by J. R. Rogue
She’s petite, lithe. Slim legs and toned arms. She doesn’t have that extra depression weight I’ve slowly been shedding. “Over ten years,” she answers. “Not so much this year, though.” She points down to the brace on her knee. “Aging is a real bitch. And maybe it isn’t aging. Maybe genetics are a bitch. My mom has bad knees.”
“My mom had wide hips.” I laugh, clutching my rib. “So I run to combat that.” It’s a joke. You can’t fight something like that.
Ahead of us, Brooklyn carries on at a steady pace. We both eye her, envious of her age and body that suffers no resistance. I’m jealous of her heart; it’s unscathed.
“What’s your married life like?” I ask, ribs already aching.
“I get to live with and travel the world with my favorite person.” She smiles at me as we trudge along.
“Your best friend?” I ask.
“Nah, Kat’s my best friend. I’ve never been one of those I want to marry my best friend kind of people. Kat’s my best friend, and Chace can’t replace that.”
“My husband and I weren’t best friends,” I admit. “And I don’t even have a best friend anymore. I lost my favorite person and any friend I had in the divorce.” I have my mother, but she isn’t a car ride away. I miss her so much, already.
“How did you lose them?” Sera asks.
“When my husband and I split up, I really needed my best friend back home,” I say, speaking of Joanne for the first time out loud in months. “I needed movie nights and takeout dinners. I needed someone willing to be low-key with me. I needed someone to be there. But she needed someone to go bar hopping with her. She needed someone to get drunk with her. Someone to start a little drama. We fed off it once, but, that phase of my life was over. That’s shit you do in your twenties. So, she started hanging out wherever my husband was hanging out. We all had mutual friends, but it felt like a betrayal. I was home alone, and she was out with them. And she would lie about it, leave out details.”
I feel tears spring to my eyes. The betrayal is buried in my gut. I rarely spit it out.
“When someone does that—lies by omission—they know they’re doing something wrong,” Sera says.
“Yeah.” I sigh. “And I never called her out on it, because it felt too pathetic. Why would I want her to hang out with me when it was painfully obvious she found my heartbreak boring? Too much to handle?”
I didn’t have anyone to turn to other than my mom, so I started therapy. And it broke my heart that the one person who could stomach my pain was someone I paid to listen to me.
“Just like Brooklyn said, in any relationship—love or friendship—you shouldn’t have to convince someone to want you or want to be with you,” Sera says.
The words hurt to hear. They echo our earlier conversation, reaching every insecurity I have over family, friends, and lovers.
“In a lot of ways, it hurt worse than the divorce. Because I was truly alone.” I needed Joanne, and she made me feel like a burden.
“Why didn’t you leave town then?” Sera asks.
“I was scared. I didn’t know where I wanted to live. Hell, I still don’t know now, and the world is scary. It’s scary when you live in a little town and you know everyone. I wanted to leave, but I didn’t know where to go. And I had my mother there. I didn’t want to leave her. But, she moved to Hawaii with her newest boyfriend, soon to be husband.” Maybe that’s why I’m here in Tennessee, closer to the only parent I have nearby. Even though he has no idea, and probably still wouldn’t choose me.
“How did you find out about my retreats?” she asks.
“I was on my phone, in bed, eating Oreos. I had a Christmas movie on, and I’d been crying. I was Googling things to make me happy, just fantasies and stuff. I’d been suffering through writer’s block for a while already, so the name stuck out.”
“Are you writing now? On your own? Without Hunter?” she asks.
I look around at the trees, the dense woods of the Smoky Mountains. Everything is different here—the air, the atmosphere. I can breathe. And I can write.
“Hunter and I tried to write a song, and we got a lot out. But then we got distracted with each other. And since he’s been gone?” I pause. “Yes. I have no idea what it is, but I am writing.”
“The what doesn’t matter until you’re about thirty-K into it. Then you have to worry about what’s coming out of you. I hope you’ll participate this week,” she says, referencing the poetry week ahead.
