I had little control over anything in my childhood. Now, I wield the reins to everything I touch. It can go one of two ways. I could have become a washed-up felon from years of neglect, or one of those slums to success stories that make you cry when the video auto-plays on social media. I’m in the second camp, the damage isn’t visible. I know where the scars are though, and I’ve made friends with them even though they still sting.
My eyes blur from the blue light radiating from my laptop screen in the dark. Closing it slowly, I pinch the bridge of my nose and close my eyes. The room is dim and I know I shouldn’t bring my work into the bedroom. It’s bad sleep hygiene to look at any electronics while in bed. It’s why I don’t have a television in here and why I charge my phone in the kitchen. Sliding my laptop to the cool side of my empty king-sized bed, I pad down the hallway to my new kitchen. The house, well okay, my extremely modern cabin, is everything you think about when you envision a mountain home in Colorado. I’m far enough up into the mountains to not have any neighbors, but also not too remote because, Target, obviously. I’m only fifteen minutes from work, and there is never any real traffic on the main road I take to get to town. The wooden floors creak when I stand in front of the fridge and contemplate my options.
My phone lights up with a notification on the charging stand next to my smartwatch. It’s just social media, something I’ve been trying and failing at giving up. As much as I craved a brand new start after Rexy died. There are a ton of people, a community of them, that I ended up caring about. It was the first time I felt I belonged somewhere. Truly and wholly. It wasn’t taken from me after his death, but because I detached myself, it’s not something I rely on. I should have known better. It was the final lesson I needed to understand that I can’t open myself up. Never again.
I get a glass of cold water, ignore my phone, and sit in the oversized leather chair by the sliding glass door that opens to thick evergreens and craggy mountain peaks. My living room is on the second story so I don’t worry about bears much, but there are many things that hunt in the night. The chill of fall has arrived and I’d freeze if I went out in my pajamas. Sipping my water, I look at the stars, so bright in the expansive sky that seems to stretch on forever. This is my reprieve, my escape. This house that took a year to build and safeguards my life. It helps me forget the indentation Rexy left in my heart that will never be filled again.
When we dated, he asked me to move in with him seventy-three times before I said yes. It didn’t stop me from falling for him. Actually, quite the opposite. His spontaneity was what made me fall for him. Unlike myself, in my rigid routine and habits—he was carefree. He loved me well inside the rebellious, unholy, razed limits he marched across any chance he got. When I told him that people don’t fall in love on first dates, he told me, “It’s a good thing we aren’t most people.” It was true, I never felt anything about our relationship went the way I expected it to. He went to war. He came home and pretended he was at the office instead of a bloody battlefield. Rexy’s nightmares were the only thing that let me know he was affected by the things he saw on deployments even when he said he was fine. Thinking back now, I realize that’s why I said no seventy-two times. If I slept in the same bed with him every night, I would have to live inside his nightmares. They’d become mine. I might not be strong enough to hold us both up. Dark draws dark. Light begets light.
I eventually agreed to live with him because the light of his love was more than I could hold at arm’s distance. Being vulnerable wasn’t something I ever wanted to be again, and love opens you up in the rawest of ways. Agreeing to marry him may have been my life’s greatest mistake. If Rexy would have lived, he would have been something I couldn’t lose. It’s ironic and funny when I think about it. I ended up losing him, the worst possible thing, and I made it to the other side.
My phone pings and I walk over to pick it up. It’s an email from the genetic kit company I bought for myself during a Christmas in July special they were running. Even though I’m an orphan, I didn’t send in my spit to find distant family members and connect. I was intrigued by the prospect of learning about my heritage. Who am I, down to DNA level? I don’t want answers, I want facts. The email says the results have arrived, and I click to download the report. It’s going to take a while. The unread email from Rexy catches my eye before I set my phone down and wait for the download to finish.
Lincoln Wilds. My work tote sits on a console table next to my keys. His phone number, still on a scrap of thin paper, is in there. Throwing it away would have been the smartest
