Run with me

Would you run with me, stand beside me forever and allow me to stand with you? Will you be my wild frontier, valleys and mountains, storms and sunshine, lakes, rivers and oceans. Will you hold me and let me be yours? Will you run with me?

---

I met her when I was young, we both were; far too young to feel what we felt as deeply and quickly as we did. We were inseparable.

We'd load up my truck and drive into the wilderness together not caring where we ended up, if we got bogged...or if we ever came back. We didn't care as long as we were together. She'd help me hunt, set or break camp or take off her bikini top and run into the creek beckoning me to follow. I'd follow, no matter how cold it was, then we'd wrap ourselves in the same blanket and sit by the fire.

We worked in the same small town, me at the woodyard, her in the florist; she'd always laugh that I smelled like pine trees and saw dust and she smelled like a field of flowers in spring - She wasn't wrong.

I remember the day we met, the lake. She had on a pair of jeans with a perfectly-placed rip in the backside, a light, almost see-through, blouse over her bra and a faded baseball cap on. I pulled up beside her as she walked along the track and asked if she was ok, needed a ride. She gave me a snide answer and kept walking - Another redneck looking to pick her up is what she thought I guess. Right then fate played its hand, she stumbled, fell down, and I was out of my truck quicker than you could say thank goodness for fate!

The rest, well it's history. We fell in love despite her parents thinking I was beneath her, a boy with no future from the wrong side of the tracks, and we said we'd never be apart. Naïve, yes.

When her parents forbade her from seeing me I asked her to run with me.

It took an hour. We packed the truck with a few things and never looked back. I was nineteen and she a year younger. We had nothing, but we had each other; it seemed enough.

I found work felling trees, she worked at a diner part time and each day we'd tighten our belts just a little more to ward off the hunger; we did it together though. It seemed enough, but it wasn't, and that's when I enlisted.

Eighteen months later she bade me farewell and I went to war.

Looking back I remember being a little surprised at how quickly it all happened. It seemed one moment we were laying in the forest, her head on my bare chest, hair haphazardly blowing in the breeze and her small soft fingers tracing patterns on my stomach, the next I was in a cramped C-17 Globemaster heading to the Gulf. I remember being afraid, not for myself, just that I would never see her again. I questioned joining up, but it seemed the right thing to do at the time, and it was a more stable job than I had at the time.

I survived my first deployment despite my unit taking heavy casualties and I returned home. She was there. I went back though - to war - it was my job. I deployed again nine months after returning home that first time, then again the following year. Three deployments and each time I came home she was there, loving, welcoming and understanding. Each time though less of me came home.

I found it difficult to be home; nothing made sense. I found the apathy most difficult; it was like no one knew there was a war, that people died every day, or were terribly injured, maimed and disfigured. They went about their day, went to the shops, football games, the movies and it disgusted me that no one talked about the war.

She'd be there though and that kept me sane when I felt insane.

She never asked about my deployments...Well, there was one time and I was stupid enough to be honest. She was speechless and avoided me for almost a month. I was a killer - was good at it - and that hurt her, made her see me as a different man to the one she loved. We got through it though, stronger. She never asked me again, and I never told.

She loved me, showed me that, and when nothing made sense, when I was lost, she was my compass, a candle in the window; she'd let me range but made sure I knew she was there, that I knew where to find home, and her. I always did.

Ten years passed before I was discharged. I remember that day well. I felt aimless, like I'd been cut adrift to flounder in a vast ocean I didn't know. Society. She was there though, my compass, my anchor.

I didn't know people and didn't like them anymore.

If they hadn't served I couldn't find respect for them. Why not? Are you spineless? Weak? Afraid? We were all afraid, it's not an excuse. It was harsh of me and speaks poorly of my character, but that's who I was right then. I was, different.

She saved me though, helped me re-find myself, and I softened. I returned to the man I'd been, that young kid she'd met and fallen in love with, the man who helped people who could not help themselves, who protected, cared for and supported the weak, infirm, children and the elderly. I was one of the lucky ones who was able to do so, many I served with did not - They are different and most fight still, many capitulate.

We ran again soon after, away from everyone.

We found a small cabin in the foothills not far out of a small logging town. I had to stoke the fire to heat water, the roof leaked no matter how many times I fixed it and in winter we had to wear our coats inside or we'd freeze, but we owned it and had plans to make our dream life there. War seemed a long way off at that point, and she seemed so close.

I got a job overseeing a felling-crew, all veterans so it worked well, they knew how to work. She worked at the local vet clinic which she loved because it involved animals. She'd rub my shoulders and arms after the particularly hard days and I'd hold her close as she cried if she'd had to put an animal down that day. We'd laugh and cry as required and were unbreakable. I broke sometimes I suppose, but she knew how to put me back together again.

We used to head to the coast as much as possible, we knew a spot that was always devoid of others. We loved it there. I'd park my truck right on the beach and she'd strip off and run into the water before I was even out of the truck. I didn't mind. I'd sit in the cab and watch her frolic in the surf, her naked body glistening with moisture. She'd wave to me but I'd just sit and watch and feel so grateful I had her in my life - I don't think I'd be here if not for her.

In the late afternoon we'd make a fire and settle in for the night, beneath a blanket like we did as kids, and talk about the future, getting old together and babies names. We'd do it some day, have children.

Our life was as perfect as we'd hoped it would be. We didn't have very much but we had enough, what we needed. Thinking back now, there's not a single thing I would have changed about us and our lives, but change is inevitable.

---

I couldn't think straight, or at all. I seemed outside myself like I was was watching an empty husk go through the motions of life.

I watched myself shaking hands, saying thank you, hugging people and trying not to cry at the cemetery. I watched myself struggle to control an anger so powerful I felt I could kill once more, and watched myself drift, aimlessly lost and alone. I watched myself load my rifle and place the muzzle to my forehead, I watched myself cry, and pretend I was ok when people asked. I watched myself pretend to be alive.

The drunk driver ran her off the road and she hit a tree. She awoke, unable to move, but called me on her phone. She told me she loved me, that she would always love me and that I'd be ok. I heard stress in her voice, but didn't know why. She told me to live, and that she'd see me soon, that she would always see me. It was the last words I heard her speak and it was the last time I felt complete.

---

Sometimes I drive to the coast and park on the sand, in our spot. I stare out to sea and think about life, my life now and the one I lost when she died.

I don't think about killing myself anymore, she'd not want that. I'm lonely though, alone and broken. I think about killing that drunk driver now and then, a local man who I see from time to time. That last is difficult, seeing him and not killing him, but it would not bring her back and I don't want to be that man anyway. Although...I don't really know who I want to be, who I could possibly be, without her here with me. I feel like nothing.

I'm thinking of running but it's difficult. Leaving our cabin, the place we last spent time together, the morning of her wreck, would be difficult. I feel her here sometimes, as I do when I sit in my truck on that beach we used to love so much. I hear her voice, she talks to me. Sometimes I hear her say, run with me. Maybe I'm crazy.

I'm afraid of running alone. I'm afraid of losing that link to her and so I stay. Alone.

[A fiction]