We sway in the kitchen while she laughs and cries and calms down, her face against my chest, her ear on my heart.
“I feel very loved,” I tell her.
She nods. “You are.”
We kiss and slowly, it evolves. Her fingertips snake under my shirt. My hands push her underwear down, cruising over her bare ass until I crush it in my fingers. Her legs loop around my waist and my cock teases at her entrance. I try to press her against the kitchen wall, but she squeals that it’s too cold. We settle on the couch, and her eyes never leave mine. Sometimes they shut, but they always come back to me. She’s not very talkative but I tell her everything: how much I love her, how beautiful she is, how perfect she feels in my hands.
The time comes where we either need to eat dinner or part ways. We both have to work early, and I need to drive her back to the farm. She says she’s not hungry, but I take her through a drive-thru anyway. “Thanks, Daddy,” she grumbles.
Darcy seems unduly sad when we say goodbye back at the farm. She clutches me tight and sniffles.
Something’s wrong. Very wrong.
“I love you,” she whimpers.
“I love you too. I’ll see you Wednesday. I’m just starting my last semester of school. I’m not going off to war.”
“Sorry,” she says, waving around her face. “Hangover strikes again. It’s just been a really good summer.”
I lace my fingers with hers and hold them behind her back, her chin tipped up at me. “It has. We’ve got a whole lot of fun ahead of us, baby. This is just the beginning.”
She doesn’t say anything and, for the first time, unease settles in my gut.
FIFTY-TWO
DARCY
I can’t do this.
It’s Monday night, heading into Tuesday. I’ve been awake since 2 a.m., feet dangling from the porch swing at the homeplace in my nightgown. Stormy sits in my lap, with Barkley keeping vigil at my feet. The other dogs ignore me, dreaming their little rabbit-chasing doggie dreams.
I wish I could find that kind of peace right now. All I can do is recycle the same handful of thoughts about the future.
Jake has a bright future ahead of him. The things he thinks up could do something amazing, solve some major world problem.
Yes, I could move back to Raleigh. I could see if he wants to come with me after he graduates. He’d have more job prospects there, but I don’t know if I’d feel right going back to my old job. I could do it and, without Rob there, I might love my job again. But there’s a strong chance that it would just feel like a ghost of a bad time in my life.
And anyway, a move to a new city together is a lot to ask of someone you’ve only been dating a few months, and I think Jake’s smitten enough to go for it.
But if he did that, it would be hard for me to think he wasn’t making a mistake.
The last thing I want is to be his mistake. I’d rather be a distant fantasy than someone who wasted years of his life—because I know what it feels like for someone to waste years of your life. Years you’ll never get back. Self-confidence that might not ever recover fully. A heart that’s still in tatters.
And sure, we could stay together until he finishes school, but the looming deadline of an impending breakup when he moves away is more than my tattered heart can handle.
It would be easy for him to just choose me as the default, to avoid moving back to Floyd so he can avoid conflict with his family. To avoid choosing a more accomplished life.
Selfishly, I want him to choose me. Realistically, I know that’s too much to ask, and something I’d never be able to trust.
What I need is for him to take some time and make an active choice, an informed decision of what he wants and what’s best forhim, not just forus.
And maybe he can take some time apart from me and decide this is what he wants: me, the farm, a quiet life.
But I can’t keep him on the line. I need to cut him loose.
This is what’s best for both of us.
* * *
