AllFreeNovel
Share Us
If I were to be honest, I was feeling lonely. I hated that, hated how weak it made me sound. Me, who had spent so much time alone in her old life, never sinking into the pit that people wrote poems about, sang songs about.
But there was no denying the weird hollow place inside, something swirling and uncomfortable.
I missed him.
Even though he had been right there.
Close, yet unreachable.
And I missed the talks, the teaching, the learning, the camaraderie, the friendship.
It was new, but I had begun to cherish it, need it, crave more of it.
And without it, I oddly felt less like myself. I felt frazzled, uncertain, second-guessing myself, restless, and – what’s more – the space, the emptiness, left room inside for other things to creep in. Uglier things. Things that made my skin feel itchy and foreign, that made my belly twist and turn, made food hard to swallow, made my sleep more restless.
So, yeah, I missed him.
And I missed the me I was around him.
Maybe it wasn’t healthy to lean on someone so much. Especially someone so new to me. But I didn’t want to stop either. Stopping meant, what, going back to my old life? My old self?
Suddenly, that person felt so irrelevant, so detached. All she did was work. And escape her reality with mindless television. She wasn’t really living. She was filling up moments in anticipation of sleep, then doing it all over again.
Whereas the woman I was becoming now was always in the moment, was entirely conscious of the touch, the smell, the feel of everything. Even in quiet moments when there was nothing else to focus on, the old anxieties of my old life didn’t come up. Like wondering if I was living up to my potential, if I should take some night classes, if I should attempt to do more with my life, travel, date more.
There was no pondering the big questions in life that I had yet to even try to tackle. Like if I should attempt to by a home. If so, where? Should I be more serious about relationships, put my eyes toward marriage? Did I want children or not? If so, to adopt or to have biological ones. If not, then how would I spend the rest of my life, my free time? Volunteering? Taking up golf?
There wasn’t any of that chatter here in the woods where the furthest I needed to think into the future was what to plant for the next crop, what winters would be like, if Red and I would ever find a common ground.
There were no pressures save for the concern about survival. And with Ranger so set up, that worry was minuscule at best.
I liked this life more.
With my makeshift shoes and dog hair covered clothes and food I helped grow myself and goat soap.
And, well, Ranger.
As if I’d summoned him, suddenly the greenhouse door burst open, making my air gasp inward, making my heart leap up into my throat.
And there he was, his hulking figure taking up the whole doorway, chest heaving like he’d been running, his dark eyes wild.
“Scared the fucking shit out of me,” he barked, the sound of it loud enough to make me jolt back.
“W… why?”
“Left Gadget, left Captain. And you’re fucking gone again.”
Oh.
Again.
The only other time I had taken off, forcing Captain to stay behind was when, well, I thought I couldn’t take it anymore. The knowledge of what had happened to me. At least a big chunk of it. There were still giant blanks from when I was on my way to work to when I somehow had drugs in my system, but I felt I likely knew the worst parts. And the worst parts hurt. Even held deep within, locked away tightly, a little aching, a little misery still leaked out in random moments.
But tolerably.
I had no intentions of trying to end it.
“We’re done with this,” he said when I was trying to sort out my thoughts. The words landed like a gut punch. “You got me?” he asked, moving in, attempting to slam the door behind him, but it just made a paltry clicking noise as he stalked across the floor to stand at the side of the prep table, pelvis nearly pressing into my legs. “Done.”
Humiliatingly, I could feel the tears stinging at my eyes, threatening to pour over. “You’re kicking me out?” My voice was small, choked.
“What? No,” he said, brows furrowing. “I told you that you can stay as long as you want.”
“But that was before…”
I trailed off when his head shook, like he was demanding I not go there.
“Gave my word. And I keep my word. But we’re done with this. This not talking shit. Done. You got me?”
“I, ah, yeah.”
“Why the fuck did you come all the way out here without Cap?”
