The Summer House

“Move!” I pleaded, shoving against the dresser with all the strength I could muster. A drop of sweat broke from my temple and ran down my jaw. I grunted as I pushed forward again, my feet digging into the ground. It wouldn’t move an inch. “Come on you hunk of junk, move!”

My back foot slipped and I fell onto my knees, panting and cursing about the sore tingling in my arms and fingers. I leaned my back against the dresser and looked across the room.

“Yeah, I like the dresser better here too anyway,” I said, addressing the raccoon that had found its way back into the house. I groaned in defeat and laid down on the newly swept floor, pressing my cheek on its cool surface. My chestnut hair clung to my face and neck as I waited for my heart rate to go down.

I didn’t think moving down here would mean cleaning up the mess my family had left behind years ago. I also didn’t think that moving down here meant even less time to write. It had already been a week and not only was I about ready to go on a wildlife massacre, but I was pretty sure my publishers would give me the ax if I came back to L.A. with no novel to hand over.

I glanced out the window and bit my lip as the house across the lake came into view.

After the incident with the boy, I was too shy to step out onto the back patio. Instead, I caught glimpses of him driving away from the house everyday, always returning with a car trunk full of boxes and grocery bags. I would sometimes catch him sitting at the edge of the dock in the afternoons or evenings, staring at the house I was so desperately trying to clean up on the inside. Sometimes I wondered if he could see me – if he was watching me like I sometimes watched him. But I quickly figured that he was simply staring out at the lake between us at his own leisure, and I went back to sweeping up the layer of dust that had accumulated on the floor.

But today seemed to be a day I wouldn’t be able to avoid going out to the patio. The raccoon that was slowly becoming my buddy for the last week waddled down the stairs, forcing me to follow along to ensure it wouldn’t rip at any of the cushions. Again.

I achingly trailed after it, coming to a stop when it started pawing at the French doors. I pushed them open and watched as it hobbled away, back into the bushes it disappeared into the first time.

I would have gone back inside but the sun was so inviting, the air seemingly fresher around the lake. The breeze hit my limp arms and I couldn’t help but smile at how soothing it was. My feet carried me to the edge of the dock, where I sat and dipped my overheated soles. Droplets of water jumped up onto the throbbing skin of my legs and I sighed in content. This was the reward I was looking for all day.

Once again I was interrupted by a squeak of hinges that rang from across the water. My eyes snapped up and I immediately remembered why I didn’t relax out here more often. I sat still, hoping he wouldn’t realize I was present.

He walked out of the house with his face covered by one of his hands, his shoulders slumped. The part of his face I could see was twisted in dismay. His voice was raspy as he mumbled to himself, my ears only catching the occasional curse.

Never had I been so uncomfortable and out of place in my whole life. My back was arching, tensed to spring back into the house. The water was suddenly numbing to my toes but I couldn’t find the courage to move.

It was obvious that my presence was still unregistered as I watched him growl in frustration and kick the side of the wall. His hand fell from his face and I could see his boyish features twisted in agony. His fists pounded angrily on the house and he yelped as he caught a splinter.

He was panting and biting his full lower lip, hastily pushing his red-framed glasses back up the bridge of his nose. His pained eyes scanned the water and his features seemed to clear, squinted eyes and sloped eyebrows unraveling to reveal wide brown eyes.

Then they rested on me and I felt like dropping myself into the lake.

I was too afraid to even breathe as a couple dozen heartbeats passed.

“Have—“ he broke off and looked around, scratching the back of his neck. ”Have you been there the whole time?” he asked, his voice deeply matured and very un-boy-like. Upon closer inspection, he didn’t look like the teenage boy I dumbly assumed he was.

My green eyes widened and I squeaked out an answer that sounded more like a question of permission. “Um, yeah...”

He paused and licked his lips. I waited for him to start yelling at me.

“Sorry for intruding on you,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and uneasily shifting from one foot to the other. “I must have startled you. I was just -- I’m real sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I uttered. “I barely noticed.”

He smiled sheepishly at me and walked to the edge of his dock, extending his hand. “I’m Brendon.”

“Madeline,” I nodded, wrapping my fingers around his calloused palm.

“Nice to meet you.” I told him the same and watched as his brow furrowed. “You’re the one who laughed when I dropped the garbage last week, right?”

