It Was Always You - Sarah K. Stephens

1

It’s early afternoon and exactly two days too late when Justin and I set off for our romantic weekend.

When he recommends we take the scenic route, I nod in agreement.

The snow-sleet default of northeastern Ohio winters stops as we’re ready to pull out of my apartment’s parking lot and onto I-680, heading north. Wilting December sun cuts across the sky at a low angle, casting the library tower of the university and the dilapidated buildings surrounding it in a fraudulent glow.

Justin asks to drive, and even though I’d prefer to be behind the wheel—self-confessed nervous driver that he is—I let him. After our fight, I’m the most agreeable girlfriend in the world.

Annie would hate me right about now.

I move to pull out my phone from my purse to use for directions, but Justin tips his head towards the middle console of the car. He’s tucked his phone in one of the cup holders and the screen shines back at the two of us. “I already have the address entered in,” he says, and the kindness in his voice multiplies my doubts like a cancer.

Sure enough, the map shows a red flag labeled “Wolf Mountain Lodge” next to a lake and a winding road. I put his phone into the hands-free holder next to the steering wheel, so we can both see it during our drive. Justin’s phone case is bright red, with a sticker declaring “I Voted” stuck on the back. When I first saw his phone, the randomness of it struck me as charming.

It still does.

Justin puts the car in gear, but before we start to move I grab his hand and offer an apologetic squeeze, although I don’t quite know what I’m apologizing for.

Annie wouldn’t like that either. If she were with us in the car, she’d side-eye me into oblivion. Maybe chuck her well-worn copy of The Awakening onto my lap from the back seat. “I thought you might need some leisure reading for your trip,” she’d deadpan, trying to make me laugh and cringe at the same time.

But, then again, she doesn’t know what I’ve done.

At least that’s something she and Justin have in common.

Justin and I stay like this for a few quiet breaths, hands entwined like the lovers that we are, until he edges my Chevy Corsica into the light traffic of Youngstown city proper. After trading in and out of a few highway exits we move off the interstate, and the scenery turns picturesque: red barns and white houses with laundry still hanging from the line despite the cold.

The sun is starting to set as we transition from farmland into forest, and cleared fields give way to foothills. The landscape becomes denser with trees, and the berm on the side of the road is littered with remnants of past snows. Looking out the window, I catch a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror. My brown hair is longer than it’s been in a while, and the tips poke out from underneath my knitted cap. I’ve always looked young for my age, and my students at the university often mistake me for a fellow undergraduate. I try out a smile for myself in the mirror, and in my reflection I look happy.

I turn from the window towards Justin, and the smile strips away from my face.

Something is wrong.

His hands grip so hard at the wheel that his knuckles are white and bloodless. My first assumption is that his anxiety about driving has been triggered by something—the enclosing woods, the hill we seem to be descending—and I reach out to touch him again, but as I do he jerks the wheel violently to the left and my hand glances his skin and instead lands firmly on the steering wheel.

I grab the soft leather and hold on, trying to calm the rising panic in my gut.

“Why don’t you pull over? I can drive for a little while.”

He ignores me and gives another jerk to the wheel, this time to the right. I lose my grip, my hand falling with a dull thud onto the side of my seat. I hear our tires gnashing into the debris on the side of the road.

“Take a deep breath,” I say, my voice calmer than I feel by a million times over. Because I’m certain now, watching Justin twist the wheel as he pushes on the accelerator, that this isn’t just a panic attack. This is something more. Something else.

The headlights of an oncoming car appear around a curve. In