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This was the part her books never talked about.
There was always a brief phase of calm and quiet in the weeks following Deer Fest, but nothing quite so profound as this. At first Rose had not trusted it; she expected at any minute to hear someone calling in to Pat Maine’s show with more reports of gunfire or strange happenings, or for one of the customers to strike up a conversation about the disappearance of a friend or a neighbor, but week after week went by in the summer silence, and slowly Rose allowed herself to believe that perhaps it was over.
She’d heard it called ‘the big upset’ by some of the townsfolk she waited on, or perhaps ‘the ruckus’, but found neither of those terms fitting. It made it out to sound like some unruly teenagers had picked a fight in the streets, and nothing like the nightmare that Rose remembered – when she did remember it. She was missing a week’s time. She’d been counting out the register as usual at the end of her shift when she heard the bells over the door jangle as it opened. Strange, because she could have sworn she’d locked it. She blinked, and opened her eyes in a hospital, hooked up to an IV, her limbs heavy, a feeling like water in her ears that she could not shake away.
She was told that she’d been in a state of shock and was likely to be disoriented for a bit, but that there was otherwise nothing wrong with her. When Sherriff Sarah Breaker arrived an hour later, Rose was told that she’d been found muttering nonsense on the floor of her trailer. She was then questioned about her exact relationship with the writer Alan Wake.
“I’m a big fan,” Rose said honestly, but there was something off about this. “Why?” she asked, and then, because she’d read enough books to know, “Did I do something? Do I need a lawyer?”
Sherriff Breaker told her. Drugged coffee, a concerned landlord, Wake running from the FBI. “A lot’s gone on,” Sherriff Breaker said, as Rose struggled to remember any of it. “He’s been off police radar for almost week now. I thought – if you might have… any idea…”
Rose shook her head. The nurses had told her that she’d been in the hospital for nearly a week. How could she have had any contact with Alan Wake? She asked Sherriff Breaker this.
“I just—hoped,” Sherriff Breaker said. There was something in her expression that Rose couldn’t make sense of. She shook her head. “You were close to whatever was going on. I don’t have any other leads. His wife is nearly hysterical.”
“His wife? Alice? She’s back?”
“Safe and sound,” said Sherriff Breaker with something that might have been a smile. She got to her feet and held out a simple business card. “If you think of anything, there’s my number. Or you could come down to the station, if you’d prefer.” She said a quick thank you and slipped out of the room, leaving Rose to face the strange hospital silence.
Over the next weeks, she pieced together the story from bits of gossip and missing posters and broadcasts from Pat Maine. There wasn’t much. Alan Wake was suspected of murdering his wife, and when the FBI showed up, he ran. He captured, then ran again, and had been missing ever since, but then his wife was back barely a few days later, disoriented, with no memory of the time she’d been lost. It was something that might have fit well into one of the many books lining the walls of Rose’s modest trailer, maybe even something she could have imagined her own story around, but somehow she shied away from the idea. Thinking about it made her head ache, or sent a feeling of dread crawling up her skin like tiny, skittering insects.
The town moved on, as much as Bright Falls ever did move on from a mystery or a piece of interesting gossip. It was speculated over sometimes, and a dozen theories sprang up, none with any real substance. Rose smiled and said she had no idea when asked for her opinion. She tried to busy herself with work or reading or writing emails to her worried mother. She found herself missing Rusty, who she had never really loved, but who had always had a smile to offer her and a stupid joke to serve as a distraction. But Rose did manage to slip back into some semblance of normal life well enough.
Then the dreams set in.
It was never a distinct sort of dream, never with any imagery or events. She dreamed, night after night, of a rush of dark water filling her lungs and weighing heavily down upon her limbs. She woke gasping for air, struggling against the water, and even awake it seemed to take a while to find her way back to the surface, to shake it out of her head and make her eyes see light again.
She could never get back to sleep after those dreams, feeling that sleep would mean submerging all over again. She lay staring into the darkness until the first pale hints of yet another dawn slipped through the slanted blinds. Then she would pull herself out of bed and pull on her uniform, the floor cold under her bare feet, and try not to think of the darkness or the water as long as the sun was shining.
This was the part that her books never talked about, the picking yourself up and moving on when the action was done. A few pages of an epilogue, maybe, but Rose always skimmed epilogues. There was a sort of horror to be found there as well, something perhaps worse than goblins and ghosties and long-legged beasties. Because it was never really going back to the way things were, only pretending to, putting on an ugly mask and performing a puppet’s dance on frayed strings because what else was there to do?
