I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sat in the sun and just let my thoughts wander. It was nice, making me wish Mack wouldn’t come back too quickly. Right now, I’d willingly pay big money for a spell that would make time freeze so I could sit here and just breathe for a while without worrying about Bradley or Hannah or my future. It was all such a mess.
Replaying the things Mack had said to me in the truck was helping me piece together what had happened in Las Vegas. Not all of it was making sense, but some of it was. Obviously, the first thing that had gone wrong was my complete lack of self control. Mack’s sexual energy was like a magnet, pulling me in and making me do stupid things like forget my plans and all the things I’d sacrificed to leave the past behind and accomplish my goals. Just the idea of abandoning what amounted to my life’s work made me scared senseless, like I’d be floating in the wind with no direction forever - a complete lack of control. And on top of all that, in the space of maybe six hours, Mack had somehow convinced me to unload all of my personal garbage onto his shoulders to carry around. The skeletons that used to live in my closet had come out to dance in the hot, Las Vegas night.
Even so, he still acted like being married to me wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to him. He’d said the L-word while we were in the middle of having shower sex, but that kind of declaration can’t be taken seriously. So he wasn’t in love, but he wasn’t in a hurry to divorce me either. What was he, exactly?
A small smile played across my lips. Him loving me was too ridiculous to even consider part of my reality. People don’t fall in love with strangers. Strangers could be anything, anyone, with an unlimited amount of awful baggage no one would ever want to bear. How could he know I wasn’t a serial killer or mother of eight kids or already married? He couldn’t. Smart people like us don’t do stupid things like get married at twenty-four-hour chapels by a man named Elvis. That’s what irresponsible people who have nothing to lose do.
Right?
I sighed, drawing a heart in the dust next to me. Looking back and seeing things from the view of this porch, I wasn’t sure anymore that I’d had much to lose back then. Two years ago I was freshly dumped by Luke the Puke, vying for a coveted junior partner spot at a firm that was sucking the life out of me, and getting ready to kiss my friendships goodbye for another guy. That didn’t sound like something to strive towards.
All my grandiose ideas of who I am fell apart when I received that document from the Nevada State vital records department. Apparently, smart, responsible people do sometimes do stupid things like get married at twenty-four hour chapels by a man named Elvis; either that, or I’m at least ten times dumber than I thought I was.
The problem wasn’t so much that I’d done it, but that for the first time since figuring this all out, I was wondering which was worse: getting married to a stranger in Vegas or scripting my life out and expecting to be happy at the end of the production. My life was like a play with actors and scenes and lines I’d written, with a happily-ever-after I couldn’t even visualize. Instead of working towards a clear vision of happiness, I’d been head down, moving in the direction of … nothing. A big cloud of smoke I couldn’t see through. I drummed it into my own head, this mantra of success, success, success … but where was the happiness? Where was the love? And why hadn’t I realized this before?
As I sat on the porch trying to envision myself as an older woman, all my brain would conjure was an image of an older Mack sitting across the dinner table from me, smiling in that knowing way of his. Looking back now, the plan I had laid out for myself seemed not only stupid, but dull. Empty. Safe, but in the end, very very dangerous for how it could cause me to lose the real me entirely. Who have I become? And what is it about this ridiculous, dust-covered snake haven that’s causing me to re-think my entire life? Maybe I did get bitten by that snake after all. Can poison do this to a person? I looked at the back of my ankles for the telltale double puncture wounds.
“Ready?” Mack’s voice came to me from down in the yard.
I pulled my head out of the ether and stared at him and his transportation. When my voice came back it got away from me a little. “No fucking way, Mack.” I shook my head. “Excuse my French, but that is not going to happen.”
He grinned, holding two sets of reins in his hands. “Sure it is. You’ll be fine. Come on over here so I can give you a leg up.” He stood between a brown horse with a black mane and a blonde one with a pretty cream-colored mane.
I didn’t care how pretty she or it was, I was not going to ride it. “Give yourself a leg up. I’m not riding a horse anywhere. Those things bite. Bring me the four-wheeler or whatever you call it.”
“Can’t. It’s out of gas.” He was still smiling, obviously very pleased with himself.