Cabin of Axes - Bea Paige Page 0,15
your jacket, Berrin? How do you think I came to possess it?”
Berrin leans back in his chair and takes a deep chug of his bottled beer before answering. “Maybe you stole it?” he shrugs. There’s a spark of humour in his eyes that tells me he spends a lot of his time making light of serious conversations. Part of me feels like I might be the person to find that endearing in normal circumstances. Right now, it’s just frustrating.
“Maybe I did. Thing is, I don’t remember. So I’m asking you if you could tell me the circumstances around losing your jacket… Please,” I add after realising my tone of voice is a little less conversational and a bit more confrontational.
“I haven’t seen that jacket since I left it out in the forest a week or so ago. I was chopping up some wood, got warm, took it off and forgot to pick it up again,” he responds, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on me.
“When I went back the same afternoon to finish up the job, it was gone. I assumed someone stole it. It pissed me off at first, but I figured someone must’ve needed it more than I did. I guess that someone was you?”
“I guess it was,” I mutter, feeling more confused than ever. That would mean that I was here as recently as a week ago, but why? And why did I need to steal his jacket? Am I on the run like the letter suggests? None of these men are admitting to writing that note, so perhaps it was written by someone else, but if that’s the case, why was it in Berrin’s jacket pocket and who wrote it?
I let out a frustrated sigh. “I should go to the police, or the hospital… See if they can help,” I say in resignation.
“Right now that isn’t possible. Like I said, we have trees down that will take a few days to clear. The full brunt of the storm has passed but as you can see the rain is still heavy which means the road up to our place will be difficult to drive on even without the trees being down,” Franklin explains, meeting my gaze with his.
“Why don’t you call someone, tell them you’re here if that makes you feel more comfortable?” Berrin suggests.
“Call someone?” I laugh. “Yeah, that’d be great. Maybe I can call the Lord Almighty and see if he can give me a head’s up about who that person should be because I sure as fuck don’t know.” Berrin chuckles at my response, but Franklin just frowns.
“Sorry, that was rude…”
“You’ve been through a lot. It’s understandable,” Mathieson cuts in from his spot at the sink. He looks at me like he understands what I’m going through. There’s a flash of sympathy in his gaze that wasn’t there before. Then I remember that Franklin had said he suffers with PTSD, and I can’t help but wonder what happened to him. I fall silent again, not sure what to say because I don’t have any idea about what I’ve been through. All I have is this distinct feeling that I know these men. The question is, why are they pretending we’ve never met? Feeling frustrated and tearful, I stand abruptly, wanting to get away but having nowhere to go.
“Sweetheart?” Franklin questions, standing with me. There’s a tenderness to his voice but it only makes me feel worse. Berrin and Mathieson watch me like I’m a flighty deer about to bolt. I guess that’s exactly how I feel.
“Stop calling me sweetheart. You don’t know me… right?” A sob rises up my throat and I push it down. My body begins to tremble as the real extent of my predicament becomes apparent. “I don’t know me.” My voice cracks, and my hands fly up to cover my face as I stifle the sob.
When I feel a warm arm wrap around my shoulder and the scent of salt-crusted bread fill my senses, I know that Mathieson is the one to comfort me. It seems odd that he's the one to do it given this strange sense that he’s the darkest of the three, and my absolute conviction that he was the one who had said that he’d wanted to lick my salty tears. Yet, he's gentle. I lean into his hold, too confused, too exhausted to pull away.
“Come with me, let me run you a bath. I always found that helps,” he murmurs in my ear. I let him