Updated Apr 11, 2026 • ~8 min read
Chapter 6: Cabin Fever
Sloane
By day five, I’m losing my mind.
Not in the dramatic, screaming-into-the-void way, but in the quiet, insidious way that happens when everything you’ve built your life around is suddenly and completely irrelevant. I’m used to structure, to deadlines, to the constant pressure of billable hours and client demands and the relentless march toward partnership. I’m used to waking up at 5:30 AM, checking my email before my feet hit the floor, living my life in six-minute increments because that’s how law firms bill time.
Out here, there is no time.
There’s daylight and darkness, hunger and fullness, cold and warm. There’s the rhythm of Jackson going out to hunt or check his traps, the routine of keeping the fire going, the simple act of surviving. And while part of me—a very small, very quiet part—finds something almost peaceful in that simplicity, the rest of me is screaming.
I’m sitting on the floor near the stove, trying to occupy myself with one of Jackson’s books—some dense philosophical text that I would normally devour but can’t seem to focus on—when the thought hits me with the force of a physical blow:
My partnership review is in three weeks.
Three weeks.
I’m supposed to be preparing my presentation, compiling my billable hours, getting recommendations from senior partners. I’m supposed to be proving that I deserve to be made partner at one of the most prestigious law firms in New York City, the culmination of ten years of eighty-hour weeks and sacrificed weekends and relationships that withered from neglect.
And instead, I’m trapped in a cabin in Montana, learning how to not burn venison.
“I have a partnership review next month,” I say out loud, and my voice sounds too loud in the quiet cabin. “My career—everything I’ve worked for—it’s all falling apart, and I’m stuck here playing Little House on the Prairie.”
Jackson, who’s been sharpening his hunting knife at the small table, doesn’t even look up. “Won’t matter if you’re dead.”
The bluntness of it, the complete dismissal of everything that matters to me, makes something snap.
“Easy for you to say!” I throw the book down, and it lands with a satisfying thud that makes Bear’s ears perk up. “You’ve given up on society! You’ve checked out! But some of us actually care about our careers, our futures, our—”
“Given up?” Now he does look up, and there’s something dangerous in his dark eyes. “That’s what you think I’ve done? Given up?”
“What else would you call it?” I’m standing now, my hands clenched into fists at my sides, and I know I should stop, know I’m crossing a line, but I can’t seem to make myself care. “You’re hiding out here in the middle of nowhere, avoiding people, avoiding life—”
“I chose this.” He sets the knife down with controlled precision, but I can see the tension in his jaw, the way his hands have curled into fists. “Freedom over the rat race. Peace over the constant noise and pressure and bullshit. I chose to build a life that actually means something instead of killing myself for a corner office and a paycheck.”
“This isn’t freedom, it’s HIDING!” The words explode out of me before I can stop them. “You’re hiding from whatever happened to you, whatever broke you, and you’re calling it a choice but really you’re just too scared to actually live!”
The silence that follows is deafening.
Jackson stands slowly, and even though I’m not a small woman, he seems to tower over me, all coiled strength and barely controlled anger. His face has gone pale beneath his tan, and there’s something in his eyes that makes my stomach drop—pain, raw and bleeding, mixed with fury.
“You don’t know anything about me,” he says, and his voice is so quiet, so controlled, that it’s more frightening than if he’d yelled. “You don’t know what I’ve seen. You don’t know what I’ve done. You don’t know what it costs me just to get through a single day without—”
He stops himself, jaw clenching so hard I can see the muscle jumping.
“Without what?” I push, even though some part of me is screaming to stop, to apologize, to take it back. “Without having a panic attack? Without having nightmares? That’s what PTSD is, right? That’s why you’re here?”
“Shut up.” It’s not loud, but the command in his voice makes me flinch. “Just… shut up.”
“I’m right, aren’t I? You came here because you couldn’t handle the real world anymore, and now you’re—”
“I said SHUT UP!”
The roar echoes through the cabin, and I actually take a step back, my heart pounding. But Jackson isn’t looking at me anymore. He’s already moving, grabbing his coat and his rifle, and heading for the door.
“Where are you going?” I call after him, and I hate how my voice shakes. “Jackson—”
“Out.”
“Out? It’s almost dark! The blizzard—”
“I don’t care.”
And then he’s gone, the door slamming behind him with enough force to rattle the windows, and I’m left standing in the suddenly too-quiet cabin with my heart racing and my hands shaking and the horrible, sinking realization that I’ve just made a terrible mistake.
***
He’s been gone for two hours.
Two hours in weather that’s gotten progressively worse, the wind howling around the cabin and the temperature plummeting, and all I can think about is him out there in the dark and the cold and the snow.
What if he doesn’t come back?
What if I pushed him too far and he just… keeps walking? Or what if something happens to him—a fall, a wrong turn, hypothermia, any of the thousand dangers that exist in these mountains that I’ve been learning about for the past five days?
What if he dies because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut?
I pace the cabin, my injured ankle throbbing but my fear overriding the pain. Bear is by the door, whining softly, clearly distressed by Jackson’s absence, and every few minutes he looks at me like he’s accusing me of driving away his person.
“I know,” I tell him, my voice breaking. “I know, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—I was just so frustrated and I took it out on him and I—”
The door bursts open, and I actually cry out in relief.
Jackson stumbles in, covered in snow, his face red with cold, and he looks half-frozen. He doesn’t say anything, just shrugs off his coat and goes directly to the stove, holding his hands out to the heat.
“You’re okay,” I breathe, moving toward him. “I was so worried—”
“Don’t.” He doesn’t look at me. “Just… don’t.”
“Jackson, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things. I was angry and frustrated and I took it out on you, but I didn’t mean—”
“You meant every word.” His voice is flat, emotionless. “And maybe you’re right. Maybe I am hiding. Maybe I am too scared to live in the real world. But this is my life, and you don’t get to judge it.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again, and tears are streaming down my face now, hot and shameful. “I’m so sorry.”
He finally looks at me, and the expression on his face makes my chest ache. He looks tired—not just physically tired, but soul-tired, like he’s been carrying a weight for too long and can’t remember what it feels like to set it down.
“I came here because I was having panic attacks in the grocery store,” he says quietly. “Because the sound of a car backfiring would send me diving for cover. Because I couldn’t sleep more than two hours without waking up screaming. Because I watched my entire unit get blown apart in an ambush and I was the only one who survived, and I couldn’t figure out why, couldn’t figure out what made me special enough to live when they all died.”
I press my hand to my mouth, trying to hold back a sob.
“I came here because this was the only place I could breathe,” he continues. “The only place where the PTSD didn’t feel like it was going to kill me. And yeah, maybe that makes me a coward. Maybe you’re right and I’m just hiding. But it’s kept me alive, and that has to count for something.”
“It does,” I whisper. “It counts for everything. I’m so sorry, Jackson. I’m so, so sorry.”
He turns back to the fire, dismissing me again, and I understand that this is all the forgiveness I’m going to get—if I even deserve that much.
I sink down onto the bed, pulling Bear to me when he comes over, and watch Jackson stare into the flames, and hate myself for being cruel to someone who saved my life.
Hate myself for not understanding that everyone has their own way of surviving, and that just because his looks different from mine doesn’t make it wrong.
Outside, the wind howls, and inside, the silence feels like a living thing, pressing down on both of us.
And I wonder if we’ll ever get past this, or if I’ve broken something that can’t be fixed in the few days we have left together.
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