Where You Are

Sheet Harbour

Birgitta

Jesse fell asleep not long after we left Halifax. I didn't blame him one bit, he'd been up much earlier than I was, working most of the day. Even though it was only eleven o'clock here, it was three in the morning London time. I was kind of surprised he'd been able to stay awake for so long once I'd thought about it.

I smiled to myself as he began to snore softly, his head against the window. I turned the radio on low so I wouldn't wake him and continued to drive, going much slower in the dark in case any wildlife jumped out onto the road.

The drive took a bit longer, arriving closer to one in the morning than midnight like we would have if I'd driven a normal speed, and I was exhausted by the end of it. I double checked my phone when we arrived. I'd never stayed at this Airbnb before because there were two bedrooms, I only needed one, or even just a couch when I travelled on my own.

It was very dark, the little house looked small and quaint, but we wouldn't need much room. At least, I wouldn't. I squinted again at the house number to make sure we had the right one.

'Jesse?' I whispered, putting a hand softly on his thigh.

'Wha—' he startled at once, sitting up and looking at me blearily.

'Sorry to wake you, but we're here,' I told him.

'Shit, sorry,' he said, wiping at his mouth. 'I didn't mean to fall asleep.'

'It's fine,' I assured him, undoing my seat belt. 'You had a busy day.'

He stretched and groaned, undoing his own seatbelt and getting out of the car.

'Sorry, I really meant to stay up!' He tried again, sounding a bit more awake this time. 'I wanted to talk to you!'

'It's fine!' I laughed a bit. 'It'll be another busy day tomorrow, we're going to see if a fancy English boy can keep up with a rough Canadian girl in the woods.'
He smirked.

'Excellent.'

I grabbed my bag and let us into the little house, turning the lights on and figuring out where everything was.

We were in an open kitchen-living room area. There was a big picture window taking up one wall, but it was too dark to see out of it now. I continued on down a hallway beside the fridge.

'There's a bedroom here, and another here, the washroom's there,' I pointed as I opened doors coming off the hallway.

'Do you care which bedroom you get?' He asked, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

'Nope,' I told him.

'Brilliant, I'll take this one.'

He strode into the nearest bedroom and dropped his bag on the bed.

Good night might have been awkward if we were more awake and actually aware of the awkwardness of the situation. But we were both exhausted. I dropped my bag in the other bedroom and, after using the washroom, a quick nod and gruff 'good night,' he shut his bedroom door behind him.

I went back out to the car to retrieve the cooler bag and other food I'd brought from home. Mercifully, all of the cold things had remained cold and I unpacked everything before turning in for the night myself.

***

I woke up to a dull clattering sound, making me sit bolt upright in bed in fear. Loud noises always bothered me, they set me right on edge. I lived alone, had for years, what was going on?

Oh. Right, Jesse was here. This wasn't even my apartment. Shit, the sun was already bright, filtering through the curtains in my bedroom. How late was it? I'd been so tired last night, I forgot to set an alarm. I reached for my phone, grateful that last night me had remembered to at least put it on the charger before passing out for the night.