Slowly I awoke from one dream into another.
I stirred a little more at the steady sound of the falling rain and blinked one eye open to squint blearily at the crack of churning grey clouds between the cabin drapes. The turn of the weather made no difference to me.
Michael and I would dance in the rain.
His hair, normally perfectly styled and slicked back without a strand out of place, would be plastered to his forehead as he blinked shimmering droplets from his long eyelashes. My white blouse would cling to my naked body beneath, hang from my shoulders, get dirtied from the mud. We'd dance barefoot in the rain. Together we'd dance barefoot in the rain. The band could stay beneath a tent, but we would laugh and drink and dance in the rain.
I didn't know where the future led with Michael. But I knew I at least had today. I knew I at least had his hot, wet body against mine for today. I knew I at least had his sharp green eyes on mine for today.
With a contented sigh, I rolled over sleepily to nestle against the warmth of Michael's body, only to find the place on the bed next to me empty and cold. I stretched my hand out over the cold sheet as if I couldn't trust my sight alone, as if I hoped my sight alone was mistaken. I kept my fingers there, in the empty, cold space, as if checking the pulse of a purple, rigid dead body.
I sat up, pushed my tangled hair back away from my face, and looked around the room. I tried not to notice that his clothes were gone. I tried not to notice that there was no sign of his wallet. I did my best not to catch sight of the dull silver room key lying in the hallway where he'd dropped it hastily the night before.
Cross-legged on the bed, naked and shivering, I stared at the door.
It wasn't a remarkable door, but doors hardly ever are; that doesn't mean they can't stick in your memory like a fruit fly in sugar water, a rabbit in a rusted snare, a blunt knife in a heart.
I could still remember another door from three years ago in perfect detail. I didn't even need to close my eyes to see the brass knob and the areas worn and dulled from fingers that used to hug me, tuck my hair behind my ear, pop the tip of my nose affectionately. I remembered each pencilled mark alongside the peeling white door frame even though I couldn't remember standing up against the wall, trying to sneakily stretch up onto my tiptoes to gain another half inch or two. I could see the repaired glass my baseball went through, the nail from where the Christmas wreath always hung, the varying shades of peeling blue from when my parents still believed they'd have time on this Earth to repaint the front door.
It was raining too that night I sat on the stairs and waited for my parents to return home. I sat there, staring at the door, not realising that I was already replacing their memory, their smiling, loving faces, their warm, affectionate laughter, their barefoot dancing in the kitchen, with another memory entirely: a memory of a door. A door that did not open. A door that would not open.
In the cabin as I continued to stare at the unmoving door, chills had come to cover my naked limbs. I shivered uncontrollably but I did not move, I did not pull my eyes away from the door.
I thought I'd learned my lesson three years ago. I thought I'd learned that the best way to never again sit waiting on a door to open was to always be the one to close it. Move fast, move often. Slip out in the night, be still, be quiet. Do not wait for dawn. Keep going. Close the door on someone before someone else could close it on you.
What had made me so easily forget the rules, the rules to avoid another broken heart at all costs? How had I so easily become reckless, daring, stupid? What had caused the door, that door, to slip so easily from my mind?
The answer was obvious. It was him. It was sharp green eyes and a heart let free like a songbird from some self-created cage. It was dancing wildly and dangerously and tightly. It was him. Him.
In the cold that seemed to only grow colder, I forced myself to sit there, not reaching for a blanket, not moving toward the radiator, not even giving myself the small comfort of wrapping my own arms across my naked chest. This was what I deserved. This was my punishment. This was the penance I had to endure.
I was going to sit there, freezing and shivering and alone, and stare at that door, that fucking unmoving door, till its memory replaced his. I was going to sit there, punishing myself for forgetting, and stare at that door till the only green I could remember was the pale, peeling green paint over the old wood panels.
Till the only name I could remember was Glendalough Cabins painted in uneven cursive above the door frame.
Till the only
