Peaks Island

Chapter 20

It felt like her life was going in reverse. It was de ja vu. She walked up the pretty path to the main house. It was already early August. That didn't seem possible. The daisies were the most abundant flowers in the bed, replacing the more delicate bulbs from early summer; the irises, tulips, and daffodils. The plants were hardier. The roses still covered the bushes that rambled over the fence along the path. But they were on their 3rd and last bloom of the season. She hadn't spent a whole summer there before but she could sense the lifecycle of it. Soon the summer people and vacationers would retreat leaving Peaks Island to the locals for several seasons until it started all over again. She felt so bad and her moods swung violently from moment to moment. Sometimes she felt stoic. Better to have loved than lost... Other times she was self loathing. The things she had said and done with Greg were in the context of infatuation; after being rejected they seemed embarrassing to Alison. She would beat herself up with shameful interpretations of her silliness.

I mean 'fool around' fool around.

you double crossing dirty rat

i'm in love with you

She swore as she turned the door handle to the rental--she swore she would never act like that with a guy again. Never. 

Greg the Renter Guy... She admonished herself. Why had she acted like that from minute one?

Yet another vacillation. Heartbreak. That was the worst. The most authentic of all the moods. Not 30 seconds from when she entered the house to clean it up, she found herself strewn across the upstairs bed crying. Holding on to the pillow he'd slept on. Crying into it. The pain was so great it was suffocating. She sat up to catch her breath. Somehow she managed to get the sheets changed and into the washing machine. She made the bed and for a second--another iteration of grief she was happy to be cleaning things up, to erase him. Yes. she realized, once the house was clean and all the linens washed she'd have gotten rid of any evidence of him.

So she kept up with it. She cleaned the upstairs bathroom first. Then she went downstairs and emptied the dishwasher. She wiped down the cabinets. Mostly he'd done a good job of leaving the place as he'd found it. She tiptoed into the little room he'd set up as a writing studio. it was her new favorite room in the house. She stood in the doorway with reverence. She walked over to the empty table where all his books had been stacked and his journals. She remembered finding his writing and reading a page of the manuscript. Later he let her read the whole thing. That was the beginning of her thinking he was a genius. Daryl had seen it too hadn't he? "Are you a genius scholar?" He was. His story was eerie but the prose was breathtaking.

She sat down on the chair by the window. She put her feet up on the ottoman and watched the blue ocean through the wavy, antique glass. She sat there for a long time just looking out. Letting her mind drift. It was so much easier to let the current take her where it wanted. It was resisting the feelings that caused her moods to be so erratic. 

She realized it was time to write her book. Of course it was about falling in love. It was the whole story with Greg. How falling in love with someone happens. It blind sides you, takes you utterly by surprise. Looking back, she realized that she hadn't an inkling that making love to him on the beach would have led her to this. She started to cry again and she didn't want to. She felt weak. She kept her gaze on the grassy lawn and at the ocean beyond. But, this was really what her book was meant to be about. It was about suffering a broken heart. She jumped to the ending in her mind. Would she ever see him again? In real life almost everyone will get their heartbroken at least once. This was the kind of situation when it happens.

She missed him.

Allison was just about finished with the house. She was putting the key in an envelope to give to Mary and Daryl when she heard a car drive up. Her heart raced. She knew it was Greg. She rushed to the window in the foyer and when she peered out her heart dropped. It was Kevin.She moved back into the kitchen. She didn't want to be alone with him. The last time they were together he was aggressive. She stood frozen in the middle of the room, glorious light pouring in through the windows. She heard a knock on the front door. She considered running out the back and down the path to the cottage. She could sneak out before he saw her.