Rootbound

by Tarah DeWitt

“Would you mind if I play music? That seems like a pleasant enough way to pass the time,” she asks. “Sure,” I reply. I don’t offer to help her figure out radio stations. She whips out her phone and manages to sync it to my Bluetooth immediately. I flinch and prepare for the worst … … And am pleasantly surprised when the first song is by Chris Stapleton. Not my favorite of his, but tolerable at least. The next song throws me off, though. Hootie & the Blowfish? Song number three is, straight up, an oldie: “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac. After that, the chaos continues. I’m subjected to Justin Bieber, followed by George Strait, the Eagles, Katy Perry, Tom Petty, Post Malone, Shania Twain, Queen, then a few in a row that have the most filthy and/or violent lyrics I’ve ever heard (uncensored, and the girl doesn’t even bat an eye) … She mouths “spank me, slap me, choke me, bite me” without so much as a hesitant glance in my direction. It takes more than a song to scandalize me, but the unflinching, relentless randomness of this has heat creeping up my neck. Oh, sure, now we’re back to some country. I can’t take it anymore, and frankly, I’m starting to get a little afraid. “What. Is. This.” I try (and fail) to keep my tone neutral. She is momentarily shocked that I burst our long-standing bubble of silence. “What? It’s Tyler Childers.” “I know who this is. I mean what is this whole goddamn playlist? There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to any of it.” “What do you mean? They’re al...

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“Oh, sorry Deliverance, I left all my dueling banjo tunes back home. Are you for real? It’s fucking music!” “Sure as hell is not fucking music, not sure what kind of fucking you’re into, but this mash-up would not be good to fuck to.” Woah—what was that? What made me go there? But I press on. “Also, really? ‘Deliverance’? You know you’re in Idaho, right? Not exactly known for being backwoods or toothless. I know I got a purdy mouth.” I bare my teeth at her in the biggest smile I can manage.

“Just come by my place if you need anything, I’m sure I’ve got what you need. I can feed you.” “You think you know what I like? Maybe I need to take a look at your menu.” “I guess it depends on your tastes?” She smirks triumphantly. “Guess it’s not a big menu then, huh?”

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Charlie is a Shania guy, apparently, a fact that delights me. I’m singing along at the top of my lungs without the bummer of having to hear myself, the roaring engine blocking out the sound. I haven’t felt so much pure, simple bliss in forever. The heat is intense, but the speed keeps it off of us and morphs it into a pleasant, breezy blanket that pours over my skin continuously in waves. I’m aware that the impending awkwardness of whatever this rekindling is will be intense, but I feel an easy contentment settle on me, despite the chaos that carries us across the valleys and over hills. Sometime later, as I’m singing along to Brooks & Dunn, “Mariiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeee, Oh, my Marieeeee—ieee—aaaaahhhhhh!” loud laughter booms in my earpiece from three male voices as Charlie lets off the gas. I see Henry and James ride up, holding their sides, trying not to fall out of their saddles. “Tait”—gasp—“your radio button is still on,” Henry’s voice gets out in between bouts of laughter. “Honey, you cuss like a sailor on HBO,” comes Charlie’s reprimand. Oh, God. All the sound effects. “How long was it on?!” I ask. Henry snorts and starts dying again. “The entire time,” says James. Cool, probably forty-five minutes of me saying whoop, whoop at every little hump, and singing directly into their ears when I couldn’t even hear myself. That had to be gold. Oh, God—the singing. “Were those Muppet impressions?” James asks. Kill me now.

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Tait looks so damn beautiful in this moment, laughing with her entire body—the one that has no rhythm or predictability, tinkling out of her in chaos—that it hurts. I suck in a breath at the sudden realization that I, someone who is not inherently funny, want to be the one making her laugh like this, for as long as I can.

“You honestly made fun of my playlist choices when you are rocking with THIS?!” She holds out my phone to me and breaks into a massive grin. Fuck … “Mamma Mia?!!! You’re into MUSICALS?! Come on, man. I’m trying not to judge here, but you’ve got both albums on here from both movies. And you judged me first! Explain yourself!” “I … I…” I struggle for a cool explanation and come up empty. “Fine, okay. Yes, I like it. It’s Grady’s fault, though.” “Uh-huh … sure, Abba man.”

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“When you buy a new plant, you often have to cut the roots when it comes out of the pot. That way, when you put it into the ground, the roots will reach outward, and it will thrive. If you left it in that plastic pot, in that compacted shape it’s in, the roots would grow around and around in a tangled mass until it’d choke the life from itself. It would become too rootbound to grow.”

