Somewhere there’s a place for me.
KACY
Two days of driving and I’m still in Texas, but I have no idea what city I’m in. I got on the highway and started driving. Maybe I’ll hit water soon and find peace. I have no idea. What I do know is that Rapunzel fell in love finding herself, so why can’t I?
I’m crying so hard I keep jerking the wheel, and at some point, I’m going to be pulled over if I keep this up or crash into the side of a building. The thought makes me cry even harder.
That’s when Lillian calls me. I take that call so fast you probably would have thought I called her. “I’m an idiot!” I scream into my car, hoping it’s actually her calling and not someone else. “What was I thinking? Find myself. Ha. Who needs to find themselves besides gypsies? I’m not a gypsy. I don’t even like driving!”
Lillian is quiet, and for a moment, I think maybe she butt-dialed me, and I just said all that shit to her ass. But then I hear the sigh and the light laughter. “Turn around and come back. He’s miserable.”
I brush tears from my cheeks. “What? Did he say anything?”
“He didn’t have to. He was quiet at work all day and then left early. That’s how I know something’s up with him.”
Barron left work early? That’s not like him.
“Are you going to come back? You didn’t even tell me goodbye.”
“I know.” I sob. “I’m sorry.” I look up at a passing road sign that says twenty-five miles to Austin. “Shit.”
“What?”
“I thought I was going east. I’m twenty-five miles from Austin.”
She laughs. “Turn around. Come back.”
I take the nearest exit and sit in silence at a closed gas station, still on the phone with Lillian.
I stare at my hands and miss the way they felt gripping Barron’s flannel and his kisses that tasted like Coors Light. I miss the way his presence lingers long after he’s left the room.
In hindsight, I knew what I did was wrong, deceitful even, but I didn’t regret meeting him. I wouldn’t, ever. But what did all this mean for me? Besides being homeless, jobless, and, loveless.
I spent years praying for freedom only to be given it and destroy it just as easily.
There had to be a place for me in this world where I felt like me. A place where your past didn’t follow you and your shitty decisions didn’t matter. Where you could find the gentleness of a man and have him love you for you. A home where firelight dances on your skin and everything else didn’t matter.
“Come home,” Lillian whispers into the line. “You belong here.”
She’s right. It’s then I realize my place was right there on that ranch.
I pull my journal out of my bag and flip to a new page.
If only I had known what was coming next.
Maybe then I wouldn’t have been so quick to leave.
-lost
Finally, closure.
BARRON
Monday morning, I’m miserable. What the fuck was I thinking letting her leave?
Uh, I wasn’t. What the fuck?
Why’d you let this happen? I’m talking to you. People. You should have smacked me upside the head and said damn it, suck up your goddamn pride
I hope you’re happy, you fucking dumbass.
And fuck you, Ray LaMontagne, and your song “I Was Born To Love You” because I don’t like that song, and I’d really like it if you’d stop playing it on the radio. That’s how being at work goes. We’re swamped with repairs, and I’m depressed, cursing out the radio.
“I hatin’ dis song,” Sev tells me, clanking wrenches together. “I’m hungry.”
I smile at her, leaning into my toolbox to scoop her up into my arms. “Let’s go see if Lillian has snacks.”
She wraps her arms around my neck. “Okay.”
Camdyn’s still mad at me over Kacy leaving so she stayed with Morgan today. Can’t say I blame her. Even I don’t want to be around me.
Inside the office, Lillian tosses an envelope on the counter in front of me. “FedEx dropped this off for you. And Jace left.”
I nod, not paying attention to the envelope, and hand Lillian my cell phone. “Answer this if it rings.”
“I’m hungry,” Sev tells Lillian, digging through her snack drawer she keeps for Sev. Okay, all of us.
“Why do I need to answer your phone? Is Kacy going to call?”
“No. I’m expecting a call from Earl, and I can’t hear it in the shop with all that noise.”
“Fine.” She sets my phone down on the desk.
“Don’t you dare call her, Lillian,” I warn.
“Why did you let her leave?”
“Because.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I glance down at Sev who’s eating a package of fruit snacks, uninterested in anything we’re talking about.
“You were falling in love and let her leave because you were scared.”
“I wasn’t falling in love. Stop talking to Morgan.” I stare down at the envelope knowing that’s a lie. I was falling for Kacy and it scared the shit out of me. Then I realize what she said. “Jace left? Where?”
“Not sure. Abi showed up in town the day after Christmas and now nobody has heard from either one of them.”
I snort. “He probably kidnapped her.”
“It’s romantic,” she gushes, batting her lashes at me.
I make a disgusted face. “No it’s not. He’s being stupid.”
Lillian rolls her eyes as Sev crawls off her lap and onto the floor to color. “Your heart is black. Open the envelope.”
I do and shake my head. It’s the divorce papers again. This time I turn to the exact page I know the parental rights is on.
And there it is. Full custody. She signed over her parental rights to the girls.
For him.
Fucking cunt.
There’s a sense of relief knowing that part of my life is closed, but one door is still very much open, and the wind is getting colder by the day.
I miss Kacy.
Sev hands me a drawing. “It for you.”
I glance at it. It’s a bunch of black scribbles. “What is it?”
“Yous black heart.”
Later that night as I’m getting the girls ready for bed, Camdyn senses my mood is off. It’s been off for the last three days, but it’s now when she chooses to finally say something. After spending the day with Morgan, she’s finally talking to me.
“What’s the matter, Daddy?”
I pull Camdyn into my arms, freshly bathed, hair braided, and with the firelight dancing on her cheeks. “Nothing. You should be in bed.”
She stares at me and then sighs, holding my face in her hands. “You weren’t finished, were you?”
I search her innocent eyes. “What?”
She brushes my hair back from my forehead like I do for her. “You weren’t finished loving Kacy yet. That why yous so sad.”
Perceptive, aren’t they?
When you think of a love story, you think of two things. When they met, and when they fell in love, am I right?