More of Us to the West (Adrift #1)

by Trinity Dunn

I was eager to be kinder, happier, and not always consumed with unspoken resentment toward him.

That was the thing about the neurotic side of me. She tended to make Chris out to be a monster when she was awoken. Any little thing could set her on a crash course of unwarranted blame and complete outrage.

Instead, I found an excuse—much as I always did—to be angry at him; an excuse to hold onto the contempt bottled up inside me.

Why did I let myself get so angry so often?

‘Of course he would pull out his phone,’ my neurotic inner voice complained. ‘He would literally prefer to scroll aimlessly for hours through social media or play poker with complete strangers than to converse with his wife. Have I become so boring or have we just run out of things to say to each other? If we can’t even talk in the airport, how are we supposed to enjoy this vacation?’

Of course he was unaffectionate. Who wouldn’t be when their wife was always so bitter?

Would I have been doomed to be in the same situation regardless of who I’d married, or had I just married the wrong man?

I felt every fight I walked away from, every moment I chose to ignore him, and every unhappy thought I’d allowed my mind to think about him. I’d let myself get so angry at him that I’d even gone so far as to kill him in my daydreams with a freak car accident or heart attack that would set me free of the bad marriage I’d created.

“It’s not awful to want the physical touch… to want the words, even if they are superficial… It’s why I lived the way I did… woman after woman… it’s human nature to want to be touched—loved—in a certain way. A person can have great intentions, but without the intimacy, what’s the difference between a lover and a friend?”

“Well, I am a man sitting here looking at you and I’m telling you, no man in his right mind would stop loving you once he started.”

His lips curled upward. “The idea of clamoring awkwardly through an ‘I really like you’ speech just didn’t seem fitting. Didn’t seem like enough… Not for you. And not for the way you make me feel. You’re the type of woman worth rehearsing for. I know

we crashed and we’re lost and I should be in a state of complete panic... but, I can’t seem to feel anything out here but you.”

“Everything in my life… every decision I did or didn’t make, every tear I cried, and every breath I took brought me here to you. Brought me here to find this love that I can’t seem to function without. And there is nowhere else I ever want to be.” He kissed my palm, then

“The wind is blowing east. Carve something to tell them there are more of us to the west.”

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born…” He closed his eyes and sighed. “And a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”