Page 4
Story: Wild Heart
The highway unspooled ahead of her like a ribbon, weaving its way westward through towns with names she didn’t recognize and skylines that faded into hills, and then into vast open fields.
Natalie drove with the windows cracked, the soft wind threading through the strands of hair that had pulled loose from her braid.
It was early evening by the time she passed into the Berkshires, the Massachusetts trees turning from urban ornamental to wild-limbed and unrestrained.
Patches of snow clung to the shadowed sides of hills, resisting spring’s slow thaw.
The sky, a watercolor of orange and plum, draped the mountains in a soft glow that might have felt romantic if not for the hollow weight in her chest.
She hadn’t eaten since that morning, but hunger never came.
Not real hunger. Just the dry, uncomfortable awareness of an empty stomach.
Her body felt like it belonged to someone else, someone she had vacated and left behind in that Boston townhouse.
Her hands remained steady on the wheel, though her thoughts drifted.
Sometimes they returned to the call with Olivia. The way her friend had said her name with so much concern, so much knowing. Olivia had always had that gift, reading beneath the words. But mostly, her mind betrayed her. It circled back to Giles.
The first time she saw him, he had been laughing.
A loud, unfiltered laugh that broke across the room like a spark.
He had leaned over a bar counter to pay for a coffee, chatting animatedly with the barista.
Natalie had watched him from her seat in the corner, a medical journal opened on her lap, her scrubs creased from the overnight shift.
He had glanced over, smiled at her. That easy, disarming smile.
And just like that, something had shifted in her.
They were married three years later. The wedding in Martha’s Vineyard was perfection.
She wore ivory lace and bare feet, and he kissed her like he couldn’t believe she was real.
There had been laughter, wine, speeches that made her cry.
She remembered the feeling of his hand on the small of her back, the way he leaned in and whispered, "You’re my beginning. "
Now, that memory felt like glass. Sharp.
Dangerous to touch. She passed a rusted gas station and a boarded-up diner.
The road narrowed for a while, hemmed in by trees, then opened again into wide, flat farmland.
The sun dipped lower, casting moody shadow-shapes across the fields.
Darkness soon followed and Natalie flipped on her headlights, the glow illuminating a wooden sign welcoming her into upstate New York.
She didn’t know how long she’d drive that night. She just knew she had to keep moving.
Music didn’t help. It made her feel too much. Talk radio was worse so she drove in silence, the churn of the tires and the whisper of wind through the window her only companions.
In that silence, her mind was cruel. She replayed the moment she found the stockings. The champagne flutes. The look on Giles' face. That flicker of annoyance, like she had interrupted the afterglow of his act. Not shame. Not regret. Just frustration. It still made her nauseous.
She had wanted to scream. To throw something. But instead, she had stood there in quiet disbelief, the kind that takes time to settle. The kind that arrives in pieces, days later, while driving through a state you’ve never visited.
She passed a motel with a yellow neon sign and pulled in without thinking.
Her body had grown stiff, her eyes dry and gritty.
The room was plain but looked clean and held a bed, a chair, a wooden dressing table, a tiny bathroom that smelled comfortingly of bleach.
She dropped her bag beside the bed, sat down on the edge, and stared at her reflection in the dresser mirror.
Her eyes were bloodshot. Her skin pale. Her mouth pressed into a flat, unreadable line.
She thought of calling someone. One of her city friends, maybe. But what would she say?
I don’t know who I am without him. I don’t know how to be alone.
Instead, she peeled back the covers, lay down, and closed her eyes.
The dreams, when they came, were cruel and chaotic bringing images of Giles laughing with someone she couldn’t see, rooms filled with voices that spoke in riddles, doors she couldn’t open.
She woke tangled in the sheets, her chest tight, her eyes damp.
She didn’t cry much. Not the way she thought she would.
Mostly, it was just this slow leak. A steady drip of grief and betrayal that never seemed to empty.
The next morning, she ate a granola bar in the car and drank bitter motel coffee.
The road stretched ahead again, winding into Pennsylvania, then Ohio.
Each state passed like a chapter she didn’t want to reread.
Fields gave way to towns, towns to rivers, rivers to stretches of silent wilderness.
She stopped only for gas, restrooms, and the occasional coffee shop where she could get something that didn’t taste like food lonely people eat.
She didn’t listen to music until Indiana. Then, without thinking, she tapped her phone and chose a playlist Giles had once made for her. She almost turned it off. But she let it be. Maybe she wanted to hurt. Maybe she needed to remember what love had sounded like before it curdled.
The winding road narrowed as it climbed deeper into the Colorado mountains, flanked on both sides by towering evergreens dusted with the last remnants of spring snