Physical therapy starts next week, and luckily the leg I broke was my left, so I can drive.
After the accident, I called my boss and told her I needed a year.
One year to clear my head. I need to reevaluate what I’m doing and where I’m going. Being a lawyer was all I ever wanted, but the reality didn’t live up to the dream.
After physical therapy, I’m leaving Agua Mesa. I don’t know where I’m going, but it’s going to be somewhere with water. My soul needs a drink.
Lennon visits me whenever she can. So does Finn. They both have a lot going on right now.
Lennon’s mother’s accounts held enough money to keep Lennon comfortable into perpetuity, assuming she doesn’t go wild and start eating caviar and buying yachts. She won’t. That’s not the lifestyle Lennon wants, even if she could have it.
Seeing Lennon is just about the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done. I still want her. Less now than at first, but the feelings don’t just disappear. My brain knows she’s Finn’s, but my heart has been slow on the uptake.
At first I was angry. The days following my release from the hospital were filled with rage. My leg was frozen in a cast and I didn’t get the girl. I tried to take it on the chin, to straighten my broad shoulders and carry that shitty load, but eventually it got the better of me.
The first time Lennon came to visit, I told her to leave. She understood. Maybe she’d even been expecting those words. She told me she’d be back in a week, and she was true to her word. The next time she came to visit, she told me she’d been to Dallas to quit her job and get her things packed. I didn’t ask where she was going; instead, I gave her the contact info for a financial advisor I trust.
She left that day, and my heart hurt. It was worse than the pain of her telling me she’d chosen Finn. That day in the hospital when I watched her fingers rub together and betray her nervousness, it felt like a butcher knife slicing through me. Now when she visits me, it feels more like being cut by a dull butter knife.
Finn visits too, but they never come together. Thank the fucking lord.
He doesn’t make me watch nineties movies, the way Lennon does when she comes over. I can recite every line fromClueless. I’m sure that’s a sought-after ability to add to my resume.
Finn brought over a card table. He’s been teaching me to play poker, which I’m surprisingly good at. Math was never my strong suit, but he’s a good teacher and I’m a quick learner. Someday, we’ll go to Vegas. Maybe for his bachelor party when he marries Lennon.
Fuck me.
In time, I’m sure I’ll get over it. Not yet though. It’s too fresh. This is the kind of wound that will take a while.
If I could’ve picked anybody for Lennon, I would’ve picked me. But if it can’t be me, I’m glad it’s Finn. Nobody else would love her the way we have.
* * *
Finn
She chose me.
I still can’t believe it. Not even now, as she lies beside me in my bed.
I prop my head on my hand and let my eyes wander over her. I’ll never get tired of this. I was a parched man offered eternal water, and I’ll never tire of drinking her in.
She’s lying on her side, snoring softly. Her back moves with her rhythmic breath. Her hair stops at her shoulder blades, and the sheet has moved down to her ribcage. She has a smattering of freckles across her upper back.
How is it that Lennon chose me? All along I believed I deserved her, that I was the better fit for her, that I loved her more, and when she chose me, all those thoughts fell away.
All I could think about was Brady, how he could’ve been right for her too.
Soul mates don’t have to be best-fitting. Maybe souls choose each other despite the parts of them that don’t fit together.
Lennon quit her job. She packed up her things at the apartment she shared with Laine, and together we drove from Dallas to my cabin. She helped me move my uncle here, and she helps me care for him. He doesn’t have much longer, but he loves it here. He watches the fish jump in the early morning and evening. He naps in the hammock I set up for him outside, and Lennon talks to him about his life. She’s learned more about him in the past few weeks than I have the entire time I’ve known him.
Apparently he has a thing for peach cobbler. How did I not know that?
Lennon figured it out, then she taught herself how to make it.
I don’t know what to do about his trailer in Agua Mesa. Maybe I’ll hook it up to my truck and drive it into the desert, throw a match on it and watch it burn to the ground.
Jeff did the best he could with what he had at the time, but I don’t need a trailer to remind me of that.
