Chapter 63: The Donna Weekend
The cabin was two hours north of the city, tucked into woods near Lake Placid. Small, rustic, the kind of place that advertised "digital detox" because the cell service was nonexistent rather than by design.
Donna had found it on some rental website, booked it for the weekend without asking my opinion. Just sent me the address Friday afternoon with a message: Pack a bag. We're leaving at 5. No work allowed.
Now, standing on the porch with our bags, looking at the tiny structure that would be our entire world for forty-eight hours, my System was having a minor crisis.
[ **System Alert: Connectivity Lost** ]
No cellular service detected Unable to access external databases Limited functionality - local processing only Recommendation: Return to service area
I dismissed it and followed Donna inside.
The cabin was one large room—kitchenette in the corner, bed against the far wall, fireplace dominating the center, small bathroom through a door that probably didn't close properly. Everything was wood—walls, floor, ceiling. It smelled like pine and old fires and the particular mustiness of places that stayed empty most of the year.
"What do you think?" Donna asked, setting down her bag.
"It's... small."
"It's cozy."
"There's no TV."
"There's a fireplace and books and us. We don't need TV."
I walked to the window. Trees everywhere, lake visible through gaps in the foliage, no other structures in sight. Complete isolation. No work, no cases, no strategy.
My hands itched for my phone to check emails.
"Scott." Donna's voice was gentle but firm. "Put the phone away."
"I'm not—"
"You're thinking about work. I can see it on your face. That particular expression you get when you're running probability calculations."
I set my bag down, forced my shoulders to relax. "I don't know how to do this. The not-working thing."
"I know. That's why we're here." She started unpacking groceries we'd bought on the drive up. "We're going to spend forty-eight hours not being Harvey's secretary and Hardman's associate. We're just going to be Scott and Donna. Think you can handle that?"
"I can try."
"That's all I'm asking."
We spent the afternoon settling in. I built a fire—badly, taking three tries to get it started properly—while Donna organized the kitchen. Made sandwiches for lunch. Walked down to the lake, throwing rocks into the water like children, watching ripples spread and disappear.
The quiet was unnerving. No city noise, no sirens, no car horns. Just wind in trees, water lapping at shoreline, birds calling to each other. My System kept trying to fill the silence with calculations, probability models about relationship longevity, strategic analysis of career trajectories.
I kept shutting it down. Not now. Not here.
Evening came early this far north in November. We made dinner together—pasta with vegetables from the market, wine from the bottle Donna had packed. Ate sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace because the cabin's table was too small and rickety to trust.
"This is nice," Donna said, refilling her wine glass.
"It is."
"You sound surprised."
"I am. A little. I'm not good at... this."
"At what? Sitting still? Relaxing? Being human?"
"All of the above."
She laughed, warm and genuine. "You know what your problem is? You think everything needs to be optimized. That every moment needs a purpose."
"Doesn't it?"
"No. Sometimes moments just exist. They don't need to serve some larger strategy or advance some goal. They're just... moments."
I thought about that, watching firelight dance across her face. She was right. I approached everything—even relationship milestones—as moves in some larger game. First date. First overnight stay. First time saying you were exclusive. All checkpoints toward some objective I'd defined without examining whether the objective itself mattered.
"What happens if we don't plan every minute?" Donna asked, reading my silence.
"I guess we find out."
We talked for hours. About nothing important at first—childhood memories, college embarrassments, the particular ways our families had been dysfunctional. Then deeper.
"Do you ever wonder what you'd do if you weren't a lawyer?" Donna asked, pouring the last of the wine.
"No. Law is the only thing I've ever been good at."
"That's sad."
I looked at her. "Why?"
"Because you're good at other things. You're good at listening when you let yourself. At caring about people beyond their strategic value. At being present instead of always calculating three moves ahead." She set down her glass. "You're a good lawyer. But that's not all you are. Or all you could be."
The words hit harder than expected. Because she was right—I'd defined myself entirely through professional achievement. Harvard Law. Pearson Hardman. Beating Harvey. Winning cases. Building reputation. Everything else was secondary, including my own identity beyond those accomplishments.
"I don't know how to be anything else," I said quietly.
"Then maybe it's time to learn." She moved closer, head on my shoulder. "You don't have to stop being a lawyer. Just stop letting that be the only thing you are."
We sat in comfortable silence, fire crackling, darkness complete outside the windows. The System whispered probability calculations about relationship success rates, career trajectory optimization, strategic partnership decisions.
I tuned it out. Let it run its numbers in the background while I just existed in this moment with this person.
Eventually we moved to the bed, exhausted from the drive and emotional honesty. Fell asleep tangled together, her breathing steady against my chest, no alarms set because tomorrow had no schedule.
Sunday morning, I woke to sunlight streaming through gaps in the curtains and Donna already up, clattering around in the kitchenette.
"What are you doing?" I asked, voice rough with sleep.
"Making breakfast. Go back to sleep."
"Can't now."
I got up, pulled on jeans and a sweater, padded over to where she was attempting to mix pancake batter. She'd brought the ingredients yesterday without telling me, apparently determined to create domestic normalcy in this isolated cabin.
"Need help?"
"You know how to make pancakes?"
"I know how to follow directions on a box."
We worked together in the small kitchen, bumping into each other, laughing at my terrible pancake-flipping technique. The first three pancakes were disasters—burnt on one side, raw in the middle. The fourth was edible. The fifth was almost good.
Donna laughed as I flipped the sixth pancake and it landed half on the pan, half on the stove.
"You're terrible at this."
"I'm aware."
"How did you survive before me?"
"Takeout. Delivery. Occasionally cooking eggs."
She rescued the pancake, salvaged what she could, plated it with the others. We ate standing at the counter because the table really was too small, drowning mediocre pancakes in syrup to make them palatable.
In that moment—surrounded by mess, eating imperfect food, her hair unbrushed and my shirt wrinkled—something clicked.
"I love you," I said.
Not planned. Not calculated. Not a strategic relationship milestone. Just true.
Donna stopped, fork halfway to her mouth. Looked at me.
"Say that again."
"I love you."
She set down her fork, moved closer. "You mean that? You're not just saying it because we're having a moment?"
"I mean it. Have meant it for a while. Just didn't know how to say it."
She kissed me then, tasting like syrup and morning and something impossibly right.
"Good," she said against my lips. "Because I love you too. Have for months."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"Because you needed to figure it out yourself. You needed to stop calculating and just feel it." She pulled back, smiled. "Took you long enough."
We spent the rest of Sunday morning cleaning up breakfast, packing our things, reluctantly preparing to return to reality. The drive back to Manhattan was quiet but comfortable, hands linked across the center console, no need for constant conversation.
Around the city limits, Donna spoke. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For trying. I know being spontaneous goes against every instinct you have. But you tried. You were present. That matters."
"Thank you for making me try."
"That's what people who love each other do. They make each other better."
We hit Manhattan traffic, that familiar gridlock that meant we were back in the real world. Monday would bring work—cases, strategy, the ongoing tension of dating across enemy firms. But we'd proven something this weekend.
The relationship wasn't just surviving the pressure. It was thriving despite it.
That was worth protecting.
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