AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Okay, that sounds fun.” She says the words, but they are laced with fear.
Once she has given lots of love to Oreo, we walk past the other stalls, but all of the other horses are sleeping, so we don’t spend too much time here.
When we are out of the building, I look at her. “There’s one more thing to show you if you’re up for it.”
She nods, and I take her hand once more. We walk down the path which leads us through a thicket of trees. Crickets are starting to chirp around us as the sun begins to set.
A few minutes later, we come to a clearing that opens up onto a small lake. There’s a dock on one end that leads out into the water. We walk out onto it, and I motion for her to have a seat next to me.
“This is beautiful, Jonas,” she says, looking all around her.
“It is, isn’t it? This is my favorite place in the entire world. I come here when I need to clear my head, or I just need to get away. It’s here to remind me that no matter how bad things get, there is always still beauty in the world.”
“That’s a good way to look at things. Maybe I should start thinking like you. I tend to be more of a glass-half-empty kind of girl.”
“Eh, I think we can all be that way sometimes. I guess I just try to remember that the good things matter far more than the bad.”
She doesn’t respond, just continues to take in the ambiance around us. Silence falls between us as we hear nothing but the sounds of nature.
I wonder if maybe this is a little boring for her, so I ask if she’s ready to head back to the house.
She looks over at me. “Can we stay a bit longer?”
“Anything you want, baby.” I take my hand and set it on hers, and she scoots closer to me, close enough to lean her head on my shoulder.
After another long silence, she begins to speak in a quiet tone. “Jonas, I think I should tell you why I moved out here.”
“Hey, don’t feel like you have to tell me anything that you aren’t ready to.”
She looks at me with trepidation in her eyes. “Iwantto.”
I know this is a big step for her, so I settle myself behind her so that she’s sitting in between my legs. My fingers intertwine with hers as I wait for her to begin.
“I was married…” she begins, and it catches me a little off guard, but I try not to let it show. “His name was Michael.”
“Was?”
“He died.”
“Shit, Andi. I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head. “That’s not why I came out here. Well, not the only reason I came out here. I’m just going to start from the beginning, okay?”
I nod and give her a gentle kiss on the back of her shoulder.
“Michael and I met back when we were in high school. We had a lot of the same classes and became good friends. I was living in a group home for teens at the time. He and I grew closer, and his mom and I grew a bond too. She became a foster mom so that she could take me in and get me out of that group home.”
“Wow. That was nice of her.”
“Yeah, she’s the best. Even though I’m here now, I plan on still trying to stay close with her. Anyway, Michael and I grew to be such good friends that we figured that we might as well give dating a try. We did, and it was just easy. After high school, we both got accepted to UCLA, so we up and moved to California, opting to live together in an apartment instead of separate dorms. We made it through college together and decided to move to Northern California.
“We both got jobs and a nice little house. The next logical thing seemed to be to get married. So, we did. Soon, our lives grew into what some would call the perfect picture of domestic bliss. But honestly, we were just going through the motions. The truth is that Michael was traveling all the time for work, and I was stuck in a job that I hated. Even when we were with each other, it was like we were just putting on a show. We would hang out with Michael’s friends, and he was the life of the party. He’d be all over me and would try to show me off. Then, we’d get home, and most of the time, we wouldn’t even have sex. If we did, it was short and usually pretty one-sided. And he would always make small comments about my weight or was always trying to convince me to try new diets or new workout classes.”
Anger boils inside me at anyone making Andi feel like anything less than the goddess she is. But I let her continue without interruption.
“About a month before I moved here, Michael was in a fatal car accident. Of course, I was devastated. I mean, the only man I’d ever been with in any capacity was dead. I had built my life around him, and I wasn’t quite sure how to live without him. I was heartbroken. Then, at his funeral, all that grief turned to rage when his fiance and their son showed up.”
I can’t hold my tongue anymore. “What?! Are you fucking kidding me?”
