Though I wouldn’t trade the last two months with Easton for anything, the juggling act is starting to wear on me. Glancing over into my father’s office, I feel the sting due to the purposeful distance I’ve been putting between us. I miss being candid with him about every aspect of my life, including my relationships. I miss having beers with him after work, an invitation I’ve been turning down more frequently as of late. I briefly wonder if Easton could be right—if I am making too much of a deal about our parents’ history. I’ve never been afraid of my father, no matter how badly I screwed up. Maybe the solution is just a matter of walking into his office, confessing, apologizing, and explaining myself.
Being with Easton no longer feels like a decision to hurt him but a choice that makes me happy. Deliriously happy. The past eight weeks have undoubtedly been the best granted to me personally, and Dad has made it clear throughout my life that my every happiness is his. Intent on coming clean sooner than later, I begin to type out a text to Easton, knowing I’ve gone too long without a reply. Especially since he thinks I’m angry with him.
I compose a quick response, the same text I’ve typed a dozen times in the past week.
I love you.
I backspace those three words because delivering them via text is not how I want to admit my feelings for him, but right now, it’s the only reply I genuinely want to give. Instead, I dole out the raw honesty he’s made so easy for me to relay back to him in our time together.
I miss you, too. So much. I needed to hear your voice, too.
I hit send and immediately start typing again.
I don’t want to hide anymore. If that means being reckless and stupid, then I’ll be reckless and stupid with you. Being with you makes me happy. Everyone close to me can see a difference in me, and I want to tell them why. I want to tell them who you are and what you mean to me. Who I belong to and with. I’m not mad, I swear, and I’ll relay that to your cock myself, which by the way, isn’t broken, but only answers to its new owner. Drive Safe. XX
I shoot out the second text without an ounce of hesitation before I start to spell-check my article. Ten minutes pass without a response, and I deflate, knowing he’s driving.
Making good on my promise to Holly, I call her back during lunch at the three-hour mark, chatting as if I don’t have a boulder growing in the pit of my stomach with every minute my text goes unanswered.
Pissed I only have my fucking horse to vent to over my emotional vomit-induced texts, I read them repeatedly, worrying I might have revealed too much. When five hours pass by without a reply, and I am certain he’s already parked the van in Salt Lake, panic sets in. I didn’t say anything out of the ordinary for us. He’s expressed far more about his growing feelings for me than I have thus far, and never once has he led me to believe this relationship isn’t serious. If anything, he’s catapulted us in this direction, and I’ve flown fearlessly with the ease in which he lavishes me his affection.
My fear only increases as I check my phone throughout the duration of my workday until the office slowly starts to empty because, for the rest of the day, my texts are unanswered.
Wild Horses
The Sundays
Natalie
Feeling glum on the drive home, I do my best to bury my growing insecurity away. Did he turn off his phone to avoid a fight? I reconsider that train of thought because that’s not Easton.
I teased him about being whipped, but he must know it was said in jest, and I’m equally as enamored. He said I wouldn’t win in that standoff, but would he purposely not reply to prove that point?
“Stop it,” I scold myself as my seatbelt alarm dings, a ding I now associate with my boyfriend’s constant harping. Buckling up, I slow at a stoplight behind a row of cars and glance out of my window, pausing when I see Emo’s, an Austin venue the Dead Sergeants often played when they started out. This detail I remember well because, in the movie, it’s where Stella caught Reid singing in memory of her. I conjure the scene clearly—the actress who played Stella crying hysterically at the foot of the stage as Ben pointed out she was there. Reid had leaped from behind his drums and collided with her. For me, it’s the most memorable scene of the film. A substantial part of Reid and Stella’s history lines these streets, especially Sixth, the one I’m currently on. Briefly, I imagine a younger Stella roaming downtown Austin, daydreaming of making a name for herself in journalism while tirelessly working toward her future. An image of Reid behind his drums, fighting similarly for his own dream, skitters in as a horn blares behind me.