Page 50 of Under the Texas Sky
The time in the cab of his semi-truck was spent with him telling me about all the different states he’s seen. The bright lights of major cities, the wide expanse of nothing except grass and crops. But his favorite was Arizona. It was home for him, even if he lived in Texas then. So when he hit the city, he dropped me off at a local hotel where he knew the owner and wished me luck. I haven’t seen him since, but I think about him all the time.
Trent turns my laptop back around, and I try to look at the picture through his eyes.
My goal was to find the tallest saguaro cactus. I packed my cheap camera, water bottles, and snacks, and Willow drove me around for hours until I found the perfect one. The sky was a myriad of colors as the sun set. A deep indigo, with splashes of yellow, pink, orange, and blue. It was as if an angel took a paint brush and created the perfect sky.
Of course, a camera can’t capture what the eyes can truly see, so I’ve been working on editing the colors to make them resemble what it really looked like.
“I’m serious, Ki, it’s amazing.” Trent’s hand inches toward mine, like he wants to touch me.
I want to let him touch me, but I won’t be able to stop there. Not after this long apart. I pull my hand back slightly, and I see the line of hurt cross his face before he shuts it down completely.
Shit, that isn’t what I wanted to do at all. I slide my hand back closer to his, but it’s too late, the damage is already done. He’s scooting back in his chair and standing up. He leaves his coffee on the table, with only a sip taken out of it.
“I’ll see you around,” he says, turning his back and walking away.
“Trent, wait,” I call out, hoping he’ll look back at me and I can fix this.
The door opens, and he’s gone.
???
“Will, I don’t know what to do,” I moan into the phone. I called her as soon as I got back to my hotel room, because she’s my best friend, and she more than anyone will know what to do in a time like this.
“What happened?” The concern in her voice makes me wish she was here with me. She would hold me while I try not to cry, and then come up with a game plan to fix it. But she’s not here, so we have to do our best with thirteen hours in between us.
I rehash everything to her, from the moment I walked into the coffee shop until the moment Trent walked out.
“Kian, I love you. I really, really do. But what the fuck were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t! I didn’t know if he was going to try to soothe me as a friend, or if he wanted to hold my hand. I need it to be more than a friend, Willow. I can’t be with him just as friends. My heart will break.” Even more than it already has.
“I understand that, but you have to realize that both of you have made choices. Do you not remember what happened before I found you?”
Yes I remember, but I need Trent more than I need to think about what drove us apart in the first place.
“I’m just saying,” she goes on, “you need to think about this. I meanreallythink about it. It’s not just you and him anymore. He has a boyfriend.”
I don’tcareabout his boyfriend. That’s a small blip on my radar. I’ll worry about that later. “I want to be with him, Willow. He’s–”Everything. He’s my everything, and he always has been.
“Whatever you do, you know that I’ll support you.”
I sniff trying to hold back the tears, because if this does work out with me and Trent, I’ll be leaving Willow behind. “Will you move to Texas?” I ask her. “I’ll build you a she-shed in my backyard.”
She laughs, but I can hear the slight crack in it. “You don’t have to build me a she-shed. I don’t know if anything you do will convince me to move to Texas.”
“Just think about it.”
“I will. Love you, Kian.”
“Love you.”
The line disconnects, and I stare at the wall in the hotel room, tracing lines over the wallpaper with my eyes.
I need to make a checklist, that’ll help me know what I need to do.
See Mitch.
