Soon, I was back in the car, feeling like I finally had some purpose. This side of the pass seemed easy enough to drive down without feeling like I had to keep braking, and it wasn’t long before the view took my breath away. Suddenly, I was in a huge valley that appeared to widen the farther south it went. It was prairie-like, but not like the prairie where I’d grown up. There was a lot more brush here and fewer cacti—but it still felt like Colorado.
The clouds were starting to blow away, and I felt myself smile as I gave the car more gas to go the speed limit as the road flattened out.
Then my phone rang.
Oh, yeah…I’d left it on. Before picking it up to see who was calling, I prayed it wasn’t Braden. I wasn’t ready to have a conversation with him yet. I knew I’d have to at some point—and I’d deserve every ounce of his anger and grief—but I wasn’t strong enough right now to handle it.
It was Zack.
Shit.
I hadn’t really had time to process at all…and it would have been so easy to blame all this on him—but I knew he didn’t deserve that, any more than Braden had deserved my treatment of him. All Zack had done had been to expose the lie I’d been telling myself over the past two years.
And I realized it would be easier to talk to him than Braden—but I would have to be smart. If he asked me to talk to Braden now, I’d have to decline. So I slid my finger across my phone to answer the call and then tapped the Speaker button—trying like hell to keep my voice steady. “Yeah?”
“Hey…are you okay?”
“I have no idea,” I said, watching through my rearview mirror as a big truck approached quickly and then zipped around to pass me. He was probably going at least eighty, familiar with these roads. Even though this one seemed to be flat and straight, I was driving slower than I had when I’d escaped my fate.
And I realized…I was beginning to feel some weird sense of inner peace—something I’d never felt before. Maybe when I was five years old…but it was a foreign sensation, one I hoped to hold onto.
“Can I…come talk to you?”
I pondered it. This man and I, we’d been through so much together: some good times, a shit ton of bad ones, some downright nasty. But, through it all, I realized he was still my friend. Even had I not been with Braden, I knew we’d never work as a couple, because we had far too many flaws that we’d never be able to work through. But he would always be my friend…and maybe right now I needed one.
“Yeah, okay. I’m heading to the San Dunes. I’m not sure when I’ll get there, but that’s where I’ll be.”
And, with that, I landed in the Great Sand Dunes National Park a little over an hour later, ready to figure out my life.
Although the sunwas finally out in full when I parked in the lot at the San Dunes, having paid the admission fee, I kept the hoodie on. There were lots of cars there as well, so I expected it to feel crowded. But as I walked past the leafless trees bordering the sand and the sign announcing I had arrived, I realized that the people there were scattered, few and far between. There was a desert of sand that looked to be between a quarter and half a mile before the base of the dunes, and I had to cross several small streams of water just past the trees, just like I’d remembered from childhood.
All I had with me were Roxy’s keys, my phone in the big pocket at the front of the hoodie, and a bottle of water in my right hand. Why I took the phone was a mystery, considering I didn’t have a signal, but it was perhaps a bit of a security blanket. As I looked ahead, I decided to scale the dune directly in front of me. There were so many, making me imagine I was in the Sahara Desert, a place I’d only ever seen in movies and documentaries, and I was filled with awe that such a beautiful place existed in my home state. Over the past few years, I’d been eager to see the world, visiting places I never would have were it not for touring with the band…and yet there was so much breathtaking beauty and wonder so close to home.
There was a breeze that reminded me how chilly it was, so I turned a bit to stop catching it full in the face. From that vantage point, I was able to see more of the Sangre de Cristo range, standing tall and proud, still covered in snow. I sat at the top of the dune and looked around.
And then I thought.
Who was I? What did I want out of life? And when the hell would I grow the fuck up?
What I’d done was, perhaps, childish. Trying to give myselfto Braden wholeheartedly had never worked, but I’d lied to myself for so long. And why was that?
It was ugly inside myself, but I had to try.
And I realized so many things. In terms of love, I’d felt insecure. I wasn’t sure where it all stemmed from, but I could make a lot of guesses. First, there was my own shitty father, a man I could barely remember and didn’t care for. I hadn’t had much of a role model there. In fact, the only functional relationship I could point to was that of my grandparents.
Then there was Ava’s influence, all her grandiose ideas of love. How many times had she insisted we get married right out of high school? During our eighth-grade year, she’d said multiple times that we’d have to score the most eligible bachelors before some other pretty girl did.
Yes…I’d kind of looked at my value as being attached to a man—something I’d rebelled against as I’d come into my own. After leaving high school, I’d seen how women were treated by men, and part of me wanted nothing to do with them.
And yet I yearned for Zack. When exactly had I fallen in love with him? Although I could pinpoint specific moments where my feelings had amped up, it wasn’t one specific point in time. It was, instead, something that had happened by degrees as I’d gotten to know him more and more.
But had I loved Zack—or had I been enamored of theideaof him?
This required a figurative retracing of all my steps.
We’d had so much in common, had loved so many of the same things—and something inside him had always spoken to me. As I thought back over our history, I knew I had loved him. Perhaps it was an immature kind of love, but I’d cared for him to the depths of my soul.
His constant rejection had chipped away at what little confidence I’d had, making me feel desperate to be wantedand adored—and Braden had stepped into that void, allowing me to feel validated for possibly the first time ever, making me feel appreciated and loved for who I was rather than who I thought I should be. And who I’d thought I should have been was all centered around Zack and his acceptance.
