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I wished he had waited for me to be able to say something, anything.
When I finally felt like I could leave the lobby, I decided to go on a walk around the lodge’s hallways. It was far too cold to go outside for a walk, and I didn’t want to put on the boots and coat that I would need to stay warm out there.
As I walked away from the lobby, I heard the squeal of car tires struggling to gain traction. I was tempted to look outside but decided that the last thing I needed to see right now was an accident. If more guests had arrived, Luke had probably heard the sound. However, I wandered into the dining room instead of the hallway because it would be easier to get elsewhere from there. And my sneakers were enough protection from the cold to get up the stairs.
My jacket was certainly not enough, but in a pinch, it’d be enough.
I heard the lobby doors open and shut rather quickly as if the doors had only opened enough to allow one person through. By choice. It was not quite dinner time, but I now realized I had been sitting in the lobby for longer than I thought. I wondered when Luke was coming back in. The clocks in the dining room all read that it was around four in the afternoon, not just after eleven in the morning, when I had gone out to see what Luke was doing.
“Look, I just got back to the lodge. There’s not the best reception here. I’ll call you when I know when I’m coming back. I’m not leaving without my fiancée.” I heard him bark a sharp laugh. “I know, that would be embarrassing. Don’t worry, she does everything I say eventually.”
The voice sent shivers down my back. Mark had returned. I wondered why he was calling me his fiancée when I had yet to take the ring, but this was one step too far – even for me. I was willing to tolerate a lot when I didn’t even know that it was going on. However, to know that he only saw me as an accessory he needed to make his life complete made me feel sick.
“Of course she’s going to take the ring, you idiot. It’s much prettier than a ruby ring, and it goes with everything. Especially since she’ll quit her job when she’s pregnant. Being a chef in the kitchen isn’t the best job to have when pregnant. She’ll raise our children at home, where she belongs, and she’ll be a trophy wife.”
I started to slowly back away from where I had been standing, hoping to get to the kitchen door without drawing his attention.
I reached the kitchen doors and opened them softly. Thankfully, the hinges didn’t squeak. I guided them back into place just as softly and was glad to see that I could no longer hear Mark’s phone conversation.
The back door was going to be harder to open without him noticing. Especially if he thought that the kitchen would be where I was right now. However, it was my only option. Taking the fact that I couldn’t hear his conversation as a good sign, I gently pressed against the handle on the door. Thankfully, this door was not rigged to an alarm, so nothing sounded.
The hinges squeaked, though.
I winced and managed to make it outside. Instead of guiding the door shut, I let it close on its own and ran for the stairs. The ice on the metal stairs was a little more dangerous in these sneakers, but I managed to make it up to the landing and into the lodge. I peeked out the window to see if anyone was going to follow.
The yard was empty. Mark hadn’t followed me through the kitchen.
I leaned against the wall for a moment before taking a deep breath. Luke had probably given Mark a room far from my own, so I was safe if he was heading to his own room. After calming my racing heart, I started towards my door. I thanked the heavens that I always carried my keys with me because the sooner I got into my room, the sooner this hallway looked abandoned.
“There you are!”
I froze with my keys in my pocket still because that was not the voice I had wanted to hear. He was coming from the other side of the hallway, though. He may have guessed what I had managed to do, but how he found the room so quickly from the other side of the lodge concerned me.
“What do you want, Mark?”
I kept my hand clutched around my keys. I couldn’t hear any guitar strumming, and I knew Luke’s room was probably too far away for him to realize Mark had cornered me. Being stuck with Mark was not what I wanted. At all. And after hearing Luke’s declaration, I couldn’t help but feel that all the little moments I had thought about what it could mean for Luke to love again meant something about how I felt about him.
However, these thoughts were cut short when Mark pulled the ring box out again, this time reaching for my left hand. I pulled my hand into my jacket pocket, firmly planting it there.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to stop this silly charade,” he finally replied. He smiled, but there was an edge to his voice. “We both know that you’re not cut out for this kind of life, secluded in the wilderness in Idaho. Idaho! Of all places!” He chuckled, shaking his head. “There’s no way you would be able to survive the summer out here. Come back to Chicago with me, and we’ll work this all out as if my fling with Janelle had never happened.”
“Mark, I don’t want to marry you anymore,” I said.
My voice, at first, came out softly. Perhaps because I was praying that he would listen the first time. However, I knew that he probably wouldn’t. I was proven right when he tried to grab my hand from my jacket pocket. I moved so that he had to step forward to try and catch his footing, mainly so that I could aim to get away from him. The stairs were also an option if I needed to get away.
“Oh, nonsense,” he said. “You know we’re a great couple. With you at my side during all the functions at work, I’ll practically get handed every promotion.”
“Mark, I am not marrying you,” I repeated, more firmly this time. “You’re not the right man for me. I don’t think you ever were. I don’t want to be pregnant all the time, and I certainly don’t want to give up my whole career just to indulge your white picket fantasy. I told you this before we got engaged the first time. If you haven’t learned how to find a woman who meets the criteria you want in a wife – which stinks, by the way; we’re allowed to have jobs after childbirth now that it’s not the 1950s – then you’re not going to succeed by ignoring what I’ve said. Now, leave, or I’ll have you thrown out of the lodge.”
Mark snarled at me.
“You’re going to come back to Chicago with me,” he said, taking a large step towards me. “And you’re going to like what I say you’re going to like. You are nothing if not a reflection of me!”
He lunged, and I made my move. I ran out towards the rest of the rooms in the lodge, listening for the sound of the guitar strumming. If Luke was truly struggling with his feelings, he was probably trying to create a new song.
I decided to book it up the stairs to the third floor. Hopefully, that would be closer since I couldn’t hear the strumming. What I could hear was the sounds of an angry man coming after me.
