I’ve not stepped foot in this town sincethathappened when I was eighteen.
Thirteen yearsago.
I couldn’t. Not after what I’d done toher.
I believed some bullshit and let it consume me.Fuck,what I’d done to everyone in our town. I was so consumed by a lie; I shut the whole world out. If it was only up to me, I’d have burned the whole fucking thing a long time ago.
I left thirteen years ago, thinking I’d be back at Christmas. Yet, I couldn’t stay away, so I returned; only forthat incidentto occur and then I was gone again.
No explanation to anyone.
Not even toher.
Drowning in my grief for years before finally finding out it wasn’t true. But by that time, the damage was already done, by none other than my myself.
Yet here I am, coming home thirteen fucking years later.
“Fuck!” I shout, slamming my hand onto the steering wheel.
If I’m already this worked up before I even arrive, what the hell am I gonna do when I’m there?
Driving along the road, the fields rolls past me as quickly as they come into my eyeline. Fields full of cattle and sheep. Some fields full of the wildflowers thatsheloved so much.
I can see the sign in the distance, and I think back to when I once loved nothing more than driving past this sign.
Every single time I did, my girl was sitting right beside me in the passenger seat of my truck, always heading to cause some trouble. Or running away from it. Either way, she was there, but she isn’t now.
Welcome to Springfield, Tennessee
Holy shit.
I’m actually going back.
Looking over my shoulder, the piles of bags and suitcases that I rammed into the back of my truck two days ago, look right back at me.
I’m done.
I’m done pretending that I love my life.
I’m really done fucking my way through California, trying to fill the void that I caused myself when I left her all those years ago.
I’m done in my boring office job.
I’m exhausted pretending I don’t want to come home.
Most importantly, I’m done with these panic attackscaused by an invisible magnetic pull that’s yearning for me to come back to this small town where I left everything behind.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll never regret the business degree that I obtained at Cal Tech. If anything I’m so proud of myself over it. What I’m certainly not proud of is the fact that I completely threw away the reason why I studied it in the first place.
I’ve always had a good head on my shoulders, numbers never fazed me, and I always come up with some pretty great ideas, and how I could make the great idea happen. Which way I should take and what the pros and cons would be on executing said idea.
This is why I was supposed to go away and then come home to put all this in place on my parent’s horse ranch.
I was supposed to take the ranch as far as I could.
Except, I didn’t.
Because I never came back.
