I spend a restless night after my brothers drop me off. I toss and turn in bed, unable to get comfortable. The cabin feels too small and too cold, and when I light a fire it becomes too hot and stuffy. Finally, the grey light of dawn starts to come through the window and I sit up.
My body is aching, even though I haven’t done anything to make it sore. I’ve hardly slept and I feel like I’ve aged ten years overnight. I stretch my neck from side to side and take a deep breath. I stand up and make my way to the shower, standing under the hot stream of water until l feel alive again. By the time I come back inside, the coffee pot is full and I pour the first mug of many today.
I scan the small cabin that I’ve called home for the past ten years. It seems so small and dark right now. I feel almost claustrophobic being in here. I run my fingers through my hair and throw the coffee down my throat.
My brothers are right. The hotel shouldn’t be there. Bill agrees. Most of the town agrees. I think of Mara McCoy’s face when she drove up to the cabin a couple weeks ago. At first, I thought she was just back to celebrate her engagement with her family, but now I know that she was here for business. With the new hotel being part-owned by their family, she probably wanted to make sure her piece of the pie was safe. I know how she thinks.
I head outside toward the garage. I’ve spent too much time wallowing in self-pity up here, alone with my thoughts. It’s time for me to take back what’s mine.
The big ‘McCoy Trucking’ logo appears in my head and I see red. I head outside, ready to raise hell in town. They may have stolen my father’s business, but they sure as hell aren’t ruining the sanctity of these mountains by getting into bed with a hotel corporation. I’m not letting that happen. I’m not sure how I’ll stop them, but at least I can try.
As I stomp out of the cabin toward my truck, I see a familiar car pulling up near the cabin. Maddy jumps out with the car still running and comes flying toward me.
“How dare you,” she spits. I stop in my tracks, frowning as she runs toward me. “How dare you lie to me! You bastard!”
She collides with me, and I catch her wrists as she brings them down toward my chest. Her face is streaked with tears and her whole body is trembling.
“Maddy!” I say. My heart is beating fast. “Maddy, what are you talking about? I never lied to you!”
“The petition! You were one of the first to sign it. You never told me about it! Now I’m in the shit at work and I’m probably going to get fired or demoted or moved.” She’s staring at me, tears streaming down her face and I can see the pain in her eyes. I frown. The petition…?
I remember now, Bill coming up here and warning me off her. He had me sign the petition and promise to keep my relationship with Maddy more subtle. My eyes widen.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t think the petition would actually do anything!”
“So you signed it!” she says. “You signed it and you still fucked me every night. You told me that you agreed it would bring more business to the area! I told you about what I was doing at work, how strict I was being with the environmental reports. I told you everything! And you lied to me!”
“I never lied,” I growl.
“Lying by omission is still lying,” she spits. She yanks her hands away from me, fury blazing in her eyes. I start to feel the anger bubbling in my stomach and I shake my head.
“What did you expect, Maddy? You know I didn’t want that fucking thing to be built! You think I wouldn’t put my name to that? It doesn’t matter how many silt fences you put up, you’ve still clear-cut seven football fields’ worth of land over there! It looks like a war zone!”
“You’ve seen it?” she frowns, taking a step back. “It’s a closed site.”
“There’s logging roads all through these mountains, Maddy,” I say with a sigh. “I grew up driving all over them. You don’t know these mountains.”
“So you keep reminding me,” she says bitterly. The tears are gathering in her eyes and she shakes her head. “I can’t believe you. I thought you cared about me. All the times I told you what I was doing at work and you told me I was doing a good job. All that time, you were listening to me thinking I was just a fool.”
“That’s not true,” I say. I’m trying my hardest to keep my voice steady.
“Is this a joke to you? You want to fuck the Enviro girl all the while you’re spearheading the campaign to kill this project?”
“Maddy,” I say. She takes a step back from me and shakes her head.
“I can’t believe you. I told you everything. You’ve made a fool out of me, Aiden. You’re a fucking asshole.”
“What choice did I have, Maddy! Short of burning the fucking place down, that petition was the only thing I could do!”
Her eyes blaze and she opens her mouth to speak. Nothing comes out, and the tears start spilling over onto her cheeks. She spins on her heels and slams the door to her car. The wheels skid on the gravel as she turns around and races back down the mountain path. I watch her leave and my chest feels like it’s being split open with an axe.
I bring my hands up to my head and press my fingers into my skull. I bend at the hips and let out a yell, screaming into the ground as loud as I can to try to release some of the pressure inside me.
I can’t take this anymore! I can’t take the pressure and the conflict and the questions! What the fuck did she expect? Of course I don’t want it to be built! Of course I’d still be against it! She goes to work every day and she sees what they’ve done to the forest over there. That forest is hundreds of years old, and they’ve completely destroyed it! For what! For money! To put money in the fucking McCoy family’s pocket.
I grab a rock from the ground and hurl it at the nearest tree. It hits the trunk with a hollow knock and bounces off into the forest. I want to scream again. I want to punch something. I want this all to go away.
Even though I know I’m right about the hotel, watching Maddy drive away makes me sick. Seeing the pain in her eyes makes me want to throw up. Having her angry at me makes me want to go over there and build the fucking hotel myself.
I’m being torn in two completely different directions and I don’t know what to do about it. I can’t get the image of the site from last night out of my mind, but now all I can see is Maddy’s tear-streaked face.
When I found her in the forest, I swore I’d protect her, and the past couple months have been the happiest of my life.
I shake my head when the thought passes through it. They haven’t been the happiest of my life. They’ve been a lie. She’s been working for the corporation that’s destroying everything I hold dear to me. That’s not happiness. That’s fake. None of it is real. She can be mad at me all she wants. It doesn’t change the fact that she’s on the opposite side of a problem that I can’t accept. I can’t compromise.
The hotel shouldn’t be there, and if that means Maddy shouldn’t be here either, then that’s the way it has to be.
She was nothing but a fling. I got carried away.
I set my jaw and repeat the words to myself over and over. She was a fling. She means nothing. I got carried away. I jump in the truck and drive down the mountain. When I get to the main road, a big ‘McCoy Trucking’ truck passes me and my heart beats even harder.
I know I’m right about this. I can’t let the McCoys carve another piece of this town out for themselves. I owe it to my brothers, and I owe it to my father.
Maddy was a fling.
I ignore the dagger that passes through my heart whenever I say those words, and I focus on the black anger in my heart. I turn the truck in the direction of Lang Creek. I need to pay my brothers a visit.