Author's Note: I'm so sorry I took this into a downer ending. I just couldn't help it. Happy endings are not my specialty and so much has happened between them… yeah, I fail at writing. Sorry!
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Theme Fourteen: I've never wanted anything more.
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It's pretty clear to me I can't stay here.
I'm fit to explode like a tornado, or so says Kooter, anyway. He's right. This isn't working. I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to put up with stares and glares and people whispering about me anymore. I don't want to try and live my old life anymore. I want a new life, one that's mine. Wayne's got his and that's all well and good, but this ain't working for me.
I love him and I always will. But this place is one thing I don't love and will never love again. I feel haunted by this place. I want my small town hill and valley schoolhouse back, please. I want my small group of kids who know who I am back. I want to stay here for Wayne. I want to help him. I just want to be happy a little bit more than I want to be with him, and if that makes me selfish then so be it. I can't take this anymore. Love is blind. Love isn't stupid or foolish.
I leave him a note. I sign it with a kiss. I make sure it's honest – haven't we had enough lying for one lifetime – and then I leave without telling him to his face. I run away, to my dirty country roads and fields of crops and ancient house that smells like country incense. I lay in my giant bed that smells like soap and berries and I am home, really, truly home. This is where I belong. This is who I am. I am not a kiddie cop anymore. I don't want to be an Officer. I want to be a doctor and live in the country and make house calls and live in a big house with barn animals.
This revelation I convey to him through a series of detailed emails. I try to explain myself, and explain that I love him more than I love even my own family. I just need to do this for myself. I need to be me. I have to live my own life. He agrees in his own way, and I can tell in a few short lines of email that he isn't mad at me. That's all I need to know to sleep well at night, I decide, and time passes.
We work it out. We call each other. We talk all the time. We send each other emails. We send each other pictures of the people and world around us. We aren't rebuilding what we had, not really. We're creating something new, something different, built on honesty and familiarity rather than the past. It's like falling in love with the same person twice, relearning everything I knew and remembering why we came together in the first place. It's not an instant process, but we finally connect as Emily, the girl I am now and Wayne, the Patrol Sheriff he's become.
A part of him will always want to cling to how it used to be. He will always talk about the past with that fond little sigh he has, and remember the days we were first together with a certain relish. We aren't perfect people, and we don't have a flawless relationship. As long as we keep our lying to a minimum, we should stay afloat. If only he would stop pestering me about coming back to his town for spring break. He says it'll be a nice, relaxing vacation. I try to remember that I'm trying to be honest with him.
But, well, you know me.
"Sure I'll come, baby. I've never wanted anything more."