And sometimes, we wanted to, despite the cold.
On the mornings when the sun twinkled on virgin snow and birds sang in white-capped trees, we’d slip into warm clothing and go for a walk. Sometimes, we’d kiss by the frozen river, and others, we’d tease and torment until we practically ran back to the cottage and couldn’t tear our clothes off fast enough.
Those were my favourite days.
The ones where we forgot about ages and education and futures and society.
A simple existence where we ate when we were hungry, slept when we were tired, and fucked at any time or place we wanted.
Nothing in the cottage had been free from our escapades. Not the smooth bamboo kitchen bench—where I’d hoisted Della onto it, bare assed and panting. Not the claw foot bathtub that was big enough for two—where Della had gotten on her knees and blown me.
Not even the woodshed was free from us screwing like the bunnies Della wanted us to become. I’d ended up with a splinter in my ass, but I didn’t care, seeing as Della was a master at tending to my injuries.
A couple of days before we were due to hand the keys back, we washed all our clothes, sorted through our supplies, ate the rest of the food that we couldn’t take with us, and prepared to hike for the rest of the season.
I felt like a creature crawling from its den after a winter of bunkering down.
I was itching for exercise. I was ready for adventure.
I wanted to be a wanderer again even though I also wanted other things.
Things like being able to officially call Della my wife. Things like officially making our last name Wild and not just a word we’d chosen.
My belly clenched whenever my attention landed on her hand and the gaudy blue ring I’d bought. The promise I’d made and the need to make her mine was a constant desire.
I hadn’t told her, but one night, while she slept beside me, I’d used the final internet credit on her phone to research how to get married. The information bombarding the screen made my brain bleed, and the prices some people were willing to spend made me sick.
The thought of a party with hundreds of people watching a very private moment turned me right off, but even the civil service ceremony with just a single witness wasn’t open to us.
Basically, we couldn’t get married.
Not unless I found a way to get us birth certificates, and we became real people and not just lost kids in the system.
It was a complication that had always been on the back of my mind, but I had no clue how to rectify it. It also didn’t help that the diamante letters of my bracelet had already lost some of its glitter, the tiny gems falling from their metal surroundings.
In the dead of night, deep in my nightmares of losing her, I feared it was a sign that if I didn’t find a way to make her my wife soon, my entire future would be in jeopardy.
I didn’t care the jewellery couldn’t stand up against time, I would wear it until it disintegrated and then somehow resurrect it because it’d become almost a good luck charm, promising me a future where Della would always love me, just like she promised.
Despite my desires to make her mine on paper as well as in my heart, we left behind the cottage where we’d found so much happiness and, for the first time, I was open to the idea of putting down roots.
A place to call our own.
A bed to keep Della warm.
A house we could raise a family in.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
REN
* * * * * *
2019
2019 WAS ONE of my favourite and equally unfavourite years.
Summer was spent skinny-dipping, travelling, fucking, learning, laughing, and living in every precious moment.
It didn’t matter we had no life luxuries. We didn’t care our bathroom was open air, our shower was sometimes shared with fish, or our bedroom was a flimsy thing that was useless against storms—nothing could scare us away from the joy of being alone, entirely self-sufficient, and free to love how we wanted to love.
Our need for each other seemed much more accepted out here, rutting against trees and rocks, driving each other to pinnacles I doubted a house with pretty painted walls could contain.
We had solar lanterns that lit up our tent when we wanted light and solar chargers for phones we didn’t care about. We made do with what the sun wanted to give us and only ate what we foraged and hunted for months on end.
I never asked if Della missed her friends or school. I never regretted spending a lifetime ensuring she had an education, only to yank her away from one the moment I fell in love with her.