The summer was sliding into autumn when the door opened and Sherriff Breaker stepped inside.
It took Rose a moment to recognize her, in a simple white T-shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans. She still wore her long dark hair back in the same professional ponytail as always, but it seemed to have slackened slightly, become somehow looser.
“Rose,” she said, smiling.
Rose handed her a menu, then hesitated. Something had broken her scrip here, menu, drink order, have you decided what you’d like or do you need a few more minutes—and it wasn’t only that the Sherriff had somehow never once set foot in the Oh Deer Diner during the ninety-percent of the time that Rose was there.
So instead of taking a drink order, Rose asked, “How are you, Sherriff?”
“All right,” she said. “I’m off duty, by the way.”
It took Rose a moment to puzzle out the meaning. “Sorry. Sarah,” she said at last. She remembered high school, and her geometry teacher going on and on about his favorite graduate, Sarah Breaker being made sheriff of Bright Falls. That was the closest they’d ever been, a teacher who had once taught both of them, even though Rose had nearly failed geometry and Sarah seemed like the type who’d never gotten anything less than an A in all her life.
Except that wasn’t all they had in common, not really.
Rose shook herself. “Anything to drink?”
“Lemonade?”
It was late in the day for lemonade, Rose thought distantly, but poured one without comment. She was aware of Sarah’s dark eyes on her the whole while.
“And how are you, Rose?”
“Fine.” She handed over the glass, already beginning to show droplets of perspiration from the ice and the heating in the diner. She almost didn’t ask. “Anything more happened?”
There was no need to specify in regards to what.
Sarah looked down at the counter, her lashes long and dark against her freckled cheeks. “Not a thing,” she said, and sounded for a moment like the sheriff again, all brusque and business. “His wife’s running around out in the woods with a flashlight, and who am I to stop her? We’ve got no leads, no other incidents, not a trace anywhere. Running around with a flashlight’s as good a bet as any.”
“It must be difficult,” Rose said. “I mean, with the FBI and everyone thinking Mr. Wake was a murderer…”
There it was again – that something that came over Sarah’s face, as if she had something to say but didn’t dare.
“The only thing he was guilty of was resisting arrest,” she said at last. “Alice is back, and it’s pretty clear that Mr. Wake didn’t murder her, at least.”
“It feels like a bad horror novel.”
“That it does,” Sarah muttered. She looked over the menu in one quick, sweeping glance. “I’ll just have a basket of fries,” she said. “Let’s not talk about it anymore. I’m just frustrated with the whole damn thing.”
Rose agreed wholeheartedly to a pact of silence on the matter, but it was still there, something more than a geometry teacher that they’d shared.
Sarah Breaker returned the next week and made the same order, and then the next, and asked for iced tea instead of lemonade, although the night air was far too cold for anything iced by that point.
Speaking of that geometry teacher, it was as good a place as any to start.
“First day of class, he slammed that yardstick down in the middle of my desk so hard it sounded like a gunshot,” Sarah said, her lips pressed tight as she struggled against a smile. “I thought he hated me.”
“That’s just his way, though,” said Rose.
“I didn’t know that then. All I’d heard were rumors about how difficult his classes were, how he was way more intense about math than anyone had a right to be, and I honestly thought he’d just stared me down the minute I walked in and judged me and found me wanting.”
“He used to absolutely gush about you.”
“Yeah? Really?”
“Yeah, when you made sheriff, it was all we heard from a week. And it wasn’t ‘Sarah Breaker did this’; it was all, ‘my student made sheriff.’”
Sarah lost her fight against the smile at that, and for a moment she did seem the student again, beaming at a piece of well-deserved praise. Something about the moment– perhaps a trace of borrowed happiness – seemed to stab through the cloud cover that Rose had been carrying around in her head for what felt like ages. It was something bright and simple, and before she could probably recognize it, it was gone. But it left something behind, an empty space where the cloud had been.
Sarah stopped in once a week, sometimes twice, and Rose found herself looking up at the sound of the door opening every time, to scan the faces she found there. Just checking. She’d never done that before, and it might have hit her as odd if she should be bothered to care. The nightmares were less frequent now, but more powerful when they did come, and she was tired in every sense. Too tired to care if she really was looking forward to these brief visits from a woman she barely knew.
She found it almost funny how Sarah could eat fries without any ketchup or sauce or anything. It seemed boring to Rose, but then, whatever. The diner did have some pretty good fries, to be sure.
“So. Rose. What do you like to do for fun?”
