8. Ned

S ometimes in life, you had choices. You made them and then you moved on. Picked up the pieces when you made mistakes. Learned new skills. Met people. Left people.

You still lived, and I knew I had to. Live.

But living wasn't easy when you didn't know how. I'd lived my life for the past ten years, and it had been…

Fine.

My condo was fine. My job…I sat in my cubicle and stared at the windows, wished I was anywhere but here, but it was…fine.

My mosquito bites had faded. They still itched like a tic I couldn't ditch, and I tried not to scratch the marks that were barely visible now.

I still lived. Ate my breakfast. Drank my water and the occasional cup of steaming latte from a coffee shop.

I worked. Picked up the phone, wrote things down. Went from A to B. Completed tasks. Shook hands.

I wondered if it was all worth it or if I was completely losing my mind.

Some nights, I lay in my bed wishing I could grab my phone and ring him. I just wanted to hear his voice, the soft lilt of his vowels as he spoke, see the smile on his face, the way he looked at me .

Other nights, I wanted to scream and shout and hurl abuse at the universe for making me feel like this because I felt far too much.

Instead, I scrolled on the apps, searching for someone who looked remotely like him. Someone with a bit of bulk that would hold me through the worst of my nights.

In the end, I didn't.

Couldn't.

Life rolled on. Another day, another steaming latte. The gentle hum of my tires against the highway concrete, a means of taking me to work, then taking me home. Cool sheets against my naked skin.

I hurt. It had been months, yet I still hurt, pain shooting through me as I curled up into a ball in bed.

I didn't cry because what was there to cry about? He'd been right. Let's just leave it as it was.

Except it wasn't ‘as it was'. Not anymore. It existed, right here and now, and sometimes it was so overwhelming, I couldn't even breathe.

"You have a minute?" my boss asked as I shook myself back to life, having once again drifted off in my chair.

"Sure." I smiled, plastering myself together enough to stand. I felt like I was falling apart, when I clearly wasn't. I was a fully functioning human. Just a little bit…lost.

"Have a seat," she said, motioning for me to sit as I closed her office door behind me.

"We have some concerns, with regards to the new role we've been discussing. You know I've been trying to nudge that promotion your way, but frankly, Ned, I'm not so sure anymore. You seem to have lost your drive. Some of your recent appointments have frankly been sloppy. I expect more from you, and I think you expect more from yourself."

I nodded, which was not like me. I could talk myself out of most situations, sing my own praises, flaunt my skills and my strengths, bury my weaknesses in pretty words .

All traits I seemed to suddenly have lost.

Who was I kidding? I'd given up on them a long time ago.

"I've not been myself lately," I admitted in a streak of insanity. The start of the inevitable career suicide, right there.

"We've noticed, and in all honesty, the board and I are not impressed. Hence. Concern."

I'd always liked my bosses, respected their decisions and the way they led the company forwards, supported me as I'd steadily climbed.

But I was tired of the climb. Who wouldn't be? My life was plywood cubicles and people I only met through screens. I looked out the windows and there were just buildings here, not a tree in sight. Some half-dead shrubbery in the distance, planted to try to liven up a concrete car park.

She was still talking, churning out corporate bullshit that I completely failed to take in.

"I agree," I said clumsily, righting myself in the chair. "I will get myself more organised, work on a more positive outlook toward reaching the required goals."

The words tasted bitter in my mouth. Like I cared. Like I wanted to be here. I didn't want to work towards anything but that clock on the wall, begging it to move faster so I could go home.

But home meant another night alone, and the clock would keep moving, bringing me back here. Full circle. Over and over again.

I walked back out to my cubicle, took a sip from my water bottle, rolled my shoulders. I needed to make some calls, check those emails that were glaring at me from the icon on my desktop.

Instead, I pulled up a blank document, typed my name and the date, tried the words out in my head before I wrote them out.

Extended leave.

I deleted that.

Career break .

I wanted that. Well, not in its actual meaning. I wanted to break something. I wanted to grab a mallet and smash up my life because I wasn't sure what I was doing anymore, and my positive outlook on my future had gone off on a tangent.

I wanted out. I'd known for a while but never had a reason to allow myself to think those thoughts, but anyway, I couldn't afford it. I had to work. I had bills to pay and responsibilities.

That word made me laugh. People threw it out like they actually had them. I thought of my Aunt Violet with her heifers and calves, who relied on her getting up every morning to feed and milk them and let out to pasture. She kept them warm in winter. Cool in summer. Played them their favourite radio stations in the large sheds because they did have their favourites. She'd done her research. The milk ratios shot up to pop music, down with country ballads. Nobody liked seventies hits. Bruce Springsteen was out. The eighties was in, though, and if I ever played any of that terrible rap music in Aunt Violet's shed, she'd threaten to hide the stash of sweets she bought on a Friday night, ban herself from sharing them when she brought them out on Saturday, then we'd still inevitably gorge ourselves stupid at the kitchen table doing the crosswords and laughing at the music on the radio.

