Secret: I don’t feel like myself. Promise: Even if I change, the core of who I am will always stay the same… Always.
Love,
Scarlett Gorgeous
P.S. Sometimes I get the feeling Puddin’ can see me even though I’m an ocean away. Does he get the feeling that I can see him too? Even if only through smoke and mirrors…
Sealing the letter in an envelope, I dropped it in the basket on my dresser. The basket was a suggestion of Maggie Beautiful’s. When my correspondence time would go longer than she felt normal, her letters would come in threes, sometimes fives.
Sometimes the only words on the paper would be,Are you okay, doll?Let me hear from you.(She claimed that she forgot from time to time that telephones were a thing.) My schedule would often keep me so busy that my letters would sit on my dresser collecting dust.
Alas, the reminder basket.
Not able to turn my eyes from the dresser, I stared at the envelope, the shadow of it crawling along the wall, towering over me. The promise inside gave it a heartbeat.
Even if I change, the core of who I am will always stay the same… Always.
Who was I trying to convince, Maggie Beautiful or me?
The thoughts rushing in terrified me to the core. What if I lost…what if I lost what we had shared? What if change was sometimes irrevocable? We had been apart for over three years. The separation felt too great, and with no end in sight, how much longer could the love we shared survive?
Separation makes the heart grow fonder, true, but after so long, the heart might never forget, but life moves on.What if I became a woman he couldn’t recognize, a woman he couldn’t love?
The blow came at the last, when the mirror the absinthe held smashed against my jagged heart.
Will I ever see him again?
Whatever had started to blossom inside of me became too hard to contain, and my skin felt stretched, as though it burned with the containment. I wondered if caterpillars had to go through the same struggle when their wings burst through.
Would the patterns be worth the pain?
Bringing my legs up to my chest, I leaned my head against my knees. There were many reasons why I shouldn’t. Only one reason why I should.
So I did.
I reached for the phone and made the call.
Chapter Six
Brando
Rig work took me away from Natchitoches two weeks out of four. I took the job knowing damn well why I had done it. The job provided distance, some control of the wild thoughts the beast seemed to conjure up from his cage—claim what’s yours—and decent wages.
During my two weeks off I would pick up extra shifts at the refinery and do a little work around the house on Snow.
I didn’t like to linger there. The house never felt complete without her in it. But it was also a reminder of what we had shared and what could be. The promise would suck me in and I’d sleep like all the time in the world belonged to me. The rest gave me enough peace to face another day.
My life had become routine. The short stint I had spent in the Coast Guard as a rescue swimmer helped me out with that some. In order to survive the separation, I had needed something bigger than me to keep me in line. It worked, for a while. Still, the routine helped keep my head on straight.
The rent was always paid on time, and there was enough money to put away for a rainy day afterward. Maggie Beautiful kept up the inside of the house while I was gone. The roses in the backyard were surviving.
It’ll do.
Not long after I was hired offshore, Mitch decided he needed the same escape, and we ended up working on the same oil rig together. The Gulf of Mexico was usually a peaceful place to be, especially during sunrise and sunset, but sometimes when the water was rough and so damn murky that it reminded me of the oil we were syphoning, it would mimic the turmoil inside.
Mitch understood.
We would sit in the chaos of the storm, an understanding passing through us like a current.
