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Graham
Ihave the four of them sitting on the tailgate of my truck, wrapped up in blankets from my roadside emergency kit, when Ted’s truck pulls into the parking lot.
He parks and hops out. Shaking his head at the sight of the shivering women.
“What the hell happened?” he asks the group at large.
All four of them start talking at once. We get that they were having dinner. Something about a round of shots being bought by a group of cute guys and a trout with a diamond pearl.
Ted looks at me and shrugs. “Did that make sense to you?” he asks.
“Nope.”
He turns back to them, and they all start talking again.
He raises his hand to stop them.
“You, go,” he says, pointing at Ansley.
Erin starts to speak, and he stops her, indicating that he wants Ansley to start first.
“We were just having dinner and a few beers when Erin noticed that Taeli was wearing her wedding rings, so we decided to do a ring toss,” Ansley begins, and Ted lowers his eyes to the ground and starts shaking his head.
“And, well, it was good and all. Taeli took them off and tossed them far away into the creek. Then, we were celebrating when she told us how much they were worth, and we kind of freaked out and jumped in to find them, but it was dark, and the water was moving fast. We finally gave up, and that’s when Graham found us.”
Ted looks up at me. “These crazy-ass women.”
I chuckle.
He turns back to them. “I expect this from you two”—he points at Erin and Jena—“but, Ansley, I expect you to be the voice of reason.”
Ansley huffs. “Hey, a ring toss was in order.”
“Whatever. Let’s get you loony birds home,” he says.
“You can take those three. I’ll take Taeli up to Leona’s on my way home. I’ll drive by and get Erin in the morning for work and pick her car up. I talked to the owner, and it’ll be fine here for the night,” I tell him.
“Thanks, man. Come on, girls,” he says as he corrals them into his Jeep.
Taeli stands and waves as they drive off while I shut the tailgate. I walk her around to the passenger side and help her in.
Once we are on the road, she lays her head against the window and goes quiet.
“So, Senior Day?” I ask to break the silence as we turn onto the road leading up the mountain.
“I kind of stole a patrol car and took it for a joyride through the valley,” she explains.
I look over at her.
“That was you?” I ask, surprised. I was in college when Garrett graduated, but the story of the girl who stole Deputy Wyatt’s patrol car reached me and Langford. We were impressed.
She sighs. “Yeah, that was me. My mom came down to the jailhouse to get me. She was mad as a hornet. Screaming at me about how I could ruin my chances of getting into UT. I swear, Deputy Wyatt let me slide without charges just to get Leona Tilson out of his office. That and to pretend it hadn’t happened because he was so embarrassed, but the genie was already out of that bottle.”
“I can’t believe that was you,” I muse.
“I was wild as the wind once,” she mutters.
I slide my eyes to her and reach over to pull a piece of driftwood from her hair.
“I think there is still a bit of that wild woman in you,” I tell her.
That makes her smile.
“You threw your rings in the river,” I say to prove my point.
She nods. “Yep. I didn’t even realize I was still wearing them. That’s how numb I am,” she explains.
“Numb?”
“Not angry, not sad, not hurt. Just numb. It’s weird. I’d rather feel anything, even the bad stuff, than nothing at all,” she mutters.
“Believe it or not, that’s when you know you’ve started to heal,” I inform her.
“What?”
“The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference. So, if you weren’t even mad enough to notice you were still wearing his rings, then you probably aren’t in love anymore. It took me a long time to take my ring off. I did it when I realized I wasn’t in love anymore,” I confess.
“You stopped loving her?”
I look over at her.
“Mom told me about your wife. About what happened.”
“No. I will love her forever. But to be in love is to be in each other’s space, sharing a life. She’s gone. Moved on to another place. I still love her and the life we shared, but my heart has been released to fall in love again. It took me a long time to understand that,” I explain.
“Oh.”
“So, hear this: You’re not numb, Taeli. You’re free, and it’s okay to let go. Just try not to drown in the river in the middle of the night while you do so.”
“I can’t make any promises,” she teases.
