearly litter-trained him at some point.

After brushing my teeth, I made my way back into the room, feeling a chill I’d missed before, having become accustomed to it in my sleep.

It looked like the ancient windows weren’t doing much to keep the cold out.

I walked over to my bed, grabbing the covers, and carefully placing them over Vienna as the cat eyed me, almost like he saw himself as her guardian now.

I made my way to the door, quietly pulling it open, only to find the entire fucking path connecting all the rooms was covered in a solid twelve or so inches of snow.

As if having the exact same thought at the same moment, Raff’s door slid open, and his head popped out, hair still wet from his shower.

“Shoulda asked the guy at the desk for a shovel to keep outside our doors,” he said, eyeing the snow.

As if on cue, we could hear the rumble of a snowblower grumbling to life over near the office, snow immediately flying through the air and onto the packed parking lot. I guess he’d worry about that later.

“There’s a vending machine in the office,” he told me. “As soon as this gets cleared, I’ll go grab us something to hold us all over until we can get into town.”

We both glanced in that direction, squinting at the blinding white snow blanketing the entire area.

Already, though, there were signs of life. I imagined that people in this area were used to the snow, and were quick to get it dealt with, so life could go back to normal.

“Pretty, though,” Raff said, nodding.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“She sleeping?”

“Yeah. You got an extra blanket? It’s cold in here.”

“Yeah,” he said, disappearing, then coming back and reaching outward as far as he could without sinking his leg into the snow. I did the same, gathering the blankets. “Thanks. I’ll leave the door unlocked, so you don’t have to knock,” I said, disappearing back into the room that I’d just made significantly colder, but Vienna was still out cold, so I carefully draped another blanket over her before getting myself ready for the day, cursing my lack of real winter clothing.

What can I say?

We generally traveled across the South. We needed shorts and t-shirts, not jackets, gloves, and hats. And definitely not snow boots.

I imagined the town had some of that shit to offer, though, so Raff could go and grab it for us if we were going to be stuck here a few more days.

Eventually, it was the snowblower moving past our door that woke up Vienna. It happened the same way it had the last time, gasping and shooting up in bed, eyes panicked, her body pulling into itself.

“Just the snow blower,” I told her, watching her panicked gaze shoot to me before she slowly started to relax.

Her gaze slid down to her bed, brows knitting. “Where did all these blankets come from?” she asked.

“My bed. And Raff’s beds,” I told her. “It’s been chilly in here this morning. I didn’t want you to get a chill. Are you dying?” I asked, knowing I could never sleep under, what, five blankets.

---