“Okay, I’ll keep an open mind to it.” I don’t tell her I wrote a poem after I learned Hunter was gone.
“Is Hunter the muse for what you’ve written?”
I shake my head. “What?” I sound like a little thief, caught. How does she do that?
“I had writer’s block once. It was the worst time of my life. So I went back to Missouri. I met Chace, and he opened the floodgates. I haven’t been blocked since. I’m married to my favorite person and my muse. Every day I wake up to his face and I want to write. I keep my laptop near the bed. He’s in every hero.”
“It sounds like he deserves to be the hero.”
“Hunter doesn’t?” she asks as we get closer to the cabin. I can see Brooklyn already bounding the front steps, waving at us in victory.
“I guess I’ll see,” I muse, slowing toward the cabin and all the new faces that await us inside.
Why Can’t We
Hunter
Time can move pretty damn quickly when you’re standing in place. My life’s been one of routine. I go to work. I come home. I cook dinner. I go to the gym. I go to the grocery store. I go to bed. I repeat. Some weekends I do shows. Some I go out with the guys. It’s rare, though. I write when I have time. I play with my dog in the yard.
Now that I’m back from Tennessee, my routine’s changed a little. I still go to work. I still cook dinner. I still go to the gym. I still write.
And then, I think about Sonnet. I think about Nashville and our past. I think about the damn cabin and the way her skin felt when I touched her.
Georgia, and my life here, is changing. My mom has finally joined my dad in retirement. They bought a camper, and they’ll be loading up their dogs soon to drive to the Grand Canyon. They’re ready to explore, see more of the world.
I wonder what I’ll do when I retire. Twenty-something years can go by in a flash. If I’m not careful, I’ll be living on a farm all alone when the work is done. To be honest, I never wanted to be someone who worked their life away. I wanted to sing for a living. I wanted my life to be about music. But we don’t always get what we want.
You make promises to people. You make promises to your children. Even when you don’t say them out loud, you’re making promises.
I wish I’d made some damn promises to Sonnet out loud. All the promises that ran through my mind when I was around her.
Her name hasn’t graced my phone since I left Tennessee. I see her posts. Pictures of the fire pit in Gatlinburg. Pictures of Brooklyn and Sera. She couldn’t be in better hands, and I know friendship is somethin’ lacking in her life since things went sour with Joanne. It’s good to see her smile, but I know what lurks behind those eyes, and I damn well know I can’t leave it the way I did.
I need to go back, remind her how we felt together that first night, all those years ago. Because I never stop thinking about it.
The urge to text Sera hits me every day. I want to ask how Sonnet is when she isn’t sharing on social media. Because the truth never makes it to the Internet. I want to know if she’s writing. Because I am. Every song is about her. I change little things, hide her in there when I can. But ever since I met her, every word has been about her.
She’s the damn muse I searched for. Even in her silence, I’m deafened by her.
I know Sera will tell me to fuck off, so I do the next best thing. I call her husband Chace, spilling everything as I sip a beer after work on my back porch.
“Do you know how long I was in love with Sera before I got to kiss her?
To even meet her?” Chace asks.
“How long?” I reply, even though I know the answer. Chace is the most romantic guy I know. He lives and breathes for Sera. And whenever Andrew and I are stumped with our writing, Chace fixes everything. He’s the best writing partner and producer there is.
“Years. Too many years.” He laughs. I can hear him walking around the cabin he and Sera share when they’re in the Smokies.
“I thought you were going to give me a number?” I laugh.
“Nah. The point is, it was too long. And that’s where you are with Sonnet. You have to take the leap or leave her alone. You can’t fuck with her head, give her hope. Either you’re going to try with her, or you’re not. There are plenty of guys who would like to date her. And she isn’t open to that, from what Sera says. Because she’s waiting for you. Tell me how fair that is, Hart.”
