The Lake House

"Tell me, exactly, how long it is that you've been working here?"
"Two years, seven months, three days and, I suppose, what... two hours?"
"And how long have you been in love with Carl, our enigmatic chief designer?"
"Ahm, two years, seven months, three days and, I suppose, an hour and thirty minutes."
"I thought as much."
"Do you think everybody knows?"
"Yes."

-

The house had forgotten me, it had undergone several summers of turmoil without me and it looked like shit. It was frayed and burnt at the edges and the once clear white painted exterior had darkened over the years. I wanted to throw my key into the lake and get back into my car and drive straight back to New York. But I didn’t.

A puff of dust engulfed me and settled in my hair as I pushed my way through the front door. I choked as I struggled to breathe through the murky air, flapping my sleeves around. It obviously hadn’t been cleaned in years. After my parents had died, I suppose, there had never been a need for it to be as immaculate as I remembered it.

My hands had once known the lake house inside out, but now I had to re-learn everything. It seemed as if everything has moved an inch since the last time I’d been here, and everything was out of my perspective. I had to close my eyes and feather my fingers along the barristers and railings. Even then, I found myself overestimating the steps on the staircase, and my foot fell through thin air. There had always been eleven steps, not twelve. I remembered that because it had annoyed me so – why couldn’t it be an even number? It had reduced me to tears once and my mother had decided I had a problem which was later confirmed by a myriad of medical staff.

The lake house had always been the best place for healing. As a child, school hadn’t been the easiest for me. Of course you’re going to get picked on at school when you cry about the common cold and wash your hands sixty-eight times a day. Kids don’t understand stuff like that. So my mother used to bring me here, halfway through the school year because she was sick of me coming home in tears. We’d live an easy life on our own with everything going our way and she’d not have to worry about Daniel at all because my father could handle it better than she could anyway. She could handle one obsessive/compulsive child but she couldn't handle Daniel.

She’d really hit the offspring jackpot with Daniel and I. Somehow she’d given birth to two complete loonies. But she loved us – even if we were the unlovable.

-

I’d hoped the sun would heal my heart a little bit. The locals had said it hadn’t rained in two whole months. The grass was burnt yellow and the water temperature was just right. It was easier doing nothing here than in my silly apartment. Here, ‘nothing’ was swimming and sunbathing and hanging from the tire swing that hung from the oak tree shadowing the lake.
‘Nothing’ at home was just sleeping and eating and feeling like a waste of useful cells.

I kept telling myself that I needed this. Even my boss, David, had told me to leave for a couple of days, weeks, months? He liked boys, too. He hadn't told me properly in the correct sentences, but he hinted and I knew. He had an unhealthy obssession with Johnny Depp and was the only man in the office who I'd never seen with a woman. He always went home from the Christmas party alone. He was like me because his eyes lingered on Carl too. We were both pathetically in love with someone we couldn't have and it hurt us both a little bit. Dave told me once that I was the only person in the world who knew his secret, and I didn't know whether to feel proud or afraid. I could barely keep a secret for myself, let alone anyone else's.

That's why I liked the lake house. There were no secrets, there was never any one to keep secrets from. I hated the silence at first. My ears had throbbed from the complete lack of anything. It was like another world out here without responsibility and reality. I was so fucking far away from civilisation I was beginning to forget. It would be so easy to never leave, but Daniel had been a state when his nurses had told him I was going away. I’d watched through a thin pane of glass as they told him the news. He’d struggled against his restraints, his piggy eyes scrunched up even smaller, his lips streaming muted obscenities as he jerked. He’d even managed to break a chair before. He was stupid and strong and ugly and could probably kill a man and yet I was the bad guy for doing this to him.

I’d made it my own responsibility to see him everyday since our parents had died. I was the lucky child. I wasn’t nearly as bad as he was and I could live a normal life. He suffered because sometimes he spat at people and sometimes he hit people. But this was necessary.

-

It rained. The good weather had gone bad quickly.
A soaking wet local had taken the effort to drive up to the lake house to warn me of the storms ahead, but I didn’t need the warning. I’d always been eerily good at forecasting the weather at the lake house. I remember my father ruffling my hair fondly once after I’d looked up to the blue, cloudless skies and decided that it would rain. No one believed me of course, but then it proceeded to rain solidly for nine days. I supposed it was just dumb luck. But shit like that kept happening at the lake house. I’d get a funny feeling and something would happen, and I’d always sort of know.

That was just how it was at the lake house.
But now I missed the heat and the sweat and the scent of sun cream mingling in the air and on my tongue. The rain heals nothing.

-

The storm was worse than I’d expected. I’d never seen one this bad before, not even in New York. It scared me because this house isn’t exactly the most stable thing in the world.

The roof was leaking and I couldn’t sleep upstairs anymore. The insufferable dripping noise drove me insane at night. It was like an itch you couldn’t scratch. It just kept going on and on. But sometimes the storm stopped for a moment and so did the dripping and I thought, perhaps I’ve imagined this whole thing and I’m really asleep in my silly old apartment?

But then the sky above would roar and the rain would beat down even more relentlessly than before.

The lounge area was fine after I’d boarded up the windows and dug out several thousand candles and positioned them all symmetrically around the room in a certain way as to not cause a fire and so the positions wouldn’t get on my nerves.

Every time thunder cracked above it felt like the end of the world so I created a brown duvet cocoon for my pale white body. I could feel the house shake with every rumble and sometimes I pretended to be dead.

