Page 52 of Barefoot Dreams
“Hey.” I send him a quick wave and go back to plucking out the weeds.
“What are you doing here?” Jacob asks and I note a hint of worry in his tone.
“Just tending to my garden. Why are there so many weeds over here?” I ask, more to myself than him.
“Um, Jules, that’s great and all, but…it’s midnight.”
“What? It is?” I finally look up, my hands halting in the dirt. The sky is dark and littered with tiny stars as gray clouds threaten to hide them from the view.
I blink, looking from the sky to the ground and up again.
It’s dark out…
“Julie?” Jacob’s huge body crouches over mine. “Are you okay, bean?”
I didn’t notice it getting dark.
“I don’t know,” I admit honestly, because I never lie to my friend. “But I will be.”
“Okay, do we need a ducking intervention?” he asks in all seriousness, and it seems to do the trick because a laugh bubbles out of me. A wet, teary one, but a laugh nonetheless.
Jacob and his rubber ducks. The guy’s obsessed and it’s adorable. He owns every shirt possible with them and has more than enough stuffed ones around his house.
Any time someone isn’t feeling well, Jacob sits them in front of a row of those and leaves so we can talk about our feelings with someone who’ll never judge. His words, not mine, and I must admit, I love the ducking intervention.
It works.
“No, I think my garden helped this time.” I chuckle and attempt to get up from the ground. And it’s a feeble one because now that I’m trying to move, I realize just how long I’ve been sitting here and merely crawling from one box to another. My legs are aching and tingling all over.
I wince and Jacob is there to help me up.
“Just how long have you been out here?”
“Um, I’m not sure, actually. About six or maybe nine hours,” I admit, biting the inside of my cheek.
Jacob’s eyes grow wide. “Julie! Nine hours? You’ve been out here for nine fucking hours? Just what the hell has happened?” It’s rare, so rare for our loving Viking to get worked up so.
“I promise, I’ll tell you. Just not now. Anyway, what are you doing out here this late?”
Jacob simply nods and accepts my subject change. “I was on my way to LPs.”
“LPs? This late?”
“I know, but I’ve just got this feeling that I’m supposed to be there, you know?”
“Then stop wasting your time on little old me here and get down there.” I push him lightly toward the town down below.
Jacob and I both share the belief that you must follow your heart and do what feels right. Always. No matter what.
“Let’s go then.” Jacob holds out his arm. “Your place is on the way,” he says, knowing if he leaves, I’ll stay here until morning and he’s just stubborn enough to stay with me.
And miss following his feeling. Who knows, what if it’s the love of his life on the other end of that feeling?
I sigh, resignation filling my bones and start walking with a grinning Jacob trailing behind me. I could stay here forever, just hiding out in my happy place, talking to my plants who’ve always shown me their love freely until I’m numb with cold, but Jacob is right, I need to go home and deal with the broken dreams.
For nine glorious hours, I’ve covered them up, now it’s time to—no, not throw away. I’ll never do that. Dreams are precious, even the failed and broken ones, they are there to teach us something important, so I simply put them into the memory box where they belong.
Where my love for my brother’s best friend had always belonged.
