Page 77 of Rootbound
The golds all remind me of Tait. I find ways to see her everywhere. When we play cards at night in the tent around the stove, I imagine I can hear her cackle at some of the arguments. The way Charlie and James pointedly saynothing about her only makes me think of her more. I imagine how her face would light up at the views, how she’d suck in a deep breath through her nose and smile before bringing her camera up to her face.
The more I think about her not asking me to follow, the more grateful I am to her. There’s nothing else for me in California, no job opportunities, no family, no friends. There’s her, and while that feels like enough for me, that pressure wouldn’t be fair to her in the long run. There’s foolish, and then there’sfoolish.
By the time we get home ten days later, I’m so desperate for my bed and a dark room—anywhere other than the colorful beauty around me—that I don’t even go to the main house to get Belle first. I need to go say hi to Grace, to Em, and I will. I just need to lose it for a bit first.
And shower. And shave. We always come back smelling to high Heaven, but with the damned sun shining its smug face on us this whole trip, I know I’m ripe.
I don’t know how I know, but I know that she’s gone back home. She was close to being done shooting before I left anyways, so it’s not surprising. It still makes my lip curl in disgust when I pull up to the cabin, when I see how desolate the place looks.
The porch steps might as well be another mountainside for as long as they take me to climb.
When I open the door and move to hang up my jacket, I receive another swift kick to the gut. Tait’s slug-parka is hanging there. She must’ve forgotten it. It’s the ugliestdamn thing I’ve ever seen, but my hands drop my own jacket and slide over hers of their own accord.
“Arf,” the jacket says. Cool, now the thing isn’t just ugly, it’s haunted.
“Arf!”
My head whips down to my feet, and a creature of indeterminate origin is staring up at me, its curled, skinny tail wagging—a menacing smile on its face. The thing is probably ten pounds, six of which are made up by its ears—ears that flare up and out like the wings of a bat.
“Arf!” it says again, but that’s gotta be a human just saying the word “arf” because that cannot be a bark.
“I named him Fennec. Doesn’t he look like a fennec fox?” Tait says excitedly from the top of the stairs, and evil elfin woodland creature aside, my entire body lifts with unchecked joy. The feeling is nearly comical, like one of those inflatable men in front of a car lot.
She’s there, smiling down beautifully, breathtaking in every way.
“What is it?” I ask when it starts to lick a spot on my boot frantically.
She frowns, put out. “It’s adog,Henry!”
“This”—I point down at the thing—“is not a dog. This is a creature from a 1980’s movie. I hope you know not to feed it after midnight, or let it near water.”
“He reminded me of you,” she says, and she’s at the bottom of the stairs now and I’m walking to her with the thing called “Fennec” at my feet, and then she’s in my armsand my hands are in her hair and God, she smells like home.
Wait—“Thatthing reminds you ofme?!”
She smiles a watery smile, shrugs. “Sure.” And then the little bastard is humping her leg, and her lips finally slide up to mine. They’re soft and full and warm. Home.
I manage to break away. “I’m sorry. I know I can’t smell good.”
“I could not give a fuck less, Henry Marcus Marcum.”
Later, after the longest, most mind-blowing shower of my life, followed by a long, soapy, messy bath… Fennec and I have a heart-to-heart about his humping ways. I make it clear that she is mine, and that I don’t share well, and I’m loath to admit it, but his ridiculous grin and ears are growing on me quickly.
I eventually work up the nerve to ask, later in bed, my head laid against her bare chest, listening to her heart, “How long are you here for?”
“You didn’t hear?” she says, and I feel her smile. “I’m your new neighbor. You should know, I like to rage clean on Sundays. I blast my music as loud as humanly possible for hours on end, and I don’t even make playlists when I do. I just hit shuffle onallmy songs. Which means there will be Christmas songs that come up in the rotation, Henry, regardless of the month. You might hear a Doja Cat song, followed by Pentatonix or Celine Dion or something. I also expect to be able to borrow sugar whenever I want, in any amount I want. I want to be invited to any and all gamenights. And you make really good coffee, so I’ll probably be here every morning.”
When I look at her smiling face, she’s beaming, but I have to ask before I dare to hope, “Are you sure you’re okay with that, Tait? Moving away from your sister?”
Her face turns more serious before she replies, “Yes, because you know what I realized, Henry?” She sits up and pulls the sheet up with her—a boon to my focus. “I realized that no matter what, this is going to end devastatingly.”
Um. Okay. Did not expect that.My face falls.
She flails her hands around. “Let me explain,” she says. “What I mean is that this is a risk I’ve calculated, and I’ve decided that it’s not even a risk. This place feels more like home because it’s where I’ve been able to grow back into myself again. You helped me do that, and I’mhappyabout that, Henry. And a house or a state, a career, or even this ranch isn’thome,just because of its location. My life is me, and you, and this chaotic family that I don’t even have to worry about scaring you off with, since you already know how insane they are and love them anyway. My home, my life, is with the ones I love.
“What I also mean is,” she continues, heaving a deep sigh. “Even if this ends up being forever, at some point something will happen and it will end—even if that end really is the whole ‘till death do us part,’ thing. It will end, somehow, someway, and it will be devastating. So, I’m not afraid of heartbreak again. What makes this worth it is that therewillbe heartbreak, because of how damn good it will be until that happens.” Her eyes fill and when she smiles a tear spills. “Even if this fails in a less than spectacular fashion, Henry, I want to love you until then. I want to love you until it’s devastating. Even in the best-case scenario, where I get to be with you until we are incredibly old, and then one of us gets tagged and bagged,baby. That’s thebest-case scenario, and it’s still shit. I want all the stuff before then. I don’t want to miss out on any of it—as much of it as I can get with you.
“I want to put down roots here: beside you, across a pond from you, somewhere new with you, I don’t care. You’ve made me want to do that, to plant myself somewhere and flourish.”