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TWENTY-SEVEN
Cole
“This placesure isn’t like it used to be,” Ham said with a shake of his head as he looked over the hills in front of us. They rolled over the landscape, dotted with bushes and trees, but painfully lacking in any deer. It had been quite some time since he had managed to convince me to come out and hunt with him, but I had to admit, it was a nice change of pace.
We weren’t able to hike very much into the backwoods. Not with my leg still in the condition it was in. But, back when we came to this same spot when we were younger, there were a lot more animals to be hunted. No one had to really hike very far to be able to be successful, and I missed that.
“There’s too many people,” I said. “Moving in and taking up the space for them. With nowhere else to go, they’re just moving deeper and deeper into the woods to make sure they aren’t bothered. It’s sad, but I guess I don’t blame them. I do the same thing most of the time.”
“You’re a recluse. Always have been, and always will be,” Ham said. “Which is why I wonder how you are going to handle this girl when you are done working for her.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean you aren’t the kind of guy who likes to go out and be social. I don’t know how you’re going to maintain a relationship with this girl when you are like the opposite of someone who dates,” he replied.
“Just because I haven’t found the person to break me out of my ways before, doesn’t mean she isn’t the one to do it,” I told him. “Raya is like the perfect match to me in every way. She’s a hard worker. She’s up with the horses. She cares about the animals at the facility where she works as much as she cares about the patients who come through and work with those horses for their own benefit. I’m not going to say that she’s the answer to all my problems, but I can tell you one thing. When I drove up to that place that day, I had no idea I was going to wind up falling for the woman I argued with from the moment I stepped out of my truck.”
Ham laughed. “And that’s the problem. You weren’t open to having a girlfriend in your life. You told me so when I asked you if you wanted to meet my buddy’s sister.”
“I wasn’t looking to actively get out and make it my mission in life to date at the time, and I still wasn’t when I took on this job with Raya. The entire reason why I was open to it was to pay for the damn hospital bills for my leg. It’s just a bonus that the two of us hit it off like we did.”
Ham gave me a look, but I just stared back at him.
I knew he didn’t think I was going to really stick to what I was saying. But, he’d also never seen me be serious around a woman before. I wasn’t ever looking for a serious relationship in the past, so I made sure to keep the women I dated at arm’s length. It was intentional so they weren’t too hurt when I wound up breaking up with them.
Something that always happened despite my best effort to keep the relationships going. It wasn’t that I wanted to be a player, or that I chose to date someone with the intention of breaking up with them down the road. It was just one of those things that had become a pattern in my life. I knew I would either have to break the cycle or wind up alone eventually, but I wasn’t sure when I would find it in me to break that cycle.
I liked to spend time with the horses. I liked to be out under the open sky. I wasn’t the kind of person who wanted to waste my life being glued to my phone. I didn’t want to spend my days worrying about what other people were doing or seeking to get attention from anyone else. I didn’t care for any of that, and Ham knew it well.
So, the thought of me actually settling down with someone was something he’d laugh at. I didn’t mind. It might get under my skin in the moment, but that didn’t change the fact that I was falling in love with Raya, and I couldn’t see myself going back to being the recluse I was before I met her. If anything, she would be the one to get me out of the house long enough to at least make it over to her facility to see her.
I knew where she lived, and I didn’t really care that it was two hours away.
And I wanted Ham to know it, too.
“I’ve driven farther than that for less important things,” I told him. “So, I really don’t see it as that big of a deal for me to maintain a relationship when she’s in the City and I’m not. She’s got her own vehicle, too, and I’m not seeing her refusing to come up here to stay at the ranch when she can, too.”
“So, you’re just going to date some girl who lives two hours away from you, works nearly as far away as that, and you think it’s all going to turn out like a bed of roses? I don’t think so. Hear me out. I’m not trying to rain on your parade. I’m just worried that you’re getting in a little bit over your head here,” Ham said.
“In over my head? You think I’m getting in over my head with a woman who knows what she wants in life and is independent enough to work for it? How is that possibly getting in over my head?” I asked.
“Well, it’s just that you’ve never been serious about a girl before, and seeing you getting more serious about Raya, I just want you to know what you’re getting yourself into. I would hate for you to commit to this and turn her into your ride or die only to have it not work out for you, you know?” he asked.
“I do appreciate that you care about me,” I said. “But I don’t see that happening with Raya. When you actually get to meet her and see the kind of person she is for yourself, you’ll see why I fell for her. She’s incredible, and I mean that in every sense of the word.”
“Incredible enough to give you the space you’re going to ask her to give you?” Ham asked. “Without freaking out about it and winding up with you two at each other’s necks and everything? You know we’ve been there.”
And he was right. I had a girl I liked a few years back who was far too clingy for my taste. She wanted to spend every waking minute with me, and she never gave me the space or freedom to do a thing without her. I had thought she would be a good partner when we’d first met, but it had turned into such a disaster, it was hard for me to even pick up my phone without dreading hearing her voice on the other end of the line.
With how basic my phone was, I could only block her number with each new call, never knowing for sure if she was going to use a fake number to try to get a hold of me or not. It was frustrating, and it took a long time for her to accept the fact I had broken up with her.
Then, after the fact, it took me a long time to get over the trauma of that relationship. It had rattled me to the core having someone so into me that I wasn’t even able to leave my house without her knowing about it, and subsequently blowing up my phone with calls and messages about it. She wanted to know everything about me at every time. Where I was going, what I was doing, who I was with.
The list went on and on.
“Raya isn’t anything like Amy was,” I told Ham. “She’s far more independent than that. I can’t see her even caring that I was out of the house without telling her, let alone caring enough to try to figure out what I was doing. She would probably tell me to get out of the house from time to time without her so she had space from me.”
I chuckled to myself as I spoke, and Ham shook his head. He remembered what a nightmare Amy had been. The relationship was brief, there was no denying that, but it had been scarring to both of us. We felt we were being watched by her all day, every day, and it was difficult to even get through a normal workday.
