Lucky In Love | Shawn Mendes

1

Abigail Cooper sits at the antique writing desk in front of the window in her room and looks at the wintry landscape, grateful that she arrived early, before the snow. She's been able to put in a good day of work.

She'd driven up from Toronto early in the morning, desperate to escape. She's a bundle of resentment and raw nerves these days. It's not that she has a family of her own that needs her — a rumpled husband and adoring children with sticky hands — she is only 21. She does this sometimes. She imagines what her life would be like if she did have children, often comparing her life with that of her sisters. She imagines what her children would be like, at different ages, in different circumstances. If she'd been lucky in love. But no. She has not been lucky in love. Not for her happy ending. Instead, as the only single and unmarried one of three daughters — and quite obviously the youngest —she has been stuck with the lion's share of balancing a career and caring for her widowed and declining mother, because her rather selfish sisters are too busy with their own demanding families who adore them.

Abigail feels that she has been doubly cheated. Denied the happiness that her sisters seem to take for granted, and saddled with the thankless, grinding, demoralizing duty of "elderly" care. Her mother wasn't old, though. Simply a widowed and depressed woman loosing herself day by day. It's not that she doesn't love her mother. It's just so...hard. And so sad; the dependency, the fact that her mother doesn't know who she is half the time. It completely saps her creativity and makes it hard to work. That's why it's so important that she take this time away to focus on herself (her sisters could handle their mother for once) in a little, secluded chalet north of Toronto that merely accommodated six guests at a time.

Her sisters only step up when she's out of town on assignment, which has been infrequently of late. They have become complacent, depending on her all the time, visiting their mother less and less. Their own families are more important and Abigail doesn't have a family. Abigail can do it. She finds herself mouthing the words, silently and sarcastically, automatically, with a snarky expression on her face. She drags her eyes from the swirling darkness outside the window back to the screen of her iPad.

She's let herself get off track. She ought to finish this drawing for her portfolio before she goes down to dinner. She checks her watch and realizes she's missed cocktail hour. The young boy at the front desk had mentioned dinner was served from seven to nine P.M. She looks down again at the screen of the iPad in front of her, regrets the drawing she almost completed. It will have to go. She blocks it out and hits delete.

Abigail takes of her glasses and rubs her eyes. Maybe she needs a break. She'll carry on after dinner. There will be wine with dinner. She tells herself again that she had to get away from her mother to finish this portfolio with one thing in her mind, art school — she's trying not to feel guilty about it. This could either make or break her. Turning off her iPad, Abigail gets up, looks at herself in the full-length mirror, and decides she can't really go down in yoga pants. She puts on a pair of jeans and a decent blouse. She brushes her hair into a new, tidy ponytail, applies fresh lipstick, and heads downstairs.

Chalet Dalmore is a three-story, modern-looking structure of Cumaru wood and red brick, encircled by a nearby forest. The front of the small hotel is open to view, with what must be a pretty grand lawn underneath all the snow. Tall evergreens and mature trees bereft of leaves but draped in white seem to encroach on the building from a short distance away. All is covered in a pure, muffling white snow. It feels quiet here, peaceful.

Abigail makes her way down the corridor to the grand staircase. There is no elevator, it's a small hotel. She chose carefully. She wanted somewhere quiet and intimate to spend time with herself. The thick rug softens her footsteps so that it is almost perfectly quiet as she walks down the stairs. Abigail soon finds herself in what looks like the lobby of the hotel. She notices there is no one there except for a man that looks around her age sitting in a leather club chair by the fireplace, with a drink in his hand. Abigail can't help but notice his smile as he acknowledges her presence. It makes him instantly likeable. He's tall and fit, with rumpled, curly brown hair in black jeans and a hoodie.

"Care to join me?" the man says.