Meant for Me | ✔️

24) intervening

Sunday, 3rd August.

Z A C

It's never happened like this before. Not this fast. It's been a damn month since Addie turned up out of nowhere, just one month and I'm thinking about how to have a discussion about the future. It'll come on at unexpected moments. Pieces of internal dialogue.

Addie could make this her home. She could move her business here.

We should go on a proper date first I suppose.

How do I tell her that I'm crazy about her? Is there a good time when she's still grieving her sister so heavily?

I understood her grieving, wanted her to go at her own pace, heal in her own time. Sometimes I'd catch her, staring off into the distance, unmoving, unblinking, as if wherever her thoughts had taken her, were so captivating that it was difficult for her to come back.

She was improving too though. Less nightmares. Less tears. More smiles. And damn did she have a beautiful smile. One that made me stop and think, I've been right to wait for a woman to find me. I've been right not to rush it without feeling the connection that I feel when I'm with her.

I'm grateful to Willa too, for giving Addie a chance. Selfishly, I'm hopeful that having Willa here will encourage Addie to hang around in Texas. If she wanted to go home, well, I couldn't stop her. I wouldn't have the right to. But if she's here for Willa, I won't be disappointed. I wondered how their afternoon together was going, if they'd found something to do, shared stories of the lives that had been lived apart, connected over common interests.

Would Will tell Addie that she's allergic to the coloring in red foods? It makes her throw up. Would Addie tell Willa that she uses whatever is within arms reach as a book mark. On Tuesday, I saw her slip a sock in between the pages of her novel because there was nothing else close.

Or perhaps she'd tell Willa that she recites the alphabet when she's twisting an apple stem. Whichever letter it pops off at, she smiles and announces that her fate is in the apples stem. I have no idea what she's talking about but it's entertaining to watch.

Or that whenever Addie is outside and she thinks no one is watching, she slips Midge and Toto pieces of bacon from breakfast, even if it meant that she didn't get to eat hers. Or that she's nicknamed all of the chickens down at the coop and compliments them on their fine eggs whenever she goes to collect them for Blake.

Or that she's been making little three flower bouquets from the garden, wrapping them in ribbon and leaving them on all of our pillows. Or that she treats the plants and the flowers with so much tender respect that it's captivating. As if they're intelligent and alive with a total comprehension of emotions. She cares for those plants better than I've seen humans care for each other.

She's made this her home and I love it. The thought of going back to the house to find her either eating dinner or curled up with a book or chatting to pops, it makes it easier to slide the shed door closed before the sun has set and head back up the hill, a damn sap of a smile on my face when I think about how excited she'll be to tell me about her afternoon with Willa.

My hands were covered in grease and oil as I wandered through the back gate and latched it shut. Midget and Toto were snoozing on their kennel decks, getting the last of the sun that had peeped out after a long morning of rain and cloud. And then I heard her, heard her before I saw her. Sniffling and sobbing. Addie was in the grass beside the flower bed, knees to her chest, hair curtained around her shoulders.

"Ads," I called and made a quick jog over to her. She didn't move, she didn't peer up, she kept her chin on her knee and quietly sobbed so hard that her attempt to breathe sounded like choked whimpers. I knelt down in front of her and pushed her hair off her face. "Addie? What happened?"