Formidable Devotion

XXXII

JULIET HARRISON'S POV

My condition had gotten better.

I was leaving soon.... unfortunately.

Being in the suburbs felt like the break I needed. The solitude helped me more than I could comprehend.

Nathaniel spent most of the hours outside in the farm. I used my time reading the screenplay for Dorothea. I'm getting more confident about it and I see myself getting that role for sure.

As usual, Nathan would carry me to the backyard and sit me on a chair overlooking the field, to watch the sunset. He really didn't need to carry me around, my skin had healed to a great degree now, and friction on the surface wouldn't create more irritation than before when any slight contact between my clothes and skin or skin to skin would have my thighs and arms burning. My skin wasn't swollen anymore, I was doing good.

He would leave me there alone until the night came but this time he stayed with me to watch the sun.

We didn't talk.

I noticed he wasn't doing alright today.

Well, he's usually not the most cheerful person but today he looked worse. He stared at the sun go down with formidable grief. I really wanted to say something, anything, but I didn't want him to leave or get even more irritated.

For some reason, my voice upsets him.

Why does he dislike me so much?

"I was married once." He spoke.

At first I thought I was imagining it, but then he spoke again, "Many years ago."

I didn't know exactly how to respond to that, he was sited on the grass next to me, but it felt like his mind was so far away.

"What happened?" I asked hesitantly. Least he realizes it's me he's talking to and then walk away.

"I'm not exactly sure." He sighed, "Alot had happened but I can't pin point exactly what burned everything down."

His eyes have always been too blue, but right now, they faded, lifeless eyes.

"How did you two meet?"

Nathaniel allowed silence to settle between us for minutes , and I'd started to think I over stepped boundaries, but then he replied eventually, "She was left at our house by her mother as an infant, my parents took her in and raised her. We grew up together. She was the most important person in my life."

He said beautiful things but with emptiness in his voice.

"Where is she?"

"I don't know."

"Do you miss her?"

"I don't know." He said, " I've forgotten how to feel things like missing someone, to care."

I wonder what went down, what could've turned Nathaniel into this? Emotionless!

"Did you have any children?"