AllFreeNovel
Share Us
After a minute, he looks up at the sky, and I do the same.
My breath pauses on its way through my lungs. Hundreds—thousands—of stars spread over us like a glittery blanket. A lighter haze shines directly overhead creating billowy, glowing clouds. I don’t have words to describe how beautiful it is.
“Is that the Milky Way?” I ask.
In my peripheral vision, Grant hums confirmation.
“I’ve never seen it before.”
I stare at the sky as though I can drink it in. As though I need to memorize this view so I can carry it with me always. Obviously, I always knew they were out there. I’ve seen stars before. But I’ve never seen anything likethis.
Something moves on my face, and I brush it away. It takes me a second to realize I’m crying. I laugh softly at my silly, overdramatic response, but I don’t take my eyes off of the stars.
“It’s so beautiful.” I barely whisper the words, because that’s all I’ve got.
Grant’s hand finds mine in the darkness again and holds tight. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
I don’t know how long we stare in silence. Long enough for me to count three shooting stars. Long enough for my shoulder to sag against Grant’s. And long enough for me to get a really nasty crick in my neck, but it’s worth it.
“Thanks for coming out here with me,” he says. “I can’t remember the last time I relaxed like this.”
I drag my eyes away from the star-studded show above us. “But you do outdoorsy things all the time.”
“I do. But sometimes all the hikes and campouts and mountain climbs are more of a distraction than something I truly experience.”
“What are you trying to distract yourself from?” I ask softly.
He inhales long and deep. Somewhere in the darkness, crickets chirp. Maybe my question went too far?
But he finally answers. “A few years ago, I had a relationship that ended suddenly. Totally blindsided me. For a while after that—too long, really—I wanted to think about anything else. I climbed a lot in that first year, but I couldn’t tell you much about what I saw or did. I only knew I needed to get out of my head.”
“You really loved her.” I don’t even mean to say it, and I hope it doesn’t sound like I want to pour salt in his wound. But just telling me a few quick sentences about it, I can hear in his voice how deeply this affected him.
Josh started dating again the same week I gave him back his ring. Considering the circumstances, I’m not sure he ever stopped.
“I thought I loved her. Now, I don’t know if that was really love. I think I wanted it to be more than it was.”
I understand that too well. For a while, Josh was everything to me. My favorite obsession who seemed equally obsessed with me. But now, I’m not sure that image of perfection was real love, either. Maybe it’s been tainted by everything that happened afterward. Or maybe my feelings for him were never as deep as I’d hoped they were.
“I’m sorry.” I squeeze his hand that still grips mine. “She sounds like she didn’t know how good she had it.”
I’ve only known him four days, but this isnota man you walk away from easily. I don’t want to say goodbye to him tomorrow, and she dropped him after they were together who knows how long? Impossible.
Even in the darkness, his small smile stands out. “Thanks.”
I turn my face up to the stars. “I didn’t move back to Sunshine because I missed my family. I did miss them, but…I found out my fiancé was cheating. The old classic. He sent a text to me that was supposed to go to her. Rookie mistake.”
Every other weekend after he proposed, he would send me to the spa for a massage or to get my nails done. My girlfriends were all jealous of how Josh spoiled me. I thought it was a sign of how much he loved me—I never dreamed it was an excuse to get me out of the house. Until the day I got the message he’d meant to send to her.
She’s gone. We’ve got at least two hours. Get here as quick as you can, baby.
Baby. He’d never calledmebaby. Not that I’d wanted him to—it’s not my favorite endearment. Even knowing that, I’d stared at the text message for agonizing minutes, desperate to make it mean anything else. My stomach had rolled and a sickness like I’d never known sank deep in my chest, but I couldn’t bring myself to go straight home and catch him in the act.
“At first, he tried to deny it. I was reading it wrong, obviously the message didn’t mean anything. Then, I think he just wanted me to accept it, you know? Like this was part of the package deal with him. ‘All guys do it,’ he’d said. So, I broke things off.”
The break had been coming on for a long time, but I couldn’t just smile and overlook cheating like I had for so much else.
“I was immediately replaced at my job because I was dumb enough to work for him. I moved out of his apartment and had to resort to couch surfing. And to make it even worse, most of my friends sided with him when the dust settled.”
