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So, it is published now.
Anyone can find it and read pages and pages of my fancy, intellectual-sounding ideas about what it takes to create a strong marriage in our modern society.
I brake for a doe who takes her sweet time crossing the road. While stopped, I bend over the wheel and rest my head on the cool leather.
I’m such an idiot.
I wrote about emotional bonding.
As if I knew—really knew—what I was talking about.
The doe bounds into a field of rust-colored shrubbery and long, wispy tan grass.I didn’t know anything, I realize as I press my foot to the gas again.
Now I’m driving down a country road with fire-orange leaves blazing around me, realizing that all those words that I so carefully researched were really just letters, strung together. No meaning behind them.
It was all fluff.
Nonsense.
Gibberish.
I didn’t knowanything, because I was so busy stuffing down the only experience of love I’d ever known. That was with Parker.
If I really wanted to write about ‘emotional bonding’ I’d have written about the Wayland Bird Sanctuary. The way I felt with my head resting on Parker’s chest that night, pouring out all my dreams to him and listening to him talk about his own. That night, it was like our souls were mixing, red food coloring and blue in one glass of water, turning the whole thing purple.
I remember listening to his heartbeat that night.
The dirt road I’m traveling down takes an abrupt hairpin turn. Then another, the other way. The zig-zagging continues for two miles, and with each passing minute I’m driving higher up into the mountain at the edge of town. At a bend in the road I catch sight of the small downtown area, far below.
The trees are a bit shorter up here. The rocks are bigger. The sky’s more expansive.
I spot a mailbox with the white numbers painted on the side: 17. This must be Parker’s place.
I haven’t seen another house for a long time. The last one was a mile back, and had two beautiful horses out front.
I nose my way up the driveway, until a small mobile home comes into view.
It’s framed by the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen in my life. Pines Peak Mountain rises up, towering and majestic. Beyond the mountain’s rocky slope, there’s a sea of green, blue, and lavender rolling hills that cascade out toward the distant horizon line.
Birds swoop through the air above me. Two spotted fawns nibble grass over by a few wispy saplings.
There’s a gated area out front of the structure, and the fence line winds around the side yard, too. A lone motorcycle is parked in the dirt driveway.
Is it Parker’s?
He hasn’t said anything about owning a Harley, but then again, he also never told me that he owns a property with a view so picturesque, I want to take out my phone right now and snap a million photos.
The metal hinges along the gate creak as I open it. A bunny hops away from me as I walk up a stone path that leads to the front door. I knock, with no response. The door handle jiggles a little side to side, but won’t turn all the way. Locked.
This place is soParker. Simple. Unpretentious. No fancy trappings. So peaceful, I’m already thinking about suggesting to him that he run meditation retreats out of his backyard for a little extra cash.
I watch the sweet fawns as I make my way into the side yard. They seem to be under the place’s spell as much as I am. One nuzzles the other’s neck.
Good vibes. This place is doused in them.
I feel lulled by the beauty around me. Which is probably why it takes me a minute to catch onto the fact that a dog’s booming bark is now emanating from within the trailer.
A dog?
