Page 51 of Country Road Romance

The real joy of the drive, though, was just how beautiful it was. The road curved along the ridge, which meant that you could look out on the hills and valleys on either side. Small farms were scattered along the hilltops, and the trees were also in their most beautiful state. It had been just the right amount of wet and dry this year, which meant that the splendor was even more vibrant than usual.

Even though he would never have admitted it aloud, Jared actually felt like he was home.

Finally they came within the last few miles of Annamoriah.

“Are you ready to see the sprawling metropolis that I spent my formative years in?” he asked.

“I told you before that I was looking forward to getting to see the place that you grew up,” Charlie said, “and I meant it. I do wonder, though, why you’re so intent on being so down on it. Was it really that bad?”

Jared was honestly not sure how to answer that. He hadn’t had the worst time of it in high school. A select few people had known he was gay, and for the most part people didn’t make a big deal out of it, but there was still a pervasive feeling of homophobia. It was there in the way that people would look at him while he walked down the hallway, and the way that they would sometimes lean over to whisper to one another.

He tried to explain some of this to Charlie, but he finally got frustrated with his inability to convey exactly what he meant and went silent.

“I guess a lot of it might have been in my head,” he admitted.

Charlie shook his head. “I don’t think you were necessarily imagining all of it,” he said. “Things were different when we were growing up, and it’s true that West Virginia, particularly small-town West Virginia, can be very reluctant to change its ways and come into the 21st century. But still, don’t you have any fond memories of high school and your hometown that you like to think about sometimes?”

Jared rather wondered why Charlie was being so insistent about this, but he decided to humor him and try to think about some of the things about his home that he actually liked. It ended up being surprisingly easy.

“Well,” he said, drawing the word out, “I like the way that my school was small enough that you knew everyone from the time that you were in kindergarten until you graduated from high school. By the time it was over you felt like you really understoodeveryone else, that you’d been through it and survived. I like the way that we’d all get together to go to the two restaurants in town, gathering every Friday night after the football game. I love the ice cream shop that used to make sundaes that were even better than Dairy Queen’s.”

His face fell. “Unfortunately most of those places aren’t in business anymore.” He barked a bitter laugh. “I’m afraid that the 21st century hasn’t been as kind to Annamoriah as it has been to some other places in West Virginia.” He sighed. “I wish that it was different, but that’s just the way it is sometimes.”

For the first time, Jared really took a minute to think about what it meant that Annamoriah wasn’t the same town that it had been when he was growing up. He still felt a lot of fondness for it, but it was a shadow of its former self, and this impression only got more intense as they came within the limits of the town itself. There were far more empty storefronts than there had been when he was in school. The saddest were those that still had a few objects left in their front windows, a reminder of what they used to be.

“It’s not much to look at, is it?” Jared asked as they drove down Main Street.

At least the library is still open,he thought glumly.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Charlie said, as always trying to look on the bright side. “There’s something cute about it. Looking around at it, you can see what it used to be, and you can also see what it might be if someone cared enough to pour some money and energy into it.”

Jared tried to hide his skepticism about that particular idea. It wasn’t that he didn’t think Annamoriah and its residents didn’t deserve another chance to flourish; it was just that he didn’t think there was likely to be any sort of movement on that front, not anytime soon, anyway. Still, he wasn’t going to pour water on Charlie’s idea.

“You know,” Charlie went on, “I can actually see a way in which this town could reinvent itself as a little artist colony, like a lot of the small towns in the southern part of the state have been doing. There could be little galleries and shops. Local artisans could offer classes and stuff. Surely there are enough people here with the artsy spirit to make it work, right?”

“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t been that plugged into things here for a very long time.”

“You should think about asking your parents about it. They might even want to get in on the act.”

Jared didn’t think that much was likely. Neither of his parents were particularly artistic in temperament, but maybe it was worth a try.

For a while he just sort of drove around the town aimlessly, showing Charlie all of the places that meant something to him: the public library (obviously), but also his old high school (which had been converted into a community center once the whole county consolidated), and the small town market which doubled as a pizza shop (and which, like the library, was still miraculously open). Charlie kept asking questions, as if he really did want to know about both the place and Jared’s relationship to it.

This guy is really too good to be true,he thought.

There was, finally, just one last place that he wanted to take Charlie to, the one place that he’d always been able to find peace and welcome, even when the rest of his life felt like shit.

He was going to take him to Streeter Park.

There was something more than a little miraculous about this little bit of green space that sat on the edge of town. It had been in Annamoriah since its founding in the 1800s and, despite all of the ups and downs it had faced over the years, it had somehow managed to stay largely the same. It was as it alwayshad been: a little island of green beauty in the midst of a town that had seen better days.

Even though it was fall, there hadn’t yet been a hard frost, so the roses were still blooming in their beds. Once upon a time Jared had actually been pretty good friends with the gardener, but he’d passed away while he was in undergrad. Jared didn’t know who was in charge of them now, but whoever they were, they were doing a very good job at making sure that they were kept pruned and fertilized. Their heady scent filled the air, while the nearby creek chattered away in its bank.

“Other than the hill near my parents’ place, this was the one place where I could always go and feel at peace with the world.” He ducked his head shyly, still a bit uncomfortable at sharing this little piece of himself with Charlie, still afraid that he might turn his nose up at it.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Charlie asked. “Let’s get out and explore it a bit!”

Jared was a bit nervous to get out of the car–there was no point in keeping Charlie out of the spotlight if they managed to get spotted by someone, after all–but Charlie waved that concern away, gesturing toward the empty park.

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