Even though they’d both wanted more than a hug and goodnight kiss, he’d been a true gentleman and left her with a warm smile and an understanding wink. Afterwards, she’d always regretted that night. Not for the things said or done, but for what wasn’t. Sometimes, a gentleman just wasn’t what a woman needed. Maybe she should’ve given him a few more signs. Even though she knew it wasn’t in the best interest of either.
Of course, hindsight was twenty/twenty and those old wounds had slowly healed. Sure, it was easy to say now if she could do it all over again, she’d do it a lot differently. It was always easy to lie to yourself, looking backwards, to convince your present self that your past self always did the right thing. Even when you knew it was bullshit.
The voice of Kennedy interrupted her fretting, “This coming in now: We’ve just learned that a VertiGo Motors Pegasus model aerotruck has crashed in a residential neighborhood in the Grissom Hills area.”
No, not a damned Pegasus! She felt the acid churn in her stomach and erupt up into her esophagus. She began to taste it in the back of her throat. Why did it have to be a Pegasus?
“Police say they suspect this vehicle to be involved in the earlier battle, as well as an aerial altercation atop Monte Sano Mountain, due the heavy amount of damage it has suffered from gunfire. We have some aerial footage now coming in of the crash site …”
She didn’t want to look, but she knew she had no choice. It only took seconds to recognize the beloved old truck that now lay broken and smoking. Bathed in spotlights and surrounded by yellow caution beams, the sight of the wreck brought back a flood of memories. Memories of trips and wonderful adventures. They’d flown over the last of the great evergreen and hardwood forests that had once blanketed the majestic slopes of the Great Smokies, before acid rain and man’s continuing pollution finally took its toll. It’d been both breathtaking and heartbreaking. They’d took the old Gus down for a weekend getaway to the coast. Somehow, they’d found a stretch of isolated beach. They spent the next two days and nights living out of the back, cooking wieners and beans over a campfire, sleeping on the beach, and skinny-dipping in the surf.
Some things you could never get back.
As she continued to stare at the video feed, she fought back the tears that were constantly trying to well up in her eyes. What good were they now? There was nothing she could do. Had there ever been anything she could have done? Even now, was she still being naïve? Tiger had always gone his own way, in the end. As much as she’d loved him, and she never had any doubt he felt the same about her … she was reminded of some old song lyric, the one that always used to play in the back of her head right after their breakup …
Sometimes love just ain’t enough.
She decided early in their relationship that when the time came for him to decide, she would gracefully bow out. She would never make him choose between her and the life he loved so much, the life of a nomadic spacer, living like some Old West cowboy. Just him and his rocket ship wandering from spaceport to spaceport. From rock to rock to rock, all across Sol. She’d learned from growing up as a child on her dad’s farm in Kentucky that a wild animal would never be truly tamed.
For years, she’d truly believed her own lie, all through her marriage to Chris, even after the divorce and her subsequent reunion with Tiger. It was only recently that she finally admitted the truth to herself. That she’d never wanted him to choose, not because it was fair or unfair, but simply because she’d been afraid what choice he’d have made. She would rather be alone than be rejected by the man she would love always and forever.
Again, Kennedy: “Zee Pee Officers here at the crash site have now confirmed that at least one white male was found seriously injured in the crash and was taken to Huntsville Memorial, where he has been listed in critical condition, and is now undergoing emergency surgery.”
She picked up her PDC and redialed his number again. Nothing. A tear escaped down her cheek. Damn you, Tiger! Please don’t do this!
From the next room, there arose a commotion, as her two children suddenly erupted into an argument. As their voices rose in a symphony of high-pitched screaming, she patiently awaited the grand finale, wondering which one would be the diva tonight. She didn’t have long to wait.
It would be her youngest, Brittain, who would finally burst into frustrated tears and storm out of the room and straight for her mother, crying hysterically at the top of her lungs. “Mommy!” the seven-year-old in pigtails and pajamas wailed as she made a beeline to her mother. “Blake hit me!”
“Awww!” she held out her arms to receive her daughter. She
