Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
And I suddenly find myself wishing I was a full-fledged Guild Guardian.
It’s like a family. And I know Zusi considers me family, and I her, but this feels so… big. Like lots of open arms welcoming you, no matter where you are in the world.
In fact, it’s more than just a feeling of family.
It’s an all-encompassing sense of safety once I walk through those lounge doors.
Like I am being taken care of.
It’s a little bit shocking, actually. That I didn’t see it before now, but also that she offered this perk up to me, even though I know damn well that she’s not supposed to lend out her card, let alone practically invite me into their secret world.
On the last leg of my journey I spend the night in the Super 8, get up before dawn, and head out early in the black Ford F-150 that was left in the parking lot. White River is a little over two hundred miles north of where I’m at and it takes the whole morning to get there.
Coming from the tropics, as I did, the fact that winter is in full swing up here turns my spirit of adventure—which I have been trying to adopt—into cold, sharp reality. And when I finally roll into town under the umbrella of a massive thunderhead that threatens to blanket the world in an ocean of snow, find the address, and realize that I now live in an apartment above a hardware store—I can’t even remember what a sense of adventure feels like, let alone conjure up the enthusiasm to make it happen.
I just feel… I don’t know. Denied. Like I’ve been skipped out on.
The place is pretty, I’ll give it that. But when I checked the average temperatures up here last night in the hotel and realized it’s not going to get to a temperature that I would consider warm until the better part of June—yeah. Depressing.
The apartment isn’t bad. It’s furnished. Thankfully. There is nothing worse than heading to a new place only to arrive and be reminded, in the most in-your-face way possible, that you own nothing.
I still own nothing. This stuff is not mine. But at least I have a couch and a bed.
There’s a wood stove and a note from, presumably, the landlord that I can help myself to the wood stacked out back whenever I want.
I do that immediately because there doesn’t seem to be a thermostat in here to turn on some heat and it’s fucking freezing.
So I haul wood up the stairs and stack it in the little alcove outside my door, enough that I don’t have to do this every few hours, plus some for inside too. I’m pretty good at making a fire. Bonfires were a thing at the Guild school. It’s in the mountains too, but not the Rockies—Vermont. Which is prettier, I think. Lots of trees. Not just pine trees and aspens, like here.
Soon, my little apartment is toasty and warm and I’m curled up in a fluffy blanket that someone left folded on the couch.
To say that sleep comes easy is an understatement.
And this time, no purple follows me.
When I wake up the place is going cold again because the fire is nothing but embers and ashes. But I have bigger problems. I’m starving and I have no food.
So I bundle myself back up, go down to my truck, spend nearly ten minutes warming up the engine and scraping snow off the windshield, then hit up the town for sustenance.
This is when my new situation finally hits home. Because this town has no grocery store, only a diner and gas station that sells junk food. But only the gas pumps are open after six PM, so I have to fight the storm and make my way down the road to the edge of town where the diner is, only to find out that it’s closed until May.
It’s January-something right now and it doesn’t open until May.
What. The actual. Fuck.
I text this to Zusi, but she doesn’t answer me.
I text again, and again, and again, with an increasing number of exclamation points, only to realize that my texts aren’t being delivered. Because I don’t have service.
So here I sit, in the empty parking lot of the White River Historic Diner—closed—and pound my fists on the steering wheel as the tears of exhaustion, and frustration, and abandonment roll down my cheeks.
And that’s when a man knocks on my window and scares the ever-loving fuck out of me.
I scream. He backs up, hands in the air like he’s surrendering.
“Sorry!” He yells this through my closed truck window. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I live across the road.” He points. “In those cabins. I’m the caretaker, actually.”
My mood improves. Because holy fucking shit, if all Idaho men look like him, then I am totally OK with no gas, no food, and no phone. I could for sure force myself to cozy up to this one until May.