I’m not athletic and running for more than a few minutes tires me out, my muscles were burning already and I was still too far from the B&B. That’s when my stupid wedges got in the way and I started to stumble, unable to find purchase against the fine, silvery sand.
I kept on running, trying frantically to think of something, my hands attempting to dial 911 while I ducked empty recliners and plastic chairs. Then I felt fingers grazing the ends of my hair and despite the warm, sticky breeze swooshing around me, I felt the heat drain from my face.
I inhaled fully ready to scream at the top of my lungs, sure I would feel a hand grabbing me, but it never came.
I heard a thud and a groan and turned around in time to see the handsome man from the bar sending Barry sprawling on his ass in a cloud of sand.
That pig tried to talk, tried to defend himself, pinning things on me as best as he could, but Wyatt gave him one quelling, dangerous look and told him to ‘get the fuck lost if he cared to retain his balls’ and that vile asshole was up and running toward the party lights like a shot.
All my fear evaporated and I don’t know, maybe it was the shock or the ridiculousness of seeing a grown man almost piss his pants when confronted by such a large adversary, but I started laughing and then crying.
One blink and I was up and close with my personal romance hero, tightly held in his brawny, powerful arms, a few seconds later I knew his name and he knew mine, another breath and we were exchanging a kiss, my own very first kiss. It was deep, and sweet, and perfect, and as his lips touched mine I knew that no matter how strange it felt, no matter how impossible, I truly was standing in the presence of my one true love.
After that, things got positively dreamy and stayed like that for the rest of the night until he told me he would be gone for as long as six months or more seven days from then.
My Wyatt is a Sergeant in the Rangers and five days ago, after we made love all night long he left me and our country behind to go fulfill his duty.
My heart was sleeping before I met him and now it’s gone, somewhere in the Middle East with him.
He promised he would call as soon as he could or at least text, but this is day five and I’ve heard nothing yet.
I tried to call myself, but it’s like his phone is switched off or something, I keep getting his voicemail and I’m too chicken to actually leave a message.
I feel empty and sad and Veronica isn’t helping by continuously poking fun at me and making me doubt myself and what Wyatt and I shared.
And it’s not like I don’t understand how people might think it’s insane to be so in love with someone after just one week, but I don’t care, I just can’t help how I feel and I don’t even want to, to be honest: I’ve never felt as complete, myself and happy as I did while Wyatt was with me, there’s no way I’m wrong about it.
But then, if you’re right, how come he hasn’t called?
A little voice whispers in my head.
I hate that voice, it’s the voice of all my fears and doubts, the voice that tells me Veronica could be right, the voice that tells me I’m too big, too shy, too unsociable, too ordinary, too everything to be loved, especially by someone like Wyatt who is handsome and worldly and older and a real hero.
I don’t want to believe this part of myself is right, it’s just too painful.
I’ve been back in Jacksonville only for a couple of days. I lingered in Plumeria after Wyatt and Jonny left, I just wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the town that completely changed my life and my soul yet. To tell the truth, I also wasn’t too jazzed at the idea of facing Veronica and her spite, not that I don’t know how to tell her where to stick her unwanted opinion, but I just didn’t want to hear her make fun of something so important to me.
Wyatt and I spent that entire first night wide-awake, cuddled together on the sand just talking and stayed there until the sun came up, then we went into the B&B to change and shower with plans of meeting up to have breakfast in an hour.
When I got upstairs Veronica was already there, angrily packing her stuff and breaking things that didn’t belong to any of us like it had gone out of style.
She was in a horrible mood and eating the proverbial sour grapes because in the end, her online creeper also turned out to be an asshole —I know, shocking— and left her after he got what he had come for.
She insisted we needed to get going immediately and when I told her I wanted to stay, probably even extend my vacay to an entire week because I had met someone special, she looked at me like I had lost my mind and told me as much.
She agreed to remain long enough to meet Wyatt and once she did, she took a long, hard look at him and then without saying a word, left the dining room and asked me to go to the restroom with her. There she proceeded to tell me what she thought, that there was no way in hell that someone looking as hot as my Wyatt does, would really want anything to do with someone chubby and frumpy like me.
Usually, her crap doesn’t touch me this deep, but that hurt. I told her as much and that there was no reason for her to take her frustration out on me.
She stomped out telling me I would come to regret my decision to stay in Plumeria and be with Wyatt and that she wouldn’t be available to pick up the pieces when it happened, like she would know how to do something as kind as offering comfort.
I told her I would take my chances and see where this thing with Wyatt went and I’m so very glad I did, but the clock is ticking and the days are passing and Wyatt hasn’t called yet.
Is he thinking of me right now?
Does he miss me as I miss him? Does he feel like someone ripped a hole into his very soul like I do?
Where is he?
Is he okay?
–*–
Two months later……
I open my eyes blearily and kick the sheets away; for a while, I simply lie there watching the sun dance over the lavender and pale pink patterns of my coverlet, then I gulp down air and throw my legs over the edge of the bed, bracing for the pain.
I walk unsteadily to the window and stare at the sky. It’s a beautiful day outside, but it means nothing to me, I can’t find joy in anything since he left me.
Today is October 20 and he hasn’t called yet.
I hug myself and bring the collar of the army-green tee I’m wearing to my nose, it’s huge on me and falls well beyond my knees; it’s one of Wyatt’s Ranger T-shirts, the one he put on me that last time we were together, I go to bed wearing it every night and I haven’t washed it once. I just can’t bring myself to do it, it still smells like him.
I didn’t know a broken heart could hurt this much.
I remember the acute grief I felt over my mom’s passing when I was a little girl, I still carry it to this day, but this pain is different. It isn’t simply born out of desperation and fear, out of missing someone, it’s soul-deep and paralyzing, it haunts me with every beat of my heart, pounds under my skin until it hurts to breathe.
The mornings are the worst because for a moment I’m still there in that bed with him, my head over his chest, his beard tickling my temple as we plan our future, and it’s so real, I can almost feel the warmth of his big body wrapped around mine, smell his woodsy, spicy cologne on my skin, hear his deep, husky voice as he calls me his babydoll and tells me about our story, our forever, as he makes all the promises he broke, as he asks me to wait for him and for a call that I never got.