After they hung up she went outside in the warm summer evening, stepping down off the back porch. She walked along the edges of the wheat fields, which were now much taller than her, staring up at the night sky. She counted the constellations she knew and the ones that Alec had shown her on New Year’s Eve, tracing them with her eyes. She let the cool grass tickle her bare feet, making laps until she started to feel dizzy from it.
She came to a stop at the big tree by the corner of the house, the one that he had been so enamored with when they had been working on their project. The milk crate they had used was sitting up against the side of the house and she grabbed it pulling it over to put it by the trunk of the tree. She sat down and leaned back, staring up into the canopy of leaves overhead. In just a few weeks the weather would start to dip into cooler temperatures, and the tree would burst into vibrant color. Eventually it would lose all of its leaves and would stand bare and lonely, waiting for another spring to come. It was both sad and beautiful at the same time, and it was hard to imagine how both of those things could exist in one being all at the same time.
That had been Alec. He had been both sad and beautiful, all at once, and it felt so impossible. He had been so busted up on the inside, a million little pieces that could not be fit back together no matter how hard he tried. On the outside though he’d put up a good front, hiding it all behind a wide smile and good humor. She often thought about his last moments, what he had been thinking, if he had been afraid, or if he had so long ago accepted his own fate that there had been nothing left to fear.
Ramona had read about survivor’s guilt, and how most people tended to feel it after living through something that had taken the lives of others. She didn’t know if it really could be applied to her, but she still felt guilty. She got to go on living, got to do the things she had always wanted so desperately to do, but Alec didn’t. He had worked just as hard as her, perhaps even more so with his dedication to his sport, but he didn’t get to see that work pay off. His dreams would never be realized, he would never achieve anything in his future, and it broke her heart into a million little pieces.
Still, that was just the nature of loss, especially when losing someone so young. There would never be a way to truly understand it, or to make any sense of it. None of them would ever really know what he had been feeling or thinking that night, or why he had simply decided that it was easier to let go than to go on. She could not begin to fathom the sadness that he must have been harboring or how lost and alone he must have felt that night, and she hoped that she never had to. She wanted to be able to piece it together, to give herself some closure, but that moment would just never come.
Some doors will just always be left standing wide open.
When she finally went back inside the old house was quiet, and she walked the rooms to try and commit them to memory. Since she was leaving for school, and things at the farm were not really improving, her parents had been quietly talking about leaving Rust to try and make it somewhere else. Ramona was starting over, so why couldn’t the rest of the family? There were bigger towns, and even cities, with more job opportunities and possibilities. Nothing had been officially decided yet, but one potential idea that kept getting tossed around was heading to Wyoming. Her father’s parents were there, they wouldn’t be completely alone in starting over, and it would be an easier transition for all of them if they were somewhere at least a little familiar. It was almost impossible to imagine not living in this house, not coming back to it for summer vacation and spring break. Her parents had to do what was best for everyone though, and she would be living her own life now. Her opinions, while important, were not necessarily a factor any longer.
When she finally lay down to sleep that night she drifted off quickly, having anticipated that the jitters might keep her awake. She slept deep and easy, as though the weight of everything had suddenly lifted off of her shoulders. The morning would be hectic and all over the place, trying to fit everything onto the trailer and all of her siblings into the van. There would be a long drive and a night in a hotel near the university campus, and then she would say goodbye. To her family, to Rust, to Alec Davis, and to the person she had been before. Like all goodbyes it would be painful, tearful, and emotional, but it would be good. She was as ready as she could be, and she would take it all head on.
In Rust, Montana the crickets sang in the dark as a girl with freckles on her nose and dusty grain colored hair slept in her childhood bedroom for the last time. Outside a light breeze fluttered over the wheat fields, making them ripple like waves in a golden sea. Tucker Monroe’s pond sat dark and still at the edge of his cow pasture, reflecting back the light of the moon that had risen high overhead. The world was calm, peaceful, and perfect on this night.
Everything was as it should be, for this one brief moment in time.
A Crooked Mile (Rust Book 1) Page 21