Rose paused pouring her fifth cup of coffee that night, her mind suddenly blank. She replaced the coffee pot on the burner and took a sip too soon and burned her tongue just to buy a bit of time. At last she said, “I don’t think I ever realized how boring my life is until just now.”
Sarah gave a little laugh at that, which helped with some of the awkwardness. “I know you like to read,” she said. “Found any good books lately?”
“I haven’t had the time these past few weeks, really,” Rose muttered, wishing she could think of something more interesting to say. Wishing she could be interesting. “I—write, a little.”
“Really?”
She nodded.
“Could I—” Sarah began, then broke off. “My big sister used to write for fun, and she’d never let us read a word of it. It seemed weird, because what’s the point of putting stuff down on a page if you’re not going to let people see it? But she said she worried she’d put too much of herself into it, and that people would see something about her that she didn’t want them to see.”
“Yeah,” Rose said, noncommittally. They trailed off into silence. She took another sip of her coffee and glanced around the room. Table by the jukebox could use a refill on water, but she hesitated a moment more. “If you wanted to read some of my stuff,” she said, feeling suddenly foolish. Why would anyone want to read any of her scribbling? It was polite interest, nothing more. “I could…”
“I’d love to,” Sarah said, sitting up, looking at her with a smile. It might have been real eagerness, but Rose suspected more that it was another polite act.
She went off to refill the low waters, and next week lied and said she’d forgotten to bring her journal.
“Next time?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah.”
There was another dream that night, and the crushing weight of black water in her lungs felt so real, the shrieking in her ears so loud, that when Rose jolted awake she found herself sobbing for the first time. It seemed so stupid, crying about a dream, and she felt stupid, and that only set her to crying harder. She was stupid and boring and nothing she’d ever done had mattered or been exceptional, and she was even more stupid for pretending not to notice. She did nothing of import in a town of no import day after day, and she would never even account for a thousand words in some imaginary author’s novel because there was simply nothing that she did that mattered.
The sudden urge to destroy something overcame her, and she picked up one of her writing notebooks, filled with words she’d convinced herself were good and worthwhile, and tore into it with violence, until she was left with only pieces and scraps and fragmented words that had never mattered to begin with.
She held them in her hands for a long moment, tears drying on her cheeks, and then got up and grabbed some tape.
If Sarah Breaker noticed the tearstained on the repaired papers that Rose handed her three night later, she didn’t comment. Instead she said, “This is really very good,” with a raised eyebrow – and it might have been a lie, but if it was, Rose thought it was the sweetest lie she’d ever heard.
She nearly jumped out of her skin the next week when Sarah asked, “What time do you get off work?”
Rose gaped, certain she had misheard. “What?”
“There’s a used book sale down the street, but it’s closing up at six. I thought, if you were off in time, you might want to go,” Sarah said. Her lips twitched. Then, “With me. I don’t know, I don’t really like going places alone.”
“But you’re always alone,” Rose said before she realized how it sounded, and immediately regretted it. Quickly, she turned to the other waitress, Martha, who worked only a few hours on weekends. “Martha, could I beg off early, just this once? Will you be okay if—”
Martha waved a hand. “I’m fine, hun. You go. Find something good to read.”
Rose promised she would and grabbed her jacket.
On the street, walking side-by-side she realized that Sarah was a few inches taller than her, which was surprising. Rose took a moment to think over that she had the ability to feel surprise anymore. But then, when she thought of it, she had been feeling more than she realized lately. It wasn’t all the dull blur that it seemed. There were things that were, if not necessarily colorful in a sea of grey, then at least brighter than the surroundings. And, really, if she thought about it.
She steeled herself. “So if this, like, a date?” she asked, feigning a laugh. She hoped she managed to make it sound like a joke. Hoped that they were close enough to being friends that she could make such a joke without being awkward and ruining everything.
Sarah glanced at her, sideways, as an autumn breeze whipped a few strands of dark hair over her forehead. “We’re only walking a couple of blocks. Do you want it to be?” she said, no joke at all.
Rose tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and only barely caught herself. She straightened up and kept walking, gaze fixed on the ground. She hoped that the flush on her cheeks could be attributed to the brisk air.
“So?” Sarah asked after a moment. A trace of uncertainty edged her voice now.
“So?”
“Is this a date, or isn’t it?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. You didn’t exactly ask it that way.”
“Well, let’s say I am.”
“What?”
“Asking you.”
“Well, are you or aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Okay, then.”
“Okay what?”
“Okay, yes.”