“It’s not,” I admit. Maybe Sonnet is right about my ego. I thought her just spending time with me, after years of us being separated, would be enough.
“Then do the right thing, man.” Chace sighs into the phone.
“What’s that?”
“Grand gesture, or a clean cut. No other option. You can’t be friends.”
I scoff, taking another sip of my beer. “Man, didn’t you hear? We’ve been friends for years.”
“You guys have never been friends. Never. You both can keep lying to yourselves about that. But no one believes it, especially after that dare.”
I down the rest of my beer, heading inside my empty house.
Savannah, our oldest, is busy at college. Checking in with Mom and Dad is already getting old for her. Our youngest, Harper, begged to spend the night at her best friend’s house. It’s my weekend, but I find myself bending more and more for my youngest. Especially since she needs to make a decision on which college she’ll attend. Maybe I’m afraid she’ll pick a college thousands of miles away, just like her older sister.
Chace clears his throat, pulling me from my thoughts and the silence stretching out on the line.
“No one believes it?” I ask.
“Only you two believe that lie.”
Back On The Map
Sonnet
I lock myself in my room, paper clutched to my chest. Today’s poetry prompts are simple, intriguing. They’re always fascinating.
I’ve spent every day this week upstairs, talking to the poets inhabiting the cabin, learning and soaking up every word the writers around me will spill.
It’s a Thursday evening, and I don’t want this week to end. I want more poetry, more passion, and pain. I want to continue to write about the longing—the loss of my old life—because every poem sets me free a little more.
My bed is soft when I climb into it and grab my laptop from the nightstand. The sun is low already, casting the room in warm light. It floods, exposing the mess of my room, and of me. The chaos that is Sonnet, unfiltered.
I never wanted to be a poem. I never wanted to be what I was named after, because my father named me. I never wanted to be a song, either. But Hunter made me one.
Forgetting my laptop, I continue with the medium used upstairs. The pen rolls across my paper easily as I circle the prompts that speak to me. Maybe I shouldn’t go down this path. My writing has broken hearts before. It’s enraged people. It’s made me lose those I thought were friends.
Do I really want to continue writing poetry? Do I really want to give in to the rawest form of writing? Maybe this is why I’ve steered clear of it. I didn’t want to expose the vein any more than I already have. I didn’t want to bleed out.
My head hits the pillow, the notebook coming close to my chest. I think of the town I left behind. The friends I lost, all huddled together, maybe laughing at me, saying I was weak for leaving. But my home wasn’t there, because a home shouldn’t hurt that way.
I think of Joanne, her long strawberry hair and her wide smile. She’s where I start. I start at the deepest cut. It’s not my ex-husband. It’s not my marriage, gone. It’s not those I thought were family. It’s the friend who was supposed to be my sister.
It’s the way she casually told my secrets to others. The way she blamed it on liquor when it was just revenge. But don’t I know what it’s like to have liquor leave you loose-tongued and regretful?
I look over at the nightstand, at the bottle of wine awaiting me, and I shiver.
Alcohol has been a crutch of mine since the day I was old enough to drink. My mother never drank, and she told me my father was an alcoholic. She warned me away from the bottle, and all through my teen years, when my other friends were out getting trashed illegally, I never wanted to join. I heeded my mother’s warnings until I turned twenty-one. That night, I went to dinner with my boyfriend at the time, and I had the cliché first drink. And I laughed the entire night. I was sociable and fun, and my boyfriend loved me that way.
I got positive reinforcement. I saw no negatives to indulging. I was a freer version of myself. I was more liked. I was more daring. I was more exciting. I was more.
When I couldn’t handle the heartbreak I endured after tracking my father down in Nashville all those years ago, I used the bottle to numb myself. Then, I used Hunter to numb myself.
I’m the queen of manic anxiety, but I don’t want to wear the crown anymore. I need to find healthier ways to be around people.
