AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What?” I don’t move; I just stare at his hand and then at him, confused.
“I said get dressed, Stella.” I sit up, holding the blanket to myself.
“Riggins, I?—”
“Get dressed, Stella. Leaving the house helps. Sunlight and fresh air help, so we're getting it.” I don’t say anything, but his hand stays out, waiting for me to grab it. “Come on. We’re taking Gracie for a hike.”
30 BAD LUCK
NOW
RIGGINS
In less than half an hour, we’re in the car, driving to the easiest entrance of the woods. And then we start.
“Do you ever come here?” I ask after a few minutes of silence where we both watched Gracie sniff about nineteen thousand new scents, excited as can be. She might be a bit of an old girl these days, but on a walk, she’s still a puppy.
“Sometimes,” she says, voice low and defeated like she hates to admit it. “When I’m… lost.”
Some people might not know what she means, but I’m not most people. I’m Stella’s. I always have been.
The only person in our life who saw it, even then, was my mother. She’d watch us play together, shaking her head and smiling.
“Those two,” she would say more times than I can remember. “Meant to be.”
Stella’s mom would give a tight smile, unimpressed, and my dad would smile and nod, knowing whatever my mother predicted was almost always true. Stella’s dad would take us in curiously.
Stella would gag and tell me I was the grossest boy in the world, of course.
But as we got older, I saw it. The way I could anticipate her needs, her wants, sometimes before she even could. The way she always knew when I needed her, sending me a little how are you text or asking if I wanted to go to the woods. The way we one day started writing together and never stopped, an outlet we both desperately need.
So yeah, when she says she comes here when she’s lost, I get it.
“I hiked a bunch once I got sober,” I say, suddenly eager to fill her in on the past seven years, or at least the good parts of it. “All over. Every stop. Guys would go out and party, and, at first, I couldn’t be there. Orange juice or soda at a party felt… depressing.” Her eyes are on me, watching me talk as we pad along the trail, but I don’t look at her. I can’t.
“So I’d put on some boots and head out. It reminded me of you, of us. Of the last time I was at peace. It helped, I think. Even though you weren’t there, you were, you know?” A long beat passes before finally, she speaks, a slow, low rumbling of my name.
“Riggins…” she doesn’t know what else to say, though, so my name just hangs in the air between us.
“I was mad at you for months. Years, even.” The words are low and slow, a confession of sorts.
I feel bad throwing this at her now, with everything she’s been through, but at some point, we need to talk about it all, and I know she doesn’t want me to use kid gloves with her.
“I couldn’t understand… I didn’t understand it,” I say, referencing the night of the DUI when she answered and told me she was done. We walk a bit further, and finally, she speaks.
“Do you now?”
“Yeah. Most of the time.”
I think there will always be some times when I don’t understand.
Riggins, move on. I’m done.
Those five words haunt me.
On my worst days, I don’t understand how she didn’t come when I needed her the most. The look on the officer’s face when he asked if there was anyone else I could call when she didn’t pick up after calling, once, twice. The way I begged for them to call her again, knowing she’d pick up because shehadto pick up.
And when she did, when I was in my deepest, darkest moment, she didn’t fucking come.