When I was dead, I thought of Carl and how perfect he was and how his arms would feel secure around me. I knew his smell. He'd asked me to dance once, at the Christmas party.

"Before we run out of chances."

The fast song merged into a slow one and our limbs were soon tangled in a glorious mess of muscles. I thought he'd asked every girl out of politeness but Dave was adament when he said Carl had barely looked at anyone else all night. He'd twirled my hair in his fingers and inhaled really loudly.

I lie, dead on the floor, and inhale really loudly.

-

The door bangs in the night, and my heart leaps everytime, fooled into thinking it was someone who had come to find me here at the house at the top of the hill. But no one was ever there. I’d check of course, and get hit by gale force winds from every direction. I missed human contact, but I’d never admit that to anyone.

Tonight was the same as every other night. I’d spend all day and night indoors. The power had gone out so all I could really eat was chips and dip.

Tonight, light shone through a minute crack in the windows, small enough that no one would notice apart from someone as anal as me. I crawled out of my nest and looked through the small crevice. A car was outside, sheets of rain shivering over its body. It looked like some glorious mirage. Finally, a conversation, a word, a small touch, a stranger.

Fear and euphoria flooded my fingers as I fumbled with the lock on the door and pulled it inwards with a huge effort.

I hardly noticed that I was only wearing a vest and underwear as I waited for this outsider to come towards me. Perhaps he was lost? Perhaps he was a murderer? Either way he was welcome to come in and have a glass of water. I would risk it and enjoy the company.

“Hello?” a male voice called out from under a rain coat.

“Come in! You’re soaked!” the man hesitated for a moment before complying. His feet and rucksack left wet puddles on the floor which I tried to ignore as I locked the door.

“I can’t believe I found you!”

“What?”

“Sarah? It’s me.”

I turned around but fell back against the door when I saw his face.

“Carl? What are you doing here?”

The one thing I’d been running from was here, at my stupid lake house, in a storm. He’d driven through the worst storm in Lake Luzerne to see me.

“Dave said you’d left because of a guy!” he said, breathlessly, “And I wanted to make sure you were okay!”

“But that’s a three hour drive from New York! Through a storm! You could have been killed!” I cried.

“I needed to make sure you were okay! Who was the guy anyway?”

“What?”

“The guy you left because of; what did he do to you?” he said, his voice shook as he spoke.

I sighed and crawled back into my nest with my back to him, “You dick.”

“What did I do?” he protested. I could hear him taking off his coat and stumbling as he did so.

"Nothing, just forget I ever said anything..."

"C'mon Sarah, I've known you for nearly three years, it's not nothing."

He sat down next to me, his chocolate brown hair glistened in the candlelight. I would hate him if he wasn't so beautiful looking. I suppose that had been it at first. I'd probably never love him if he wasn't gorgeous - how shallow that may sound.

I remember meeting him on my first day. It had been my first proper job apart from working in bars and call centres. His face was so symmetrical, and his desk was in perfect order... for an artist. And his handwriting... I'd never met a man with neat and tidy handwriting. He was my kind of man. I was in love with him within an hour of knowing his name.

"C'mon Sarah, please? What's the matter?"

He must have thought my heart was broken in a zillion pieces because his hand was on mine and it was comforting, even though his touch was like ice.

"I-I... I can't tell you," I whispered, pulling my hand away.

He sighed for a long moment. I cringed as I waited for him to speak. I wasn't just a freak, I was socially awkward too, and these one-on-one situations were bad for my nerves.

"Fine. I'm leaving. Goodbye."

He was a robot. Rigid and metallic and practical. He stood, and I followed suit too quickly that my head hurt.

I couldn't just let him leave. I didn't know when I'd see him again. I didn't know if I'd ever get to tell him the truth.

“Carl..."

He turned around quickly, his eyes were expectant as they met mine.

"It was you. I left because of you. Because I’m so in love with you and you don’t feel the same so I thought I’d forget about you,” my voice shook but I didn't mean it to, “Why did you have to come here? I made a little sanctuary. I was fine. Yes, I was going insane from loneliness but I didn’t have to think about you at all!”

He was silent, as if I’d just punched him. Maybe I had.

“Oh,” he murmured, dropping his rucksack down and taking his coat off again.

I sighed, “I’ll get you a towel.”

“Sarah.”

“Fuck off, Carl.”

He grabbed my wrists as I tried to pass him on my way to the airing cupboard and I couldn't breathe. I really am a bundle full of problems, claustrophobia being just one of them.

I tried to focus on breathing, like they'd told me when I was a child.

"Count to ten. Think happy thoughts. Count sheep even?"

But, I never counted sheep. I hated sheep. They were so bloody smug.

“Sarah. Listen to me. Do you really think I’d drive for three hours through this weather for someone I’m not completely, unconditionally, irrevocably in love with?”

He pressed me up against the wall then, and I'd probably had an anxiety attack had I not been in complete and utter ecstasy. It was like a thousand fireworks went off in my chest as his lips met mine. It was possibly even better than I’d imagined and his strong fingers moulded my entire body against him, taking as much care with me as he might with one of his paintings. He pulled away and rested his forehead on mine, breathing slowly and loudly as he walked me over to my little nest on the floor where I sat down and looked up at him expectantly.

He grinned like a cocky school boy as he got down on his hands on knees and hovered over me. I rolled my eyes.

“Kiss me again.”

He tutted, “What’s the magic word?”

“Kiss me again, please, you wanker.”

And he did.