Letting Go at 40 by L.B. Dunbar EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: L.B. Dunbar
- Language: English
- Formats: PDF / EPUB
- Status: Available for Download
- Series: None
- Price: Free
- File Size: 2 MB
3 Years Ago
August
The Reunion
[Mason]
I can do this. I can keep her out of my head.
This is my mantra as I pound on the sand beneath my feet and push my
body along the shoreline, running as if I can outrun my thoughts.
Roughly twenty-two years have passed, and I still have to fight to ignore
the feelings I have for her. I don’t even want to think her name. I don’t want
to consider how shiny her dark hair remains or how smooth her skin still
looks after all this time. I don’t want to accept that despite having three
children with someone else, her body still does it for me.
My dick aches.
I need to stop thinking about her.
My legs strain on the unsteady surface of early morning wet sand. My
heart hammers. Ever since Ben called us to join him at his in-law’s cottage
I’ve been on edge. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be around them, but Ben
was adamant. He wanted me here. He needed me.
Ben Kulis. One of my best friends; the truest of friends.
We’ve vacationed together in the past. There were years when all of us
—Logan, Zack, Ben, and me—spent endless time together. Pre-relationships.
Pre-marriage. Pre-children. At least for them. I’ve never been married and,
while I have a child, that’s a complicated story.
Legs pumping, I pummel the wet grains beneath my feet. The rhythm in
my chest matches the thump-thump-thump of my heels. I will myself to tamp
down my thoughts as I near the wooden staircase marking the climb to the
house. A one-hundred-fifty step ascent leads up the bluff. The cottage, which
is a humble term for such a grand house, overlooks Lake Michigan. Lakeside
is a sleepy area of million-dollar homes and family-inherited cottages.
I’d like to keep running but a lone figure sits in one of several
Adirondack chairs on this private portion of beach and I slow my run. As I
near Ben, he sits with his arms tucked beneath a beach towel covering his
legs. A Michigan State sweatshirt that has seen better days covers his upper
body. He’s pulled the hood over his head and stares straight ahead at the slow
ripple of the morning waves.
Cautiously, I approach him. My friend of twenty-plus years is different.
While he’s been smiling, he’s forcing the curl of his lips. While he’s been
laughing, the sound doesn’t brighten his eyes. We’re here for two weeks and
his body doesn’t appear like he has the strength for two minutes of the façade
he’s working to upkeep.
Ben is a great guy. Blond hair, blue eyes, he has all-American boy
written over him even at the ripe age of forty. But something about his
present state suggests he’s aged faster than the rest of us. A gorgeous wife,
three amazing children, a steep mortgage and owning a small business can do
that to a man. I wasn’t jealous.
It’s a lie I tell myself.
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