Author's Note: I know it's probably a little soon (being that it's only been one day), but I've decided to post the second chapter. This chapter is kind of slow in my opinion though I guess that's better than feeling rushed. All reviews are kindly appreciated, so if you have anything to comment, critique, or ask, feel free to post.

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Chapter 2: Midnight Confessions

The following days were mostly spent continuing with learning the basics and adjusting. Tanya was more than capable of doing everything necessary to keep things running smoothly, and she enjoyed it truthfully. She worked generously, only pausing to take a sigh or stretch her aching limbs. When she went for rounds about the valley, she did much more than chew the fat. She would gather seasonal herbs or cast a line in the river, and while she went on doing such things, she'd chat pleasantly with the village folk. I believe that even then she whole heartedly wanted to be no where other than Forget-Me-Not.

"Hey, that girl stopped by this morning."

"Did she?"

"Yeah, she gave a flower to both Celia and Vesta before going out into the fields with them. I don't really get it..."

"She can't really afford anything else, you know," I replied dully.

"I guess that's true..."

"Marlin, I can't help it..."

"Help what?"

An exasperated sigh escaped me as I leaned back on the crate which served as a counter. We were sharing a bottle of Stone Oil in the produce shed where Vesta kept her farming operation running. As the earthy scent of fruits and vegetables rotting away in a dank shack burned my nostrils, the heavy elixir scorched my throat. It was a bit unappealing, but it was out of the way and peacefully quiet. Perhaps without Aaron it was a bit too silent and unsettling.

"...thinking of her as a replacement of some sort."

"Oh," he replied apathetically. "I wouldn't worry if I were you. Of course you miss the man. It's impossible not to. Even so, she wanted to come here, so you haven't done anything wrong by letting her."

"True."

Two men alone in a room with only a bottle to share between them... It may not be all that thought provoking; however, it suited the closing of the day. An evening like this and those that came before were a healing time when a man tends to the wounds of guilt and regret. My best friend was gone, and now I had to wait until the day I'd die. Only then I could be satisfied because living a life without him just seemed empty in some way. Once they set him in the ground beneath his favorite cherry tree, I could merely dream of joining him there.

If this poor old man have had his way, he would've ended it all before it began. Aaron had been the one to save me from an ill, self-imposed fate. In my younger days, I yearned to answer death's call, and surely I would've done myself in. It was a shock, really, that I lived long enough to be saved. What prodded my mind more was the question of why I wasn't the one to reach the finish line first.

"Didn't the old man save you once?"

"You're about the same age, you know."

"So are you, and you call yourself that," Marlin retorted.

Damn, he had me there. "Anyhow, he did save me in our younger days."

"Huh, I always figured it was rumor... He told me it was a gang of fellas that busted up your leg pretty good."

"Literally, that's a yes, but really he wasn't saving me from them."

Aaron saved me from my own helpless self.

I left soon after we finished the conversation and the contents of the bottle that kept it going. When I first stepped onto the bridge, my foot nudged something. Rather, that something was a someone, and that someone was a cheerful young woman. Her face was smeared with dirt, but I recognized her clear violet eyes staring up at me. "Tanya? What are you doing here?"

"You weren't home," she complained. "You promised me dinner..."

I blinked for a moment until I had finished my memory search. I couldn't recall making any obligations of that sort...

"At the Blue Bar last night, you promised after Griffin was telling me how good your cookin' was."

"Honestly?" That question had been for the both of us since I hadn't the foggiest idea of what she was talking about. How many drinks did I have?

"No backing out now," she insisted, hoisting herself upright. She crossed her arms and demanded, "I've been waiting all day, so there's no way in hell you're standing me up."

"It's eleven thirty..."

"Tough," she scolded, taking my arm with fierce determination. "I'm hungry and you're feeding me!"

Yes, ma'am.

"Sorry it's not fancy. I don't do fancy this late," I said grudgingly, setting a bowl in front of her eager face.

"I'll have to put it on your tab," she replied with a pleased grin as she took a spoon full. "Wow... This is awesome!"

"Sweet potato soup is all it is..."

"No, it's way more than that." She complimented it further, "Goddess, I've hit jack pot with a man like you!"

Those peculiar, yet sweet words... Whenever she uttered such things, I wanted to believe I was young again. No... What I wished for was to be someone else in youth because that was the only way I could be with a girl like her. The lass I loved in those days had certainly been better off with the man she'd married and the baby she bore. As the mother before her, she was out of my league, and being a middle-aged man flirting with a lady wouldn't make an improvement on my character.

Why do you hang on her every word if that's how you truly feel?

Because...

"That woman in the photo... She's my mother, isn't she?" Tanya sighed, gesturing towards the small end table beside my bed.

"Yes," I answered reluctantly.

"I thought so..." she mumbled disapprovingly. "Did you... like her?"

"A weighted question," I began cautiously as I approached the table. "I- While growing up, your mother and I were in the same position. We lived in a boarding house. It was a nasty place to be, yet we managed like anyone else would. I always thought she was better at coping with life's injustice because she had her voice, and all I had was my bad attitude and my fists. While she sang away her troubles, I fought through mine.

"She had many admirers, but I never took the forefront. I felt I wasn't good enough to come up to bat for her affection, I guess. I wasn't good enough for anything at that time. Alexandra had the air of perfection those days."

"Was she really that great?" her daughter asked bitterly.

"It may have looked that way then. However, I know better now. She may have appeared to be kind and gentle, but-"

"I hated her," Tanya grumbled. "I... will always hate her."

"You know," I said, sitting next to her with ease, "I used to say things like that once. 'I hate him, and no matter how much time passes, I'll always hate him.' Do you know who I felt I hated so much that I would never stop hating him?"

She gazed up at me with her eyes brimming with beautiful tears, and it was all I could do to stop myself from holding her tightly against my chest. Like a child listening to a moral in a story, she waiting desperately for the ending she knew was coming. I felt a pang of fatherly affection towards this little girl, and although I didn't realize it, the same person whom I had loathed with all my heart, was smiling down on me then.