Cowboys Cry Too - A Tyler Owens Story

Chapter 20

California

Two Years Ago

In the depth of her being, a delicate life had flourished. The creation from love, a soul now intertwined into hers and another. That delicacy withered all too soon. The heartbeat of two became one, echoing the silence of dreams that will forever be unfulfilled. Her womb, once something she cradled like he was already born, now was an empty tomb of lost promises. And so, she weeps in quiet agony. For she's alone again. The piece of herself that connected her with another, vanished between her fingers and bled onto her legs.

The world had continued. It's spinning on the axis, it's nights and days always the same long hours, yet for her a storm raged on and remained. Always. Tears glistened in her eyes like fallen stars, the connection of three turning into two and those two falling apart and making their own constellations from the distance and heartbreak created. The stars once a testament of the love she bore now being a mockery to her life.

It's on her fingers. His blood. Her child never came to be. Wrapped in her arms as she holds her now silent guardian of love with angel wings and the boyish laugh from a father unaware.

In the night, she whispers to the emptiness, a void in her heart and a void in her soul. She sings a lullaby for the child she'll never hold, her heart forever marked by the beauty of a fleeting soul not tied down to the world.

Across the miles, he remains unaware, their distance a chasm that swallows her whole. He will never know the soul that lingers in her gaze, the heart and life once theirs, now being a shadow of death to always press down on her spirit. She carries the burden alone, a solitary mourner. He remains untouched by the silent storm of grief that rages within her, unaware of the tiny heartbeat that ceased, for his storm is louder, darker, more public than her unspoken loss will ever be. His star left hers, and as her tears fall in quiet darkness, there is an ironic testament to the life they had created but will never share.

Oklahoma

Present Day

The grief is at the tip of her tongue, like a sob needs to be let out but remains trapped in the cage of her teeth. She tries to ignore it, she'll ignore it. Because Tyler seems genuinely happy, like the storm-chasing, risk-taking man he is. Yeah, she can't disrupt that. She also ignores the teasing look Kate gives her. She knows Kate knows what happened in Tyler's truck, and that's embarrassing. It takes her two days, two days of being completely in Tyler's arms to be at his mercy, on her knees. Yeah, embarrassing. But it's been a lifetime of grief and two years of waiting. But falling back in love after a week doesn't seem so far-fetched, not when she's been keeping the love alive by watching his livestreams and singing silent lullabies to their unborn son. Is she embarrassed of falling so quickly? Maybe. But love has a funny way of working out.

"Kate in theory this should've worked." Tyler says, looking at his laptop, the test models of Kate's analysis shining in the darkened barn.

Jackie doesn't like to admit her distance from this science. She knows she can help, but part of her doesn't want to. This is Kate's thing. Kate and Tyler's. Besides, she's no longer a storm chaser, she never truly was. She's been a girl in love with a chaser, and her head has been in the clouds with all things meterology, but really, she's just a girl with a microphone talking about her dark and wasted heart. Yeah, maybe that's all she'll ever be.