To Not Let Go

Chapter Twenty Nine

             It had been almost three weeks since Bernie passed away. Swayde was slowly, but surely healing. He had hit the rock bottom last week, but after their talk, Renne stuck by his side, and Swayde had kept his promise, talking through the pain and hurt. 

            Now, these last couple mornings, Swayde was feeling better than he had all month. Today, however, Swayde was in the middle of his barn chores when he got a text from Bernie's wife, Martha. Reading it, he let out a sigh, then looked up to the sky. "Alright, Bernie." Walking to his house, once chores were done, Swayde walked to the fridge, needing a cold beverage; this July heat was getting ridiculous, it was a little after nine, but already the heat was swealtering. In the back on the bottom shelf of the fridge, Swayde saw he still had a six pack of beer. 

            It hadn't even phased him, but the sight made him realize that he hadn't drank a drop of alcohol at all these last two weeks, since him and Renne had their big talk. He didn't crave it, didn't need it anymore. It was a freeing feeling. Taking the cardboard carrier to the sink, Swayde turned on the water, and opened each bottle, pouring them down the drain one by one. Opening the cap on the last bottle, Swayde held it in his hand, staring at the label. He didn't even realize it before, but he was drinking Bernie's favorite brand of beer. 

           Holding it up in the air, he said, "This last one's for you, Bernie." Then took a sip, carrying it outside with him. Taking a seat on the porch, Swayde stared out over the land that he was blessed to call his own. Recently, he had found himself thanking God more and more for the little things, knowing though they seem small, they're big indeed. 

           Glancing down at his phone, Swayde saw he had a text from Kyle, in response to Bernie's wife's text, but looked back up when he heard a car door shut. 

            Renne closed the door on her truck, walking up the sidewalk to Swayde's porch. "It's a little early for that, don't you think?" Renne said, partially teasing, nodding to the half empty beer bottle next to Swayde. 

           Swayde didn't respond, just scooted over, leaving room for Renne to sit next to him on the steps. Pulling up the text he had received this morning, Swayde showed his phone to Renne. "It's from Martha, Bernie's wife." 

             As Renne read the text, Swayde took another swig of beer. Martha had sent two texts. One in a group chat to all the guys, and the second text was just to Swayde: that's the one she was reading right now. 

             Martha had explained that she had began going through some of Bernie's stuff, mainly his rodeo stuff, and Bernie had always said that if he went first, he wanted "the guys" to have most of his rodeo stuff, namely Swayde. Though Bernie was almost twenty-some years older than Swayde, they had been best friends; Bernie had taken Swayde under his wing, and mentored to him over the years. 

             In the group text, Martha had thanked all the men for coming to the funeral, and for making Bernie's last memory of them all hanging out to be a good one. She thanked them for the years they all got to spend together, and said that she wanted to have all of them over to her place for a meal, and so they could all go through Bernie's stuff, picking out the items they wanted. 

            Renne set Swayde's phone down next to him. "That's great, Swayde. You're gonna go, right?"

            Swayde picked at the label on the nearly empty beer bottle as he told Renne with a chuckle, "Bernie taught me how to drink. The first beer I ever had was with him. There were a few times, I will admit, that after we both had really good runs, or horrible rides, where we maybe drank a little too much. We would start talkin' about the good old days. Sometimes we would talk about you...how you were the one that got away even though I have always known that you are the only girl that I will ever truly love. He convinced me that you would come back to Alpine Ridge eventually...back to me... One night, after a few beers, we made a promise to go on a road trip together. We would go take a trial ride through part of the Rockies...then the guys would meet us and we would all go see the Grand Canyon together...that was a promise we intended to keep, but we just kept procrastinating it. Life got too busy...Martha was pregnant with their second child, Doug got married to your sister and little Hope was on the way, one of the guys was doin' real good on the circuit and moved to Texas when we were plannin' all this, so our plans were never put into fruition. To this day, we still never got to take a ride through the Rockies of see the Grand Canyon...this all just proves that life is short."