Why was I hiding from the truth?
That’s not an easy question for me to answer. I guess the truth lies in a lot of places. For one thing, I’d grown up so close to Lacey that it was difficult to admit to myself that I was romantically in love with her. For another thing, I was proud, and I’d told her I wasn’t interested in a serious relationship with any woman. I didn’t want to go back on my word. Finally, I was afraid of screwing it up. What if we started a relationship, and then she realized I wasn’t the guy for her? What if she decided I wasn’t good enough? How would I ever be able to live with that?
I know it sounds stupid, or petty, but this was my life, and it was one-hundred-percent critical to me. Put yourself in my shoes. Has there ever been anyone in your life that you were so in love with, that it literally terrified you? I was so terrified of losing her love that I had to pretend it wasn’t even a possibility.
Doesn’t make sense, does it? Well that’s life. There’s a lot of things men do that don’t make sense. Just look at football. The whole game doesn’t make sense, and yet we watch game after game of the strongest athletes in the country crashing into each other at full speed.
We like disaster and chaos just as much as we like order and peace. Don’t ever forget that. There’s something very comforting for men in chaos. In chaos, everything goes to shit. And if everything goes to shit, then there’s no one to blame. It wasn’t your fault. That’s the mode I was in with Lacey. If I drove her away, if I forced myself not to give her any warmth, then disaster would follow. She’d be with Rob. That was the worst thing that could happen. And if the worst thing happens, nothing worse can happen. And there’s a comfort in that. It may be a hollow, worthless comfort, but it’s a comfort all the same, and I know women won’t understand it. But it’s the truth.
It eats at you. It sure ate at me. I knew it wasn’t right. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I’d lie down at night on my bed, and the last thing on my mind was Lacey. I’d wake up in the morning, and she was my first thought. I’d watch her around the mansion. It was like the old days when she was in high school. I’ll even admit that I went back up to the loft in the barn and I took down the envelope of her pictures, and I jerked off, fantasizing about the sex we’d had up there.
What I wouldn’t do to have that back.
But the more I wanted her, the more I obsessed, the further I drove her away. Just two weeks had passed since the night of the dinner party with Rob, and she was closer to him than ever. They were virtually inseparable.
One evening, I was in the barn, checking on the horses. Often, Lacey or Jackson would feed them, but I still liked to check on them most nights when I had the time. After I’d done my rounds I decided to go up to the loft and look at my old photos of Lacey. It was hopeless, but I couldn’t stop looking at them.
I climbed the ladder and breathed in deeply the scent of dust and dry hay. The sun was setting in the west and the light flooded in through the window. I grabbed my envelope and the hip flask and took a swig of the whiskey.
Then I sat down on the hay and flicked through the few photos. Such a beautiful girl, and she’d grown into an even more beautiful woman. She was one of those people who grew more and more beautiful as she aged. She was like a work of art, always in progress, always reaching closer and closer toward perfection. That’s why it baffled me that Rob wanted her to go through all those ridiculous cosmetic procedures. He didn’t know what he had.
But could I blame him? I’d had her too, or I’d almost had her, and I didn’t appreciate it either.
As I looked at those old photos, their corners worn from my fingers touching them, I decided that I would do something about it. I didn’t have to watch that guy steal her away from me. She didn’t know it yet, hell, I didn’t even know it, but she was my woman. She’d always been my woman. I just had to tell her.
There was already an old letter in the envelope and for the first time in years I read the words. It was silly. I’d written it back during my first week at the mansion, seventeen years ago, when I was just a kid. I’d have been in prison if it wasn’t for Lacey’s father, so don’t judge the style of the letter. It’s who I was back then.
This is what it said.