And maybe some later when you get in bed.
You want to see some of the pictures I took this morning?
Ledger
Of course I do.
Okay. I’ll send some and you can give me your expert critique.
Ledger
All of your pictures are 10/10 you don’t need my opinion
I miss you, Iz.
I throw the phone to the right, and it bounces on the couch cushion.
“What?” Simone gasps.
“I’m so fucked.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Ledger
Three weekslater
“Load the damn trailer before I get back. I’m leaving out early, and I don’t have time for your fucking around.”
“Jesus. Who put salt in your coffee?”
I lower the phone from my ear, let out a long sigh, and run a hand down my face. I’m trying to be nice, but everything is pissing me off lately, and the irritable asshole in me has been making a frequent appearance. Lifting the phone back to my ear, I try to smooth things over with my brother-in-law.
“Sorry.” I bend down to pick up a stray wire in the pasture, remaining crouched with no energy to stand back up after stuffing it in my coat pocket. “Just get the panels in the stock trailer tonight so that I don’t have to spend an hour doing it before dawn.”
Silence echoes through the line.
“Please,” I add for good measure.
“Alright. Bye.”
Without a word, I hang up and finally decide to stand back up. Sniffing through the chilling winter air, I walk through thedry brush toward the pasture gate where I parked the side-by-side.
After a few failed attempts at seeing each other, it’s been nearly a month of dancing circles around mine and Izzy’s schedules. We haven’t exactly talked about it, but there’s been some tension between us in the last few days because of it.
The fact that it bothered me enough to lose hours of sleep at night, tossing and turning, thoughts of her and when she was once beside me in bed, was one of many signs that I was officially down bad.
Part of me wants to finally acknowledge that our predicament may have been a little doomed from the start. It’d be the mature thing to do. If I were completely selfless, I’d let her go about her life the way that she was without inserting myself and making complications that she didn’t have before.
What business do I have hoping we’d have something when I knew from day one that she and I live two very different lives?
Who’s to say it’d even work out, even if we did find a way to be together?
But I’ve already pictured her here as the seasons change throughout the year. I’d drop everything anytime she came home. Maybe we’d read a lot. Maybe we’d hike some trails if she wanted to or just spend time at the cabin. I’d sit on the couch and rub her feet the entire time we were together, I wouldn’t care.
I can see her here, fitting in seamlessly. . . It’s a little delusional to envision all of that, but I can’t get those images out of my mind.
I’ve pictured going with her as much as I could, wherever it was she was off to. It wouldn’t matter to me where it was. I’d be happy just to be with her. We’d visit all the corners of the world together.
