I didn't set out to write this. I was sitting here listening to Lady Antebellum and it just happened.
Disclaimer: I just string the words together, I own nothing.
There was something about how the fire danced, the embers glowed, and the smoke spindled into the oblivion of the night that made her fall madly in love with the late summer bonfire. The smell of wood smoke clinging to her hair, bare feet curled under her in the lawn chair with the cuffs of her hoodie pulled halfway over her hands. The radio sat on the edge of the tailgate and filled the night sky with a soft country melody as the savory taste of bonfire food over stimulated her senses.
There was something intoxicating about how the wind chilled her and the fire warmed her simultaneously. She watched her daughter dance around the fire with her cousins; bare feet pounding on the dirt surrounding the burning pile of sticks like they were pounding out a tribal prayer. She watched the seven year old giggle as she chased the older children and lead the younger ones, wild curls all in disarray and scraped up knees peaking through the holes in her jeans. She giggled and grabbed the little girl by the arm, licking her thumb and wiping off the remaining s'more fluff from the tip of her nose, "Go play, Pocahontas."
Her parents sat on the far side of the fire; thirty years of marriage and she believed that she had never seen two people more in love with each other. Her father pulled teasingly on one of her mother's curls and she swatted at his hand before leaning into his chest. She watched her father's tanned and calloused hands work out the kinks in her mother's neck as they talked in hushed voices about something the rest of the world wasn't privy to. The rest of the world seemed to fade away for them and she craved to have that intense kind of love thirty years from now.
Two arms engulfed her from behind and a kiss was pressed just beneath her ear. She leaned back against his strong chest and allowed herself to be lifted from the chair as he twirled her before placing her on the ground. A straw cowboy hat was plopped on top of her head and she curtsied before dragging him to the makeshift dance floor. Their messy, crazy daughter raced over to join them. Sandwiched between her parents as they danced around the fire and laughing til their insides pained them.
Her life wasn't anything she had ever expected; she didn't marry prince charming, she had scars on her knees and more on her heart, but she wouldn't trade a single day of it. She wore her cowboy hat with her Giants jersey, spent her summers in Montana and her life was in New York. She liked country music but could quote off all the lyrics to any Bon Jovi song. She was a walking contradiction, the perfect storm of what her parents had created. Married with a daughter, splitting her time between the wild west and the city that never sleeps, the facts could never be changed; she was Lucy Elizabeth Messer. She was what happened when Montana and New York collided.