“Yes. Yes what?”
“Yes, I want it to be a date!” Rose blurted out, her heart hammering. She was thinking, half-deliriously, of how Sarah never had ketchup with her French fries and how she rested her arms on the counter, palms up, her wrists pale, and how she always laughed all sudden and surprised, like a pile of breaking dishes, and—
“Okay, good,” Sarah said, and took a step closer on the sidewalk and nudged Rose’s shoulder with her own, grinning. “About damn time.”
Rose found herself smiling back.
She picked out five books with no epilogues, bought them with tips straightened out from where she’d stuffed them in her apron.
The next time Sarah stopped in the diner, she suggested spending the next day watching Crazy Johnny explain the proper method of brewing ale for October Fest, which Rose thought sounded incredibly boring but agreed to anyway, because, really, what else was there to do around this time of year?
It was made better by sneaking glancing at the Sarah’s expressions throughout the ordeal, ranging from ultimate boredom overly exaggerated interest whenever Crazy Johnny looked her way. Rose was left shaking with suppressed laughter that she hoped she managed to pass off as a bout of shivers brought on by the cold. It occurred to her, like a lightning strike out of the clear blue sky, that she hadn’t really laughed in ages, since even before Alan Wake had rolled into town and everything had gone to hell. Oh, and laughing felt unbelievably good, like she was exhaling poison from her lungs with each breath, becoming lighter.
On impulse, she brushed the back of her hand against Sarah’s, then reached out and entwined the fingers of their gloved hands. Sarah gave her a sideways smile. It was a lose embrace, but Rose still worried she was holding on a bit too tightly.
Logic told her to wait, but she called the very next day, fishing Sarah’s business card out of the rumpled sweater she’d never bothered to wash after the hospital. She could think of nothing so elaborate as watching Crazy Johnny brew ale, so in the end she just hazarded, “Dinner?” and was relieved when Sarah agreed and set a date, time, and location with hardly a moment’s pause.
It occurred to Rose then that she had a girlfriend. That was uncharted territory, but she couldn’t bring herself to worry about it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d lost sleep over this pleasant, jittery feel in her stomach instead of nightmares, and really, how could that be anything to worry about?
Sarah picked her up from work, and Rose realized partway through dinner, with a sinking feeling, that this would mean giving directions to Sarah to drop her off at home, at the trailer park. Perhaps, Rose thought glumly, it would not seem too strange to jump up right now, declare that she’d just remembered something important that she’s forgotten to do at work and make a run for it. But that would only delay the inevitable, and possibly make her seem unhinged, so in the end she merely suffered through it, bracing herself for the look that would surely be on Sarah’s face when she pulled the car up outside the park’s gates.
But there was none of that. Of course, she already knew. She’d been here, investigating… and, well, in a town this size, it wasn’t as though there were too many secrets.
Rose unclenched her fists and let out a slow breath. “Coffee?” she suggested. “Maybe tea? I make some pretty good tea.”
Tea, in the end, which they drank in the kitchen with the low static hum of the radio as the only noise. Rose found herself rapidly tapping her fingers along the edge of her mug, distant, her thoughts on everything and nothing at once. She was startled by Sarah taking the mug out of her hands and placing it in the sink.
“I was drinking that,” Rose said.
Sarah flattened herself up against her, and kissed her. Some part of Rose’s mind said that this would be the appropriate time to panic, that this was all moving far too quickly and she would end up being a disappointment in bed, or say something like I love you or just be weird about it in general—but these concerns were distant things. Her hands fluttered at her sides, unsure, and eventually rested on Sarah’s waist, warm beneath the fabric of her shirt.
After a moment, Sarah broke the kiss. She quirked an eyebrow in question.
“Well,” she said lightly, “it is our third date, if you want to go by traditional standards.”
“I don’t usually do this on third dates,” said Rose, though she did not let go. What she meant to say was, I don’t usually do this at all.
She leaned in for another kiss, and if indeed she did have dreams that night, they did not wake her.
That books didn’t really talk about this much either, she reflected in the morning as she was brewing coffee and picking up the bits of disarray around that she hoped Sarah hadn’t noticed. Cat food left in the laundry room, a sock on the couch, an Alan Wake novel, The Sudden Stop, that must have fallen from its shelf sometime in the night. Books didn’t talk about how sometimes you liked someone in this really inelegant way, without fireworks or any grand declarations of love or drama. Books didn’t talk about things that were simple and straightforward and happened to people who didn’t matter, although sometimes those were the kind of things that mattered the most.
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END.