“I promise I’m going to love you forever, Lana,” he promised me. “And we’re going to fill up the house jar and get a giant lake house. And I’m going to marry you in the Willow Springs Gardens and we’re going to be so happy. I promise.”
I was a wreck at that point. Then he slipped the ring on myleftmiddle finger, a newer,lovelierpromise attached to it, and there was no coming back for me. I sobbed and wanted to find two more jobs just to fill up that jar.
I sigh and shiver under the blanket. I hug my steamingmug of tea in two hands now, and I’m trying not to think too much about the future we planned together once. With our house jar.
I miss that jar.
I miss the image—the dream of our future.
It was going to a lake house surrounded by trees and nature, right on the lake of Willow Springs. And now, if I close my eyes, I see it all perfectly—like a montage in a movie.
The house has windows, big ones—long and wide that flood the house in sunlight--we save on our electricity bills that way. The house is a bit green, sage almost because I let Christian pick it out, andmaybewe have a yellow door even if it doesn’t match because he surprised me while I was working and painted it.
We have a wrap around porch with rustic railing. We don’t have a garage but we have a driveway that has that pebble rock kind of thing, and we have a wooden dock on the lake that we sit on sometimes—where we count stars and point out shapes of clouds. Where we sit and kick the water with our toes before we get in for a swim on a sweaty summer day.
After, he lays me down and makes love to me on that dock, and we’re completely naked because we have no neighbors for at least a mile or two. We laugh and giggle as he makes love to me, just because.
Just because we’re two love drunk fools with a fate there is no returning from.
And in the mornings, sometimes, he isn’t in bed so I put his t-shirt or sweatshirt over my head, pull on a pair of his boxers because I love stealing them from him, and go downstairs. He’s already made breakfast, set out our plates and filled my glass with orange juice.
He kisses me good morning and sits next to me while weeat. Sometimes, he plays soft music and he asks me to dance with him in the spot where the sun is coming through the glass of our backdoor, warming the floors. And I dance with him because we have nowhere else to be but in each other’s arms and, this is our life.
At night, I cook dinner sometimes because I find a new recipe online and have convinced myself I could master it in one go. I don’t, not always, but he eats it anyway and tells me he loves it. After dinner, we go to our patio and he grabs a thick blanket to wrap around us, and he holds me as the sun sets.
He kisses my head and tells me he loves me. I tell him I know.
He kisses my lips, and I kiss him back, and sometimes our kisses progress—as most of our kisses do—and we’re naked on our patio. And I’m on top of his body, kissing his perfectly sculpted lips, taking him inside of me, and he fits perfectly.
We were made for each other and there is nothing else to it.
And that’s our life in our lake house.
After he left, those were my dreams at night. And in the morning, I’d cry about them. Sleep was safe because I would not have to wake up and wish I was not alive. I would not have to wake up and feel broken. Like all of my dreams were pulled out from under me.
“Lana?”
I blink, and the dream is gone. But it’s okay because I see a better one in front of me wearing gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt. “Hey.”
“What are you doing out here, baby? It’s cold.”
I shrug. “I couldn’t go back to sleep.” I take a sip of my tea. “You?”
“Me either,” he says and sits on the other end of the couch.
I bite my lip and move it back and forth between my teeth, watching how he shivers just a tiny bit. I take some of my yellow blanket and put nearly a half of it over his thighs and his hand comes over mine. He holds it, his fingers curling and touching my palm, his thumb bushing up and down the back of my hand.
“Thank you,” Christian breathes, and I swear I could kiss him. “Are you okay?”
I nod and take a small sip of tea. “I’m okay. You?”
“I’m good.” He leans to his side against the arm rest. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“My birthday,” he rasps and looks down at our hands on his lap. He picks at the callous on his palm with his thumbnail. “I haven’t really celebrated my birthday like that.”
“You haven’t celebrated your birthday in four years?”