On autopilot, I get up from my bed, grab the wine bottle, and leave my room, depositing it at the bar on the bottom floor. A little donation for Sera and Chace’s collection.
There’s a bit of dust on many of the bottles.
I hear footsteps on the stairs, so I shuffle back to my room as fast as I can, retreating to write the evening away.
Twenty minutes later, there’s a knock on my door.
The Field Notes notebook in my hand is bent back, filled with poems, or maybe just disjointed anger.
“Who is it?” I call, still scribbling.
I’m sure it’s Brooklyn. No one else would come looking for me here. I’ve become friendly with a few of the poets, but I doubt I’ll ever hear from them again, other than keeping up with those I’ve exchanged social media with.
“Me,” booms a voice.
I still, crushing the pen in my fingers. Slowly, I move my writing supplies to the side, throw the covers off my bare legs. I’m in one of his shirts and a pair of panties. I still steal his T-shirts. I can’t help myself.
When I open the door, Hunter’s arms are above his head, gripping the doorframe. I wonder if his forehead was pressed to my door.
“What are you doing here?” I stammer.
“I thought I could hang out here for the weekend. Write some words or somethin’.” He’s so nonchalant, talking as though his life isn’t in Georgia. As if he hasn’t been gone almost a week, and there are no other songwriters here, giving him no reason to be here.
“But, your vacation is up,” I argue.
“I’m the boss.” He shrugs. “I can kind of make my own rules.”
“Make them or break them?” I reach out, run my hand along the bare strip of skin exposed due to his outstretched arms.
“Either. You said to let you know what I could offer you. I know I can offer more time, and I hope you can, too. We’ve had years of the gray area, Sonnet. Give me some time to figure this out,” he replies, arms dropping, hands wrapping around my waist.
Our last argument floods my senses. “You can’t blame me for pushing you away. I’m human, Hunter. I’m not a song. I don’t have blue eyes like all the girls you sing about. I have a blue soul.”
“Spend enough time with me, and we will change that.”
“That’s not something you can change. It’s down deep.” I grab his hips, pull him into the room. I’m high on poetry, on every memory between us that I’ve torn apart for words these past few days.
His lips are on my neck and pulse, my ear, and the swell of my breasts. I feel him everywhere, and I’m touching him everywhere. His arms and his chest. Then down, running
the length of him, hard already.
“I want you. Let’s pretend it’s your place and we’re younger and we’ll never see each other again,” I rush.
“But we aren’t younger, and I want to see you again. I wanted to see you again, then,” he says.
I’ve always been convinced that given enough time, I could fall in love with Hunter Hart. The distance and time in between our talks kept me safe. This is bordering on unwise for my heart. We can’t speed up time. We can’t pause this. His youngest daughter is still in school. He still has rules.
But didn’t he just say he can make his own rules? And he’s here, right? I want him to change his rules for me. It’s been a year since my ex-husband and I separated. I’m ready to open up, even if it’s just a fraction.
“How much longer do you want to see me?” I ask.
“At least until the end of next week,” he says into my hair, and I still.
I thought he was gone for good. One glimpse of him, and I want it to be longer. Longer than a week. The thought is sobering. “I hate you. You know that, right?”
“It’s your lie. Tell it how you want to,” Hunter replies, with a smile.
In A Week Or Two
Sonnet
Hunter spent the weekend at the cabin with me. This time just as a writer, like me. No consulting. No need to be upstairs all the time, so everyone could have a piece of him.
This time, I’m the only one who gets him.
We went to the grocery store, ate in our rooms, stole away to the hot tub. We were like thieves, stealing time together.
When we were upstairs, I felt like Brooklyn and Sera’s eyes were on us, but it may just have been my paranoia. Chace and Sera’s brother didn’t make me feel that way, so I’m not sure if it’s a guy thing and they’re oblivious, or if I’m just a manic mess. The women didn’t have a chance to catch me alone to pry, though.
