a reason to live(40)

I called him a coward.

“I’m so sorry, Emma,” I whispered into the darkness. “I wanted desperately to help him. For you, for him, and for me. I don’t know what to do. Do I stay and fight or do I leave?”

The door to my room flew open as I lay there waiting for an answer from my sister that would never come. “We need to talk,” Maxine said as she entered and flipped the light on.

Rolling to my back, I covered my eyes from the blinding light and mumbled, “What?”

Maxine sat on the bed, so I moved up and leaned against the headboard, wiping my face dry before pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them.

Her face softened as she took in my tears.

“I got a story to tell you,” she started in a soft voice. “One I never told Maximilian.”

“What kind of story?”

“One about love lost and found. You see, my husband Tom loved another woman before me. Max knows about his father’s first love; so does the town, but he doesn’t know the whole story.”

“Okay.” I was intrigued of course, but a little confused why she was sharing her husband’s past.

“I met Tom when he was thirty-eight. I lived in Gunnison, Colorado, at the time, and he was passing through on his yearly vacation. He liked the look of the town, so he decided to stay for a few days. What you need to know before I continue is we Gunnisons have a way of knowing the minute we see our soul mates. It happened to my dad, his dad, my brother, his son Jack, and even Maximilian. It also happened to me. Tom walked into the bar I was in, and the minute I looked at him, I knew. He was ten years older than I was, but I didn’t care. I could see it in his eyes,” she explained with a faraway look.

“You’re saying Max knew as soon as he looked into Mia’s eyes?”

“Oh, yeah. He may not have figured it out right off, but something happens when you meet your soul mate. You see, soul mates are two halves of the same whole, so when you meet, it’s like coming home. But it’s different for everyone. The Gunnisons, for instance, just instinctively know when we meet our other half. We become protective, possessive, almost instantly. And the Hunters, like my Max and Tom, the ground beneath their feet shifts and a calmness kinda washes over them.”

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. Aristotle.” Aristotle’s quote was based on Greek mythology where humans were believed to be born with four arms, four legs, and was half male and half female. But after they conspired to climb Mount Olympus to attack him, Zeus ordered them cut in half. Since that day, it’s believed every human spends their life searching for their other half. I hadn’t given much thought to the legend until Maxine told her story.

“You know Aristotle, I see.”

“I do. And I think it’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

“It is,” she agreed. “It can also be a curse, though.”

“How so?”

“Well, for one thing, not everyone realizes what’s happening and they fight it. Some will go as far as to push the other away, causing heartache and disappointment. And in some cases, separation for the rest of their lives.”

“Did Tom fight it?”

“Oh, Lord, yes. And that’s the part that Max doesn’t know,” she informed me, so I leaned in closer, my attention riveted to her story.

“Okay, I’m listening.”

When she moved closer and took my hand, I knew she was about to lay some wisdom on me I needed to hear.

“See, the reason Tom wasn’t married at thirty-eight is his first love had died in a hunting accident. It’s a sad story, I’ll tell you about it some time,” she explained with a flip of her hand and then continued. “Anyhoo, he vowed never to marry after that; was convinced he’d lost his one and only true love, you see. So he walked around a shell of a man for years until he met me. But I recognized him immediately as my other half. I also saw the darkness he carried within him and knew I’d have to fight for him. That’s what Max doesn’t know. He thinks his father took one look at me and fell head over heels, so let’s keep it that way.” She winked. “But the whole truth is, I fought tooth and nail to bring him out of the dark and into the light with me. And once he paid attention to me and honestly looked with his whole heart, he realized who I was. His soul mate.”

I could see Tom as he fought his feelings for her, and his face morphed into Shane’s.

“You’re telling me this for a reason, aren’t you?”

Maxine nodded and her eyes sharpened, pinning me in place. “I see the same look on your face I had when I met Tom. You see Shane’s soul, his dark, and his light, don’t you?”