“You’re right, of course. Well, you are free to use the cabin any time you’d like. Do you need me to call ahead, and have it freshened up and stocked for you?”

“No thanks. I’ll take care of everything when I get there.”

My parents owned a cabin in Helen, Georgia. Well, technically, it was just outside of Helen and was a tad too large to be considered just a cabin, but all the same it was in the mountains, secluded, and the only place nearby worth going to was the quaint little town itself. It was made up to look like a Bavarian Village of old. It was cute, I’d give it that, but it was also nothing more than a tourist trap. There was also nothing wrong with that, especially since I was about to go there for a few days to recharge my batteries and get away.

I wasn’t sure how long my husband would remain in Helsinki. Before he left, he told me that the trip would probably be about a week, maybe slightly longer. It had already been a few days, though the tabloid headlines and pictures that I’d seen made it feel just a little longer. Misery tended to do that to a person. It extended their idea of what time felt like. At least, it did for me. The night that I was tied to that chair felt like an eternity, or at the very least as if many hours had passed. According to what actually happened, from the time I left until the time I was escorted back to my dorm, I was gone no longer than four hours in total that night. Being tied to that chair hadn’t even been half of that allotted time. Yet, those hours left me with three years’ worth of issues that I was still trying to unpack.

It didn’t compare to waiting to hear from my current husband about when he would be home, what he had been doing with his ex, why he was seemingly out at a club, or why in the hell he hadn’t managed to contact me at all since he left for his trip. Granted, I hadn’t contacted him either, but I thought my silence made sense whereas his did not.

Chapter 19

I had been at the cabin in Helen all weekend, and by that time, I was ready to go home. I was prepared for my exams and most of my stress had melted away. I had also turned off my phone the entire time I was there. Granted the cell phone reception in the area wasn’t that great to begin with, but it was also the only way I could calm the voices of doubt in my head. The only TV I watched was thanks to Netflix, and I never used the internet for anything else. Despite writing in my iPad for work, I never connected it to the internet, in order to keep distractions at bay.