Big Man for Christmas - Penny Wylder Page 0,15

again and know if it can still be as good as it was the one and only time we were together.

As I cross through the patch of woods that shields his house from the road, I hear music for the second time today. But this time it’s not loud, brassy, classical music. It’s a simple guitar melody, soft and clear, ringing across the snow.

I get a little closer, and now I hear his voice. It’s smooth and tenor, with soul that makes me ache. Stepping out of the woods, I see him.

Casey is sitting on his porch with a guitar, sitting in a pool of light like he’s performing on a stage. I don’t dare move closer, because I don’t want him to stop singing. It’s too beautiful, and I don’t want to wreck this moment. With the snow falling and the moon shining, it’s like something out of a movie.

The song he’s singing…it’s a love song. But a mournful one. About a love that was lost. The lyrics are haunting. About a girl he loved who left him behind. She had golden hair and green eyes. They were lovers in the sky while the sky exploded.

Pure, unadulterated shock roots me to the spot. That’s the story of us. Our story. The love song he’s singing is about me. When did he write this? While I was trying to avoid him over a mistake that never actually happened? Or after I’d left Elgin and was completely out of his reach?

My heart hurts thinking about a younger Casey, pouring his heart out into lyrics. Over me. The moon blurs as I tear up, and I listen to him sing the rest of the song.

6

Casey

I strum the last notes of the song and they echo into the darkness. It’s like a blast from the past. I haven’t sung this song in years, but seeing Carley today brought it back and I had to let it out.

There isn’t any hiding from the emotions that are flooding me now. We were young, sure, but I loved Carley. I think I’d loved her since we were kids, but we never wanted to be those people. The kids that grew up together and that everyone expected to be married straight out of high school. So we held back, until one day, neither of us could do that anymore.

But I loved her. And when she stopped speaking to me and left…I broke. And after I wrote this song, I shoved it all down and buried that fact deep. So deep that it never really healed. Now she’s here again and she’s not married and not engaged, and my heart is screaming that she’s meant to be mine.

But how can she be? What kind of man am I if I try to convince her to come back to me only days after her engagement broke up?

I sigh. The night is cold and clear enough though the flurries are whirling around. The snow is muffling all the sound, except for the low sound of the heater. I installed it a few years ago while Dad was sick. Mom used to like to sit out here at night with him, but the cold wasn’t good for his health. This made it possible to sit outside almost every night of the year.

It was nice.

And remembering my parents brings me back to Carley. Because my parents truly loved each other. The kind of love that’s rare and precious and that you can only really hope to find for yourself. At this point, I’ve given up hope.

I’ve dated my fair share, and there’s no one left. I decided a year ago that there isn’t anyone for me. No one that makes my heart leap the way that Carley did.

A shuffling sound draws my attention. Footsteps. Too even for it to be a bear, and too heavy to be a wolf. It has to be a person. Who’s out here on my property after dark?

Out of the darkness, I see Carley step into the edge of the porch light. Of course.

Of course, it’s her.

And I was singing her song just minutes ago. The chances that she didn’t hear it are almost non-existent. All that emotion that I’d poured onto the page as a teenager with a broken heart.

I try to think of a way to justify why I’m singing that song now. That I was grown and past it all, and not pining for her still like a lovesick teen. But seeing her right