I'd not lied when I said that my year with Violet had been the best year of my life.

I'd lived in the shadows of five hundred cattle, the large barns that cast cold shadows in the winter, cool shade in the summer. Flies everywhere. The constant stench of manure. The milk trucks rolling up and down the gravel road.

Trees as far as the eyes could see.

All those trees, and us.

Me.

Aunt Violet and her ever-changing troop of farm workers. Poles. Romanians. Sometimes even locals. Hardworking humans who ran that place like clockwork.

People who breathed the air up there and worked until their knuckles bleed. I knew mine had. Shovelling manure was no joke, and I'd done it every weekend, accompanied by Swedish pop music and flies with no ideas of personal boundaries. I'd cleaned milking equipment, cut open large sacks of grain feed, gotten myself covered in things that even after a long hot shower, I could still smell.

I'd worked. Properly worked. And here I was, feeling sorry for myself because I wasn't displaying a cheerful attitude about restaffing some customer service call centre with minimum-wage workers who hopefully not only spoke English but understood how to use a simple computerised system.

I was tired. Sick and tired.

All those trees.

I stepped outside, my phone pressed to my ear. Paced the corridor, hoping she'd pick up.

It was the middle of the night in Sweden, but she still answered because she was Violet, and I was a stupid American dick.

Which she was more than happy to remind me of.

I laughed softly, my voice full of apologies.

"What's on your mind, Ned? Apart from depriving an old woman of a good night's sleep."

"Life, Aunt Violet," I said dramatically.

"Life can go fuck itself."

Aunt Violet was not all she seemed. She may have been older, but she was also a savvy businesswoman and had run that farm on her own since she was sixteen. I knew because she never failed to remind me and kick me in the balls when I tried to get away with self-pity, fear and anxieties.

"Have you thought more about my offer?" she asked. I heard the click of her bedside table light being switched on.

"The one about swapping the milking machines in shed two for the old ones from shed one?"

That earned me a snort right in the ear, followed by the sound of her glasses being donned, the plastic frames clacking against the phone screen. All things that brought me comfort.

"Your mother raised you to be a little shit, but you can't get away with that here, Ned. Still in that dead end job? "

"It's the only job I've got."

"True. Pays you all those dollar bills that go into your bank account. Also makes you bloody miserable. "

"Yup." She wasn't wrong.

"Got the team to move the milking robots last weekend. We're fully up and running again, but I'll have to spend some serious cash in spring to get a new system online. The quality standards are changing, again, and we need to be on top of that."

"I agree. No good falling behind and risking getting shut down."

"But you haven't called me in the middle of the night to discuss milk quality standards, have you?"

"No," I admitted.

"The offer still stands. Sell that box you live in and come work with me. I have two options. I can die on my hill here and the whole place gets put up for auction, or you come, get back into the swing of things and take over. Start living a good, decent life instead of fiddling around on computers and drinking that goddamn awful milky shit you Americans like"

"It's Italian, Violet."

"Americano. Latte. It's all the same—brown water destroying perfectly good milk. No wonder you're all going wrong across the pond, voting for clowns and eating terrible chocolate."

"Our chocolate is not terrible. You're only grumpy because you've eaten the last of it. I'll make you a care package."

"I called your mother. She agrees with me."

Trust Violet to change the subject, and yes, I knew. I'd spoken to my mom too, and my dad. Seemed they were all in cahoots about my big change of career, despite me still being here, tapping on my silly computer, living in a box, driving a shitheap of a car through concrete.

Not eating chocolate that tasted of vomit .

I didn't think it did, but I could taste it at the back of my throat. My stomach wanted to turn itself inside out. Fear, coupled with an incredible force inside my head screaming for me to just—

"And before you ask," Violet interrupted like she knew exactly what I'd been thinking. "He's fine. I saw him the other day—his cat had more kittens. He needs to stop feeding all the critters, it's like a zoo down there. Cats feed themselves if you just let them be. They're predators. No need to buy them all those chemical pouches of stuff he puts out for them. I suppose they're company, though. A boy his age should not be that lonely."

I could almost hear the sentence she didn't say out loud. All alone on that farm, in the house where his father passed away, having to deal with all of that. On his own.

He wasn't on his own, though, because my thoughts were there with him, every night. I slapped my forehead, trying to shut down the daydream.

It wouldn't work like that. I couldn't just move back there and expect him to…

He wasn't like that.

He was the nicest man I'd ever met, and I had barely met him. A couple of hours in his bed. What was I thinking?

"How would it all work?" I asked. "I can't just hop on a plane."

"Child," Aunt Violet grunted. "Of course you can."

"I—"

"You either do it or you don't. There's no halfway point here, and you know what? You lived this life for a whole year, and you never stopped smiling. You love this place as much as I do, and when I leave this earth, I'll leave in peace knowing you're here to take my place. So it's not that complicated."

"Aunt Violet."

"Edward Anderson. What does your heart say?"

Good question because my heart was screaming in my chest. My head, not so much as a whimper.