After All These Years | ✔

38 - CARLIE

Leaves tickled Carlie's bare arms as she trudged through the thick undergrowth towards the old shack. She kept her path close to the lake shore, just like she and Louis had on that rainy New Year's night.

With the heat of mid-day, the forest was buzzing, alive. Carlie found herself constantly swiping at insects that crawled up to meet her. And she felt almost consumed by the forest as she tried to navigate a non-existent trail with only a compass and hand-drawn map to guide her.

For not the first time, she wished Louis were there.

They hadn't talked in days, not since their argument. She quit her job earlier that week and had mostly stayed indoors since then, making plans and Carlie hadn't seen him much. Once, when she was moving boxes from her bedroom to the boot of her car, he had appeared at the end of her driveway. The wheels of his bicycle were just visible through the rose bushes. She watched him as he paused for a minute, looking at the house, before turning his bike around and pedalling back the way he came. Louis didn't see her then, but she had seen him. And she wasn't going to deny that in that moment, it was heartbreaking to not run and meet him halfway, to not jump onto the back of his bike, feel his hard shoulders under her palms, and put her trust in him for a day of endless possibilities.

But that kind of trust was difficult to imagine now, and she was consciously aware of the warnings that reminded her at the back of her brain when she found herself pausing too long on a photograph of them both, or reaching for her phone to send him a text. Everything within her wanted to be with him, but right now, their problems were the last of a long list she needed to work through.

Suddenly, Carlie approached a familiar fence, and changed direction, walking along it until she found the sign. Then, she dipped under the wires, and continued walking. She fixed her eyes on her shoes as she passed a certain tree, forcing herself not to picture Louis there, hovering over her with his hair dripping water onto her reddened cheeks.

A minute of more walking and she stopped. The house looked smaller from a distance. It seemed to blend in so well with everything around it, with the plants growing up around the wooden boards, that she now understood why no one had found it for so many years. Carlie looked up at the canopy above her. The leaves created a shield that the sun shone through in thin beams, and it covered the house from above. It was the perfect hideout.

Carlie took a breath and stepped on to the worn veranda and it creaked in response. Her shoes brushed at the moss covered boards, and she let her eyes follow them to the worn, rocking chair that somehow looked even sadder in the daylight. When she went to it, and touched the dusty fabric, she remembered the woman. Lara Anderson, the one who was said to have lived here, who had given birth to her in this place. The scary tale her friends had told led her to believe that she had died in the same old shack, but she wasn't certain. Zachary's letters were vague, and everyone else hadn't approached the question of her death. It seemed like they were avoiding it all together, but that only made Carlie more curious. So she turned and pulled open the shack's heavy door, knowing the exact question she wanted answered.

It was warm inside, and scatters of afternoon sun streamed in through the dirty windows, bouncing off the glass table and giving the wood around her an orange glow. It made the place feel old; she could see her breaths sending the dust around her into a frenzy, but it was also oddly calming. It reminded her of one of those Sunday afternoons spent with Louis on the floor of her living room. The days when they would come home from church, eat a huge lunch and then lay on the warm carpet with the tops of their heads touching and socked feet up on opposite couches. They drifted in and out of sleep in the bliss that comes with the knowledge that Sunday afternoons in summer didn't in fact mean school the next day.