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To this day, it’s my favorite memory of her. She was concerned, but confident. Graceful, yet dominant.
My god, the life we could’ve had.
I finished tending to the cow barn and slowly made my way over to the chickens. It was egg collecting time before I sprinkled down some seed, and I could hear my dog howling at my presence from the kitchen window. Lord knows the mess my beagle probably made while I was gone, and while Chelsea continued to flood my mind, I couldn’t be angry at myself. I had gotten another chance to lay with her. To feel her skin underneath my fingertips and hear her sounds whispered into my ear. God, she felt just as warm and tight as the first time I had laid with her in college, and it was as if I could feel her legs still wrapped around my waist. I mindlessly gathered the eggs from the nests as the memory of her scent wafted up my nose, and my hand shook while I fed the chickens as her groans and grunts filled the caverns of my ears.
She had flooded my soul in college, and she wiggled her way back in, and while I was mad at being weak, I couldn’t be mad at caving. That woman was a mystery I had yet to decipher, and I had to admit that I’d still give quite a bit to spend my life trying to figure out why.
I might not give everything, but I’d still give up a lot more than I should for a woman who left me the way she did.
I still wonder to myself why in the world she left...
I guess I technically could have asked her last night, but damn, I was so fucking shocked to see her at my door. Of all the people that could’ve come knocking on my trailer door after that ride, it had to be her. I should’ve asked her why she was there… whether she came to see me or if it was just a coincidence that I was riding that particular day. I should’ve asked her why the hell she left. I should’ve yelled about how much I loved her, how much I cared for her, that her leaving threw me off a bull I couldn’t stand to get back on. I wanted to blame her for so much and yet, I still wanted to throw her onto that bed and fuck her body senseless into the mattress in that rickety trailer.
So, that’s what I did. I threw away my anger away the moment she began crying on that fold out couch and I decided to show her what she left. I decided to show her exactly how I had memorized her body. I decided to shower her with my affections just like I would have every day in between our last meeting and our current one.
But I didn’t want to shower her because I was angry with her.
I wanted to show her because, deep down, I really was hoping, that this time, she would stay. Whatever made her leave the first time, I was hoping to trump it. To be better than it. To show her that I supported her and cared for her and that I would give up and do anything to make her happy.
But I still woke up alone.
That’s what actually made me angry. That’s what really made my blood boil as I ripped the egg basket and marched for the house.
It wasn’t the fact that she left.
It was the fact that I didn’t want her to leave… and it was the fact that she didn’t care that she did.
Chapter 8: Chelsea
I should’ve headed straight back for that trailer, but as I was traveling along the highway, I saw those same trailers being pulled behind trucks to go be stored for the next rodeo. Obviously, he’d woken up yet again to an empty bed, and it made me sick. Yet again, I’d left the only man whoever made me feel worth something and important alone in bed after bearing his soul to me.
I made me physically ill to think about.
I thought about traveling around town to find him. I thought about going to his parent’s home and asking if they knew where he was. I wondered if they were still alive, rickety in their old age and still rocking on their porch, or if they had passed. I wondered if they were buried somewhere I could visit. Somewhere where I could shed tears over not being there for their funeral.
Flynn was close to his family, and I adored every single one of them. He was an only child, but his mother adopted many boys and girls around the neighborhood. Not legally, of course, but they always seemed to be in and out. She’d feed them, give them a place to sleep, and even gave out keys to her own home in case they wanted to come over instead of going home. Flynn and I, we were fortunate to have loving families, but a lot of the kids around here weren’t as lucky. Some had abusive homes, and some had poor homes. Some had homes with too many children, and some had homes with absent parents. Flynn’s mother was never able to have the house full of kids she wanted, so she took in everyone else’s when they didn’t have a place to go.
I decided to drive by their old home, just to see if anyone was there.
The house was up kept really well. The porch looked to have been repainted, and the roof was obviously new. The old rocking chairs were swaying with the wind on the porch, but no one seemed to be home. There were no cars, there were no lights on, no children were frolicking around the property. I mean, Flynn’s mom kept a good house, but their house wasn’t new by any means.
And then my eyes drifted to the “For Sale” sign in the front yard.
I parked my car and got out to pull a slip of paper out from the open box, and when I slipped back into my car, I looked over the information. Four bedrooms, two and a half bath ranch-style home with a basement that sits on nine acres of land. Wrap-around porch, forced heating, central air conditioning, hardwood floors… the works.
“Someone really put a lot of work into this home,” I murmured to myself.
The home and property were trying to be sold for $200,000.00, but I could tell it had been on the market for a while. My eyes watered at the idea of Flynn experiencing the passing of his parents by himself, and it made me sick to my stomach with guilt. I should have been here to help him.
Jesus, I really needed to tell him what happened. I needed him to know it wasn’t his fault.
I needed him to know he didn’t chase me away.
I opened up my phone and called the only restaurant in town that I knew took reservations, and I made one for us for 7 o’clock tonight. I still wasn’t sure how I would get in touch with Flynn, but I was sure if I asked around town enough, I would figure it out. That’s the thing ab
out a small town, you never really can hide from where you are and where you’ve gone.
Unless, of course, you up and leave without telling anyone except your parents in a note.
