Country Love

Olivia sighed from where she sat, encircled in Tyler’s arms, her head on his chest, hearing and feeling his every breath.

“What’s wrong, Liv?” Tyler asked her, tearing his eyes away from the show that they had been watching.

“I miss Austin.” To any other boyfriend, this would have sounded awful, as if she was talking about an Ex, but she wasn’t. She was talking about her hometown, in Texas.

Tyler knew she had been itching to go back, and he was even planning a vacation for them two months from then, for their anniversary, but lately it had started worrying him about how much she kept bringing it up. It was a constant, day to day subject with her.

“I know you do, honey.” He said softly to her.

“And yet you still do nothing about it.” she hissed suddenly, sitting up and out of his arms, looking back at him with a sharp eye.

Tyler was shocked at the way she acted, so the only response he could get out was, “Olivia, what do you want me to do?” he asked her, raising his arms out to his side in a questioning gesture.

“I want you to want what I do, to go to Austin, to live there.” Her tone had softened, giving him a chance to make up the fight, and to say yes, we’ll go.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

He sighed and looked down, a tired look on his face.

“I’ve told you this before, Olivia. I can’t just pick up and move to Austin. I have my family here, my job, my farm. I can’t leave it all behind. This land is in the family, I can’t sell it to go to Austin, somewhere that I’m not sure if I could even get a job.”

Olivia rolled her eyes and stood up, staring down at him.

“Well I can leave it all behind.”

That got Tyler to stand up with her.

“What are you saying?” he asked, cautiously.

“I’m saying that I’m done living here, and I want to go back to Austin.”

“Why? Why can’t you just stay?”

She just shook her head and looked down.

“I’m not happy here.”

That made the breath catch in Tyler’s throat.

“Are you saying that you’re not happy here, or not happy with me?” he said sharply, his heart dangling on the edge of break.

“I’m saying that I’m not happy here, and that I’m going home, and if you decide not to come with me, then so be it. That’s what I’m saying.” She said, crossing her arms in front of her, and taking a small step away from him.

Tyler was done pleading with her, so he just let himself fall back onto the couch, defeated.

“Then I can’t stop you, because I won’t come.” He said, looking at the carpeted floor beneath his feet, his elbow on his knees, and his hands kneading together in front of him.

Olivia didn’t say a word as she walked out of the room, and upstairs to the bedroom they shared, in the home that they shared. A home where Tyler had planned on proposing, a home that Tyler had planned on raising Olivia’s children, a home that would never be the same with her gone.

________________________________________________________________________

One Year Later

In Georgia, Tyler was finally getting back to the life he used to know, waking up early and tending his farm, and going to bed without a drink.

In the months directly after Olivia left him, he couldn’t get out of bed, not even to tend his farm. His brother would come over to do it, while his sister begged him to get out of bed.

When he finally did manage to get out of bed on those days when his sister had been extra persuasive, all the work on his farm had already been done, and the sun was getting ready to set for evening.

Then his family would leave, and he was left alone in that big empty house, so silent it was agonizing.

When the silence got to be too much, or just the memories of Olivia altogether, he’d go to the bottle, drown out his sorrows, and pass out on his bed.

And the cycle would start over.

But now, finally, twelve months later he was getting back to himself, waking to work his farm, spending time with his family, and going to bed without Jack Daniels’ help.

His buddies had tried taking him out to date, but it didn’t work, Olivia had been the only girl he ever wanted, but he wasn’t good enough for her anymore.

So Tyler just went on with his life without Olivia.

But she was never far from his mind, and he wanted her to know that. So every time he changed the message on his answering machine, he made sure to add a message to her, referring to her as ‘Austin’. She had never left a number to call her by when she left, so he just had to wait and pray that she’d call him.

But in those long months after she left, that never happened.

________________________________________________________________________

Olivia thought that coming back home to Austin was what she needed to be happy. But it wasn’t, and she realized her mistake much, much too late.

After she left Tyler, she had been sad, but she focused all her energy on finding an apartment to live in, in the city of Austin. She had worked on finding a job, maybe trying to meet a new man.

But she never did find a new man that she liked, and she realized this was because her heart was still back in Georgia with Tyler.

Now, as the mark of a year since she left comes up, she feels more and more miserable, aching Tyler’s touch, his voice, even his farm.

The city of Austin wasn’t anything like that farm in the middle of nowhere in Georgia, and Olivia knew that the biggest reason this was, was because Tyler was in Georgia, not Austin, with her.

Finally, she was fed up living life without him, she still loved him, and she knew that she had never stopped. So one day, after she got back from that awful job, she picked up the phone, and dialed what used to be her home number.

Three rings and an answering machine is what she got.

Then Tyler’s deep voice rumbled through her receiver, and her heart ached for him.

“If you’re callin’ ‘bout the car I sold it,” Olivia smiled at that, missing his southern drawl. “If this is Tuesday night I’m bowlin’. If you’ve got somethin’ to sell, you’re wastin’ your time, I’m not buyin’. If it’s anybody else, wait for the tone, you know what to do. And P.S. if this is Austin, I still love you.”

Then the tone sounded, and the phone dropped out of Olivia’s hands as she stood there stunned.

She heard, but she couldn’t believe. A thousand thoughts ran through her mind.

What kind of man would hang on that long? What kind of love must that be?

She waited three days, and then she tried again, she didn’t know what she’d say, but she heard three rings and then:

“If it’s Friday night I’m at the ballgame and first thing Saturday, if it don’t rain, I’m headed out to the Lake and I’ll be gone all weekend long. But I’ll call you back when I get home on Sunday afternoon, and P.S. if this is Austin, I still love you.”

Well, this time she left her number, but not another word. Then she waited by the phone on Sunday evening…

________________________________________________________________________

Tyler said bye to his buddies as they dropped him off at his house from fishing all weekend.

He smiled as he walked into the house, glad that the weather had turned out being nice after all.

He checked his messages, bill collectors, wrong numbers, his mother (of course). But one message caught his eye, and he re-listened to it four times, in disbelief at the fact that it was Olivia’s voice, leaving a number for him to call.

He wasted no time picking that phone up and dialing it, all the while praying that he wouldn’t get her machine.

Then her voice came on, and Tyler’s heart beat faster.

“If you’re calling,” Tyler cursed in his mind, he got her machine. “about my heart it’s still yours.” That caught his attention. “I should’ve listened to it a little more, then it wouldn’t have taken me so long to know where I belong.” Tyler’s heart was nearly beating out of his chest, if only this wasn’t her machine, so he could tell her how much he loved her. “And by the way, boy, this is no machine you’re talking to. Can’t you tell? This is Austin, and I still love you.”

Tyler couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

A smile lit up Tyler’s face, brighter than the Georgia sun, because his love, loved him, and she was coming back home. And that’s all he needed in life.