He doesn't want me. My best friend has let me go. Maybe it's for the best, then why does it hurt like hell? I feel like I've been dumped, and I am getting married to a ghost. So why did I say yes to marrying Mark Lewis? I must have been out of my goddamn mind. Perhaps I liked the idea of Mark, he is, after all, a decent fellow, but I don't know him at all.Robbie doesn't like coffee and has it on rare occasions. Mark drinks his every day with milk and sugar. Robbie loves drinking beer. I don't know if Mark drinks. I have yet to see that side of him. I've slept with both of them, and it was terrific. But maybe that's what sex is, this fantastic feeling people have with each other to feel good and make babies. Being let go by Robbie really hurts. My stomach's in knots.I walk into my bathroom and force myself to throw up. Nothing hurts more than this. I've been rejected by my best friend, the one person I should have always been with. The person I want to hold me in the

The last two days have sucked. I've put Sam behind me as much as I can. Missy has been clingy since the Italian restaurant. I've tried to give her grace about it. I know she's insecure that I will leave her. Her last boyfriend left her without a text or warning. I hope I don't turn out like him. If I ever did leave Missy or any woman, I would hope to do so honorably and to their face.My phone vibrates in my pocket. Since I abandoned Sam, I've felt empty and hollow. I haven't felt like myself, not for a few days. Missy has been concerned. I told her I didn't feel well to avoid questions. She thinks I have a stomach bug. I've been faking it and have been letting her take care of me.My phone continues to vibrate. I pick it up. I pray Sam's name doesn't appear. My rejected best friend, crying at my stupidity. My foolishness has sent her away. Her love for me pushed me away. We might be terrible together. Our friendship could end if this didn't work out, and Sam wouldn't

Sam finishes getting ready for the day and heads out the door. There's no point in trying to keep her around. We need a few days to think about each other. I don't want to hurt anyone, especially Missy. But I've experienced Sam now, in a more intimate setting, and I can't just give that up or let that go. So last night meant something to Sam and me.Sam tried her hardest to keep her feelings away, but I had to make her say she loves me. It felt good to hear those words leave my best friend's lips. She used to lie beside me when she was scared of what her parents would do to her. So on those nights when she'd come over, I wanted her to love me. I've known Sam longer than Missy, but that doesn't mean we were meant to be together. It's complicated.Percy knocks on the guest bedroom door. My hair looks like I've had sex all night long."Well, I saw Sam leave. How are you feeling," Percy asks?"Oh, I'm fine. Better than fine," I say as Percy hands me a cup of

Falcon Falls, the place where I lost my father and my boyhood in a single moment. Returning there has been haunting me all week. I've never told anyone that I am the reason my father, a war hero, fell to his death on the cliffs on the falls. It was a hunting accident.My first year of high school, my father took me on my first hunting trip. He took me to Falcon Falls. The wind was hardly in the air that day, and the sun was low in the sky. It was cold and crisp, perfect deer hunting weather.My old man wanted to teach me how to hunt. We followed a buck near the falls. My gun got jammed, and before my father could help me, I shot him. The recoil pushed him back over the falls. His body was so mangled from where it smashed on the rocks that they never found a bullet wound. But I know what I did. I know how and where it took place. I'm a murderer in the silence of my thoughts. If I return to Falcon Falls, I am sure it will trigger me to rethink joining the army. After my

Loud sobbing is heard in the distance. It sounds like Robbie, but I can't be sure. We agreed to meet later. Regardless of how we feel about each other, he's still my best friend first and always. His father died here among the falls and forests, and like a fog-brained mother, I too have forgotten this detail.I can't believe I forgot the name of the place of his father's fall. His father's death never made sense to any of us. Robbie was so quiet and upset about it I never pressed the issue. But somewhere in his grief, he blames himself for the death of his dead father.It's not his fault the world came crashing down for him the day he went hunting. It was never clear why they hunted near the falls or why they followed a deer so close to the edge. The deer was found beside his father. Perhaps it pushed him over the edge. But unfortunately, his body was so destroyed by the fall that it was hard to determine anything in an autopsy. And Robbie was left fatherless, traumati