Matchmaker Backfire

And before I have the displeasure of having to chase after Serena once she spots us both, I join two and two.

Wendy what’s her face wants one thing.

To fuck with my mind and ruin my chances with Serena.

Ruin everything we just created.

Why? Because she’s fucking twisted is why.

The call from reception was them telling me she’d returned to the lodge, wanted her old room back.

She’d got into the same cab I came up here in, but not far down the road they got snowed in, she stayed in a motel for the night before forcing the driver to turn around and bring her back here.

Once she learned about Serena, and especially once she saw Greg leaving she seized her chance to do what it is people like this do.

Waste oxygen.

“I’ll get to the point, Carter.” She smiles coolly, lighting a cigarette and blowing a thin jet of gray smoke past my ear.

“I have Greg’s cell number. I also know just how close you and his daughter have become, blind fucking Freddy could see that,” she drawls, stubbing out the same cigarette with narrowed eyes.

“What do you want?” I ask her, calculating in my mind how much I’m prepared to pay, or what I’m prepared to do to be rid of this harpy for good.

“Not what I want. Who I want,” she says, cocking her brow before sipping the last of her drink through a straw.

I shake my head in the negative.

“Look Barbie… whoever the fuck you think you are. I’m not interested, now if you’ll excuse me,”

I make to stand up, following her eyes to the mirror behind the bar.

It’s Serena, she’s seen us and I can see from the look in her eyes that she’s upset.

“I’ll ruin you,” I promise Wendy, clawing at her grip on me as she tries to keep up.

What Serena doesn’t see is me pushing Barbie so hard away from me she collides with a table on my way out.

“Serena!” I call loudly after her.

“Goddammit.”

She’s gone. Bolted through the doors of the lodge and out into the night.

The snow has picked up and so has the wind.

I call after her, trying to see which way she went, but anything below knee height is a blur as the wind whips the snow into a frenzy around my legs.

I can’t lose her, not after what we’ve just discovered, and certainly not in this weather.

I figure she must have gone back to her cabin, I sprint over, hoping to find her there.

But it’s empty.

A fire crackles behind the grate, and all the connecting doors are open between the cabins, but she’s not here.

I curse that woman again and even Greg for thinking he could arrange things like he did.

Trying to find my happiness when it was staring me in the face every time I saw Serena.

I grab a jacket from the hook by the door, which I know she’s gonna need when I find her, and I head straight back out. Hearing the cabin phone ring as I pull the door shut, I ignore it. Figuring it’s that woman or one of those imbeciles at reception again.

I call out for her again and again, trekking this way and then that, wondering which way she’d go and knowing she wouldn’t have cared being so upset.

I swear, when I find her I’ll never let her go again. And I promise I will ruin that Wendy bitch as well. How dare she!

I don’t know why, but I feel drawn to the area where the ski lifts are. All shut down for the night now, and with little light from anywhere, I’m using my instincts more than anything else.

It’s frigid cold already, and I know Serena only had her jeans and a sweater on.

Calling for her again, it starts to feel hopeless and I have to entertain the idea of going back to the lodge and calling for help.

Nobody should be out in this weather after dark.

And because it’s Serena I feel torn between going back for help and trying to find her myself.

Passing some low bushes my head snaps to attention. I can hear her!

She’s calling for me, somewhere off to my left, down an embankment.

Before I know it I’m knee-deep in snow, following the sounds of her sobbing calls as I let her know I’m on my way.

She’s tumbled down an embankment, but I thank God I’ve found her.

Before I pick her up I ask her if she’s hurt.

“Just tell me you’re not hurt,” I hear myself saying.

Praying, my voice cracking with emotion.

She says she’s not but as soon as I pick her up she cries out in pain. “My ankle!”

Wrapping her in the jacket I brought and making sure to keep her ankle away from everything else, I start to climb back up the embankment.

“I’m sorry, Carter,” she sobs. “I just saw you talking to that woman, and...and it brought back a lot of bad memories… college kids pranking me… pretending to go on dates and then just-”