Lord, strike me down. “Um, that may have been my sister,“ I lied, swinging my legs back and forth in the water.

He nodded and looked around again, as if expecting some nonexistent second neighbor to pop up somewhere – perhaps looking for any signs of my unborn sister.

“Well, I’m gonna go back inside,” he declared, rubbing his arm through his lilac-colored hoodie. “It was nice to meet you. Again.”

I got up from my spot and nervously wiped the sweat on my palms onto my shorts. “You, too.”

“See you around then, Madeline.”

“Yeah, see you.”

With a smile, he marched back to the back door and into the house, waving briefly to me before he shut the screen door and disappeared inside.

I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding before going back to the ruins of my family’s old lake house.

-x-

Two days after my awkward encounter with Brendon, I was sitting in front of the window, behind my typewriter, watching the rain turn the panes into liquid glass. I noted how the surface of the lake jumped up as raindrop after raindrop fell into it, breaking its smooth sheet. I noted the clouds looking overstuffed and overcast. I also noted the way the trees surrounding the area were gracefully bent to point out the direction of the hurdling, shrieking wind.

And, still, the paper in front of me stayed blank.

Perhaps, I thought, going back to L.A. will do more good. I would be closer to the publishers and editors and I could hire an assistant to take care of my personal pains, like keeping up with laundry loads or phoning my mother. I would be in the comfort of my own apartment with my dog, Logan, who I left with my friend Regan. If I packed up and went back to L.A., I wouldn’t be one of two people who inhabited a deserted area perfect for a Seattle Chainsaw Massacre.

Perhaps, I thought, I’m just a quitter.

I blinked when I caught a figure out in the storm exiting their car and pulling the trunk open, hauling out grocery bags into the house in front of me. Of course, it would be none other than Brendon, clad in only his lilac hoodie and jeans. What was so important about grocery shopping that he couldn’t skip it for today was beyond me, but I observed him as his lanky frame ran back and forth in the horrid weather, occasionally slipping but immediately regaining balance.

Thunder crackled overhead and I knew I would have to help him if I valued my neighbors life in the slightest. I frowned and pushed off from my desk, avoiding a hole I had made in the floorboard yesterday and grabbing my yellow raincoat off the back of the couch. I yanked my door open and quickly slammed it closed, struggling to keep it that way long enough to lock it. It wasn’t long before I had made it around the lake to where Brendon continued to unload bags.

“Here, let me help you,” I shouted, hoping my voice carried over the crack of thunder. The wind picked up and it looked like both of us were on the brink of flying away.

“You don’t have to,” he shouted back, knocking my hands away from his cargo. “It’s alright, thank you. Just go back inside!”

“Don’t be stupid,” I countered, knocking his shaking hands out of the way and heaving two bags out. I sprinted to the open front door and placed them beside the other white bags he had managed to carry in.

Ten minutes later and my hands were freezing, but everything was successfully put inside. I made to run back to my house when Brendon grabbed my soaking wrist. “Don’t you be stupid,” he yelled, tugging me to his front door. “Get inside until the storm’s over!”

I let him pull me in and fling me into the foyer before tackling the door closed. He leaned against the door frame and slid down, leaving a water trail on the door from his soaked back.

Brendon’s chest heaved as he eyed my shivering form standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. “So we meet again,” he chuckled.

I smiled halfheartedly and shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “So it seems.”

A silence fell on us.

“Brendon?”

“Hm?” he grunted, running his hand through his soaking hair.

“Um, is there somewhere I can stand where I won’t ruin your house?”

He shook his head, smiling. “It’s fine. You can take your jacket off and hang it here.”

He pointed to a line of hooks on the wall beside him that I quickly moved towards, peeling my jacket off as I went. When I had hung my raincoat and turned to make my way back to my awkward spot in the foyer, Brendon grabbed my leg.

“Thanks for helping me out there,” he mumbled, staring at the ground. “Not many people do.”

“Not many people are around here,” I joked lightly before putting a hand on his shoulder. “It was no problem.”

He nodded and got up, offering me a lopsided grin before grabbing some of the bags we had hauled in. “Um…”

“Kitchen?” I suggested, offering my assistance once again.

He nodded and waited as I grabbed two of my own and followed him deeper into the house.