He dipped his toes into the frigid water, a sweep of the head taking in soupy waves, thick clouds, trees bristling everywhere like the beard he’d forgotten to trim for, what was it, three days?

“It’s me,” he yelled. And again.

Not you.

That’s what she’d said, standing over that old suitcase.

He’d sniffed everything in the house. It held her perfume like a vice.

“I’m finding myself,” she said.

“Find yourself with me.”

Six beers later, he’d thought of the lakehouse: four hours away, shuttered since last March.

Musty. Empty. Cold.

He didn’t bother to lock the front door.


Composed for an ideath challenge:
100 words in 10 minutes on "How do you get there?"