I pull the thimble from my pocket, offering it to Oakley. His head cocks as he plucks it from my palm, a floral design painted onto its surface. I feel as if my heart might beat right out of my chest as I wait for him to say something. Anything.
His blue-and-brown eyes meet mine, a smile in them I recognize.
Without a word, Oakley scrambles upright. I watch as he swings the willow branches out of his way, jogging over to the nearby tree line. He stops before his namesake—an oak tree—and scours the ground.
When he comes back, it’s with a wide grin on his face. The sun shines on his hair as the willow branches sway backinto place, making me believe, for a moment, he really could fly covered in pixie dust like that. He grabs my hand, and I automatically open my fingers.
Oakley sets an acorn in the well of my palm, small and nearly weightless. Peter gave Wendy an acorn button. This is even better.
I close my fingers around the token of friendship, and Oakley does the same to his thimble. He holds out his pinkie, and there’s no question. I curl mine with his.
“I promise, Law. No matter how old we get, nothing is going to change. I’m your best friend, and you’re mine. And we’ll always be together. ’Kay?”
I nod in a fierce jerk, wanting desperately to believe the words of my friend. But belief is a tricky thing, as ever-changing as time, as elusive as pixies. If you don’t hold on to it tight enough, you might just look back to find it gone.
I tighten my pinkie around Oakley’s, his promise digging into my palm.
I won’t let go. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.
“The two of us,” I say in kind, my own vow. “Forever.”
My hands flex, the rough leather of my steering wheel digging against my palms as the memory from so long ago fades into the highway in front of me. My truck’s headlights cut through the early morning darkness, dawn not yet having arrived. I’ve been on the road for over twenty-four hours, only stopping briefly to rest and refuel.
I passed the border into Kansas an hour ago, my hometown of Darling, Montana far in the rearview.
My hands flex again, the acorn no longer curled within my palm but tucked safely away inside the center console beside my seat. I fight the urge to check on it only to lose. Popping the compartment open, I fish out the small acorn, the curveof it familiar and comforting, even as I’ve often wondered if a person my age should keep such a thing.
It was given to me thirty-two years ago.
Surely a token shouldn’t mean the same at forty-three as it did at eleven. But I’ve never forgotten the promise made that day.
Friendship that would never change. Would never fall victim to the passage of time.
It was a promise broken. And I aim to rectify that.
The cap of the acorn is rough beneath my thumb as I toy with it, taking the turn off the highway that my GPS guides me down. The anger I’ve been trying my best not to entertain returns, the fire of it hot in my chest.
It’s not fair to be mad at Oakley. That’s what I keep telling myself. We’renoteleven anymore. Or eighteen. Or, heck, thirty. We did grow up as we had to, but he left. He left, and now I’m alone.
I’m alone when he promised I never would be.
I can’t put the blame on him for my recent divorce. Losing my home of nineteen years in the separation isn’t his fault either.
But none of it changes the fact that Iammad. Rightfully so or not, I’m damn pissed at my friend for leaving Montana and not coming back.
And he’s gonna know it.
My GPS gives another direction I follow, Oakley’s house in the countryside looming closer as the dawn sun breaks over the horizon. It’s early in the day to arrive unannounced, but Oakley wakes with the birds. Always has. It’s part of a cowboy’s lifestyle, whether that cowboy is in Montana or Kansas.
And Oakley Beaumont? That man is a cowboy down to the tips of his steel-toed leather boots.
I pull carefully down his drive, my truck rolling over stones and dirt as his house comes into view. My swallow is heavy as I turn off the ignition, the silence that follows stifling. I place the acorn back into its home before shutting the compartment door. My palms feel sweaty now that I’m finally here after my rather impulsive decision to chase down my wayward friend.
I haven’t seen him in person in three years. Not since I was forced to say a reluctant goodbye.
Dust kicks up when my boots hit the drive. All is quiet save the typical sounds of the countryside. A few animals nearby making their morning calls. A vehicle passing out on the road. An engine kicking into life. Tractor, as far as I can tell. But Oakley’s house is still.
I make my way to the front door, wiping my palms on my jeans as I ascend the couple steps. My heart is racing, anger swirling with the desperate need I have to set eyes on Oakley again. To reassure myself that he’s well and whole, despite him telling me on our phone calls that he is. I don’t know whether I want to punch him or hug him, but I figure I’ll decide once he opens the door.