He passes me my drink and says, “Question time?” Then, after I nod woodenly, “Why’d you get dressed up tonight?” I scoff, instantly annoyed. He knows why. “You know why.” “Maybe I need you to say it out loud, though, just to be sure we are on the same page.” “Well, why don’t you say what page you think we are on and I will confirm or deny.” He takes a gulp from his drink before setting it down a little too hard. “Tait. Please?” I close my eyes. “It felt like this was … a date.” I open them to see him twitching that hard jaw again. “Honey, they’ve all been dates to me. I’ve just been waiting for you to catch up.”

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I think I hear my heart crack for him—this kind man, who probably seems like a cranky asshole to any outsider, but who lives for the ones he cares about. Grump he may be, but I’d love for him to be my grump. He’s already become my favorite friend.

I love doing work with my hands, in beautiful country, and I love my family and friends. I love that it’s not always the same. “It’s not experiencing an ancient culture, a castle in Scotland or the Dolomites. But it’s my home, and I see you falling in love with it, too, Tait. Someone who’s seen so much—even you can still appreciate it here. You might not be ready to admit that, but I’ll be here when you are.” It’s not this place I’m falling for, I want to tell him.

“I wish you could see how you glow. How you brighten a room every time you enter it. I can’t imagine anyone, ever, losing sight of that with you. And I’m glad you’re here, and that you’re not wasting your time with anyone like I did. I hope … I hope you’ll continue to.”

“This dress makes you look like a present just for me, honey.”

Also, how do I keep you? Is it way too soon to feel like this? I think you’re my soulmate and I never thought that was a real thing before I met you. You’ve turned my thoughts into an endless stream of cheesy romcom lines that are somehow applicable and understandable now. You had me at hello.

She’s here, wrapped in my sheets, peaceful, beautiful. An angel, so sure of herself in so many ways, except in this—in trust, in letting herself be seen and loved, in letting herself love something back. The woman won’t even let herself have a pet, despite how she tears up over the love of an animal. And she chose me. At least she chose me to trust, and whether or not she realizes this bit yet, it hits me that I know I love her.

“You just … you sound, and look, like you again.” “Don’t be so dramatic.” I laugh back. “No, Tait, really. I just have been so worried that the opposite would happen, you know? That all this would make you want to shut down and shut out more. But you’re out here living life like a Tim McGraw song!” I roll my eyes. “Stop.” “I mean, it literally sounded like that. You were all ‘I went four-wheeling, I went Rocky Mountain hiking, I went—2.7 seconds—in a pond with Cowboy Thor,’” she sing-songs, badly. “I’m truly impressed that you made that up actually. I can’t even be mad.”

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“Tait, I’m really happy that you’re scoring with hot Henry over there, but I do have one piece of advice for you …,” she says, ominously, and I nod for her to proceed. “Always stay humble and kind.” We explode, laughing so hard that tears are streaming down both our faces,

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“I’m not trying to suffocate you, Tait. In this particular moment, I’m trying to feed you breakfast and wish you a happy birthday. Can we have this conversation over cinnamon rolls?” “You made cinnamon rolls? Naked?” she squeaks, and I nod. “Well, alright … since no one else can eat them, since that’s hardly sanitary.”

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“Can you see yourself building a life here? Someday, maybe?” I ask, still not able to look up. “Can you see yourself building a life in California?” is her answer, and damnit, she’s right. At this stage, I can’t. But I love you, is on the tip of my tongue. But it’s not fair, to her or to me. If she doesn’t want to set down roots here, for herself, I can’t be the reason for her to. I’m not enough of a reason. I think she very well could be enough of a reason for me, though. I think if she asked me to go with her, I couldn’t deny her. And that realization terrifies me enough that I need to get out of the same room as her; I need to breathe.

“Can we just enjoy the hell out of tonight? And worry about the rest tomorrow?” And when he says this, the feeling that fills me is equal parts love, gratitude, and mourning. Because Henry has always given me exactly what I’ve wanted, plus what I’ve needed. From that first night when he dropped the conversation and played card games, to each time he’s said what I’ve needed to hear without expectation, to the space he’s allowed for us to become friends—even after I drunkenly dry humped him in a pond. Here he is, even now, giving me this night, despite our earlier conversation, despite the fact that I can’t tell him anything with certainty. I can’t give up being me, again, just to hitch up my baggage to another person. And yet, here he remains, steady and strong, and insurmountably more mentally stable than I, offering me both a distraction and acceptance.

“Even if this fails in a less than spectacular fashion, Henry, I want to love you until then. I want to love you until it’s devastating.

want to put down roots here: beside you, across a pond from you, somewhere new with you, I don’t care. You’ve made me want to do that, to plant myself somewhere and flourish.”

“I want to love you until I’m absolutely devastated too, Tait. I’m going to.”

“Oh my god. Henry, her name … Gemma Nola.” “Oh.” I see it in his face when he realizes it, too. “It’s fucking Emma Logan with the letters rearranged! She goddamn Tom Riddled me!” “She goddamn Tom Riddled you.”