Page 38 of Came the Closest

I pause before I follow her. That same ache spasms in my chest when I take in the pair in the living room. Cheyenne, snuggled into the off-white sofa, and Milo, on her lap, his head of blonde curls resting on her collarbone. The book is propped on his tiny legs, just above a printed Band-Aid on his nubby knee, and Cheyenne’s smile grows every time he points at something on the pages.

I continue down the hall and out the door. Indi pulls a child’s blue suitcase from her trunk and sets it on the cracked driveway. East of this quiet side street, horns honk. Lakeside, boats rumble and music thumps. Above my head, wind rustles treetops.

It’s a perfectly normal day…for some.

Days ago, my normal was training, competing, and keeping up with constant media changes. Now it’s weekly grocery budgets, boats in bottles, and the little boy snuggled into my best friend turned fake fiancée for the summer.

Funny how fast things change.

Chapter Twelve

Tornado Buddies

Cheyenne

Of course it would storm on the first night back in the lake house.

I know I won’t be able to fall asleep—not until the wind dies and the severe weather alert expires at two in the morning. It’s not going to be ideal, being sleep deprived on my first morning with Milo, but that’s where this is headed.

I roll over in my childhood bed for the umpteenth time. I’m ensconced in soft blue floral sheets and a downy white comforter. I squeeze my eyes closed. Lightning beyond the curtained windows illuminates my eyelids, and the howling wind lifts goosebumps on my skin.

My anxiety over severe summer storms isn’t explainable, and I don’t really know when it started. There’s a storm shelter tucked in the basement, and the city regularly tests emergency sirens. I should be able to calm my rapid pulse and slow my racing thoughts.

I can’t. I don’t know why, but I can’t. Anxiety is like an unwelcome pest on my shoulder, feeding me every worst possible scenario. What if the siren didn’t go off for a tornado? What if something happens to Milo and I can’t get to him? What if this is the end?

What if, what if, what if…

And then, as soon as the threat dissipates, the pest will become a vampire in the sunlight and vanish.

I try to think about something, anything, unrelated to the storm. Milo helping me and Indi put his clothes in Justin’s closet this afternoon. Colton, going to get a box of Sunny Glaze donuts for us to share at the kitchen table. How well Milo took it when Indi told him he was going to stay here, but that she would only be a few blocks away. Colton lingering in the doorway while Milo and I looked at the sailboat book again before bed. How the dim hall lighting softened Colton’s good night before we closed ourselves into our respective rooms.

Those thoughts, though, feel like a barricade across a road. Just beyond my grasp, just too positive to hold onto in the grip of anxiety. It’s like I can think about them long enough to know they’re there, and then they evaporate.

I roll back toward my wicker side table. Thunder cracks, and I jump, but I stick my hand out of my blanket cocoon to depress my alarm clock. I squint into the bright light and my arm drops.

12:03.

Two whole hours until the threat is gone.

Here, in the sweaty darkness, that feels like an eternity.

I don’t want to wake Colton or Milo so I can’t really get up. I’m also pretty sure Colton noticed that I came back to the house to clean yesterday. If he did wake up to me spritzing homemade lemon cleaner on the baseboards, I would never hear the end of it.

I reach over and turn on my bedside lamp. Its base is covered in seashells, a project I did with my grandmother when I was twelve, and the saggy periwinkle lamp shade has seen better days. But with a new lightbulb, it does its job.

My room is like traveling back in time to a different me. One who believed wholeheartedly in herself. The sunset canvases I painted that hang on the wall are from a confident me, and the pictures taped on the white wooden frame of my mirror spoke of much, much simpler days. Even the paint choices—hydrangea blue and baby’s breath white—feel bolder than I’d paint with now.

2.0 versions of things are supposed to be new and improved. Upgraded to the latest, greatest version of themselves. I feel like a downgrade.

Midnight slips into one. The storm continues raging outside, and even though I want to lose myself in the book of poetry from Ember’s shop, I can’t. My mind is preoccupied with noticing every last detail of the storm. Wind, beating navy blue shutters and scraping tree branches against cedar shake siding. Thunder, rumbling in an ominous sky only illuminated by bright flashes of lightning. Rain, slanting into glass panes of windows and hopefully not leaking through the spoked ship’s wheel window in the attic.

If the staircase up there didn’t creak, I’d go check.

I’ve just sat up and untangled the comforter from my bare legs when something slides under my door. I frown and cross the room, hardwood cool beneath my feet, and then I muffle a laugh when I unfold the sheet of printer paper.

Are you awake? Colton had written in that neat but blocky handwriting of his, a little sleep mussed at the corners.

I could open the door and answer, but I don’t. I dig around in my desk drawer, shoving old receipts from Dairy Dock and a stray pad out of the way. I finally find a pen that looks usable, and I plaster the paper to the scuffed desktop.

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