This new identity is a lie. Niko even finds someone to make us fake identities.
Strange that I find my salvation in such an elaborate deception.
The money I have stashed in my backpack is enough to pay first month’s rent on a small apartment above a garage. I find a job at the local steakhouse while Niko goes to work for a rancher. He doesn’t mind the dirty work of shoveling feed or muck out of stalls, but he’s more interested in the crops.
At least there used to be crops. The rancher swears the land is useless, used up, done for, which doesn’t deter Niko. On the contrary he tells me that we can get it for less money. Even so it takes us two years to save up enough money. Even once we purchase the land, we keep our jobs to pay for supplies and farming equipment. And to build a small house in the center.
I work the land in the morning, then hit the lunch and dinner rush at the stakehouse. Niko goes to the ranch in the morning, then works the farm at night. It’s hard work, the kind that puts cuts in my hands and aches in my muscles. But it’s honest work.
That’s what makes it worth doing.
It takes five years for the farm to sustain itself. Five years to get to know Niko, this boy-man-something else I met in the worst of circumstances. Five years to get to know myself, this girl too sheltered and stunted to be a real person. It’s more than just the crops that grow on this acres. It’s two strangers becoming themselves, two people learning to love each other.
One evening Niko and I take a walk between the soybeans and the sugar beats. The sun has finished its work for the day, blowing one final breath of purple-red light as it goes. Gnats bustle in their little social spheres while a whip-poor-will sings from the east.
This is the moment Niko chooses to get down on one knee.
“I dreamed about this farm, Em. I dreamed about this life, but I never dreamed of you. I couldn’t have thought it without knowing you. Couldn’t have imagined needing someone like air. You came anyway. And you saved me.”
There is no diamond in this proposal, only promise. In a box he’s whittled himself is a daisy with its stem braided over. I want him to make me one every day, those work-roughened fingers gentle with flowers.
“Marry me,” he says.
Joy beats in my chest, not with an urgency, no need to escape. There’s only the steady pleasure of a life lived without walls, without fear.
I might be air, but I’m breathless now. “I’m the one who needed you. To breathe me. To take me in and let me back out. To make me feel alive.”
He doesn’t answer me with words. He does it with his hands, his mouth. His whole body, pressing me down into the dirt that we work, that we own. The dirt that we grew from like the plants that sway around us.
* * *
Thank you for reading WHO WILL SAVE YOUR SOUL, a story inspired by the Jewel song of the same name! Turn the page for the next dangerous bedtime story…
BEDTIME STORY
Skye Warren
Jessica is on the run when her car breaks down with her son in the backseat. A small town sheriff pulls up behind her, but he can’t be her knight in shining armor. He definitely can’t know her secrets. Not while she’s on the wrong side of the law.
CHAPTER ONE
The youngest fairy stepped forward and said, “The princess shall be the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Jessica
I swipe at the tears on my cheeks, grateful for the pitch black outside. My eyes feel puffy, nose runny, but at least no one can see me like this. Yeah, that’s good. One point for optimism, negative two thousand for the vortex of depression tugging at my toes.
Optimism. The secret weapon in a single mother’s arsenal. Ky’s running a temperature? That means extra cuddle time. The water bill’s bigger than usual? We would just have to make those last two hot dogs in the fridge last.
Then Ky’s dad had showed up outside our apartment.
I clench both hands on the steering wheel, so tight I can feel my heartbeat inside my fingers. That’s okay, though. Optimism. I can make complete and utter terror look good.
A green highway sign flashes briefly in my headlights. Province.
Working in a diner means I’ve heard a lot of random conversation, especially from people passing through. The name Province. registers as a small town outside Tanglewood. Which means I’m not nearly far enough away to be safe.
The truth is I’ll never be far enough. Never really be safe.
So much for optimism.
Is the town big enough for me to hide? If only for the night?
