The Other Girlfriend

Van Buren Lights

Liam’s POV

“So what’s your surprise?” Sarah asked me nervously. We are leaving the cafeteria and I hold her hand and I give it a gentle squeeze.

                “You’ll see, love,” I told her quietly.  I can see Sarah’s face is flushed and every time she does, it brings a smile on my face.  She’s simply incredible.  I don’t know how I existed before Sarah.  It amazes how the cutest of smiles can stir the deepest emotions of love within me.

                We walk outside and the once dim Park has been transformed into a light spectacle.  All the branches of the trees were adorned with lights that dangled several feet above the ground.  Some of the trunks are even completely lit up.  Sarah nearly gasped and I felt an even bigger smile on my face.  Jenny had told us about this, but her words didn’t do justice to the beauty of light display.  All the lights emitted an ice color that made the crisp outside feel even colder. 

                Lights illuminated the many wreaths adorned on campus.  Sarah thought it was cute that the whole campus was decorated for Christmas including the Legacy building with a giant Christmas tree that had red and green ornaments and ribbon encasing it.  They even had a sleigh for people to pick pictures with! (I would be lying if I said we didn’t do it.)

                I felt my arm grabbed by Sarah as she pointed to the left of us. “Look, Liam!  Horse carriages!”

                I look in the direction and sure enough there was a small line of people waiting to get on one of the horse carriages that were chauffeuring guests around the park.  “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Sarah smiled wide as we happily got in line.  As we made in the line, one of the queue staff came up to us and handed both hot chocolates.  Sarah’s face was red from the cold and she sipped the hot beverage.

                “Ah, so warm.  This definitely helps,” Sarah purred.  “I’d say last week went good, right?  Don’t you think my dad was a little warmer?”

                I thought about my answer.  Honestly, I’m not too sure, but I don’t know her dad as well as she does. “I think so.  He’s not too fond of me being from Great Britain, but he seems to like everything else.  We had a great fishing trip on the Cumberland River on the far side of Nashville.”

                “Yeah, I was talking to him while you were talking to your family and he said he was impressed with your fishing skills.  He thought you’d do as poorly as you did hunting, but I heard you caught some out there,” Sarah said proudly.

                “I did,” I smiled proudly, “I can provide for you, Sarah.  I can catch us lots of fish that we wouldn’t need deer meat,” Sarah playfully hit my arm at my joke. “Though, he was impressed.  Of course, I didn’t nearly as good as your dad. He’s out there catching twenty to thirty of them while I got only about 5 or so.”

                “Well, 5 is still a good number.  Sometimes you go out there and there’s nothing to be caught,”

                “He told me where we went was his favorite spot on the entire river so there was no need to worry about me going empty handed,” I told her.

                “That would explain why y’all were gone for so long,” Sarah mused. “I didn’t mind in a way though.  It was nice to have all day to spend with my mom shopping.  I miss her a lot on some days.  It was good thing you weren’t there because my mom interrogated me endlessly about you.”