Mercy || Whitey Winn

(5)

       The night was very humid, making me wish I could just hop into a cold lake. Unfortunately, those are rare around here. The best I could do was hopelessly fan myself with my hand.

      While Whitey and I walked to my house, I couldn't help but stare at him a couple times, wondering how God hade made a man so perfect. Luckily, Whitey never noticed my staring, or so I hoped, and kept talking about this man named Mr. Ward who was currently locked up in our county jail this morning. He was put in the slammer for robbing a stage. I actually found his story about this man quite interesting, just like the story I read this afternoon about a man named Roy Goode. Of course, Roy was doing the right thing while Mr. Ward wasn't.

Whitey said that the sheriff brought him in this morning, and it was then that I realised I had seen Mr. Ward this morning. He was the man I didn't recognise riding a horse alongside the sheriff.

"So, how was your day?" Whitey asked, once he was done explaining the events of his day.

"Pretty boring, truth be told."

I then kicked a pebble in front of me in hopes of distracting myself from thoughts about him and his beauty.

"Well it can't be that boring now that I'm here," Whitey replied with a smirk and a light chuckle that made my heart melt on the spot.

"Well, of course," I shot back in a joking manner. "There is certainly never a boring day with you, Whitey Winn," I added, serious this time.

That comment made Whitey turn to look at me, a smile on his face. I then noticed how we had gradually slowed to down our fast pace to a mere few steps per minute. We just stared and smiled at each other for a little while. I wondered what he was thinking about. Was he thinking about his eventful morning involving the sheriff and Mr. Ward? Was it possible that he was thinking about me? That maybe he wanted us to be something more? The way he was looking at me--smiling, looking deep into my eyes--lead me to believe that it was somewhat possible. His look was filling my stomach with butterflies and overflowing my chest with hope. This amount of hope was dangerous and I knew it. Deciding to end things before anything could happen--feeling too close, too intimate, too lost in him--I started walking a bit faster, forcing him to speed up as well.

"Wait," Whitey said while jogging to catch up to me. Once he was next to me and feel into the correct pace of my walking, he said, "How's your mother doing?"

I looked at him strangely. We rarely talked about my mother, only when my father died, but that was a while ago.

"She's good. Much happier now that she's doing what she loves."

"That's good. I'm glad you two are doing well."

"Thanks, Whitey. Would you maybe like to come in and see her? I know she hasn't seen you in ages and would love to talk to you."

"That sounds lovely."

I smiled widely at him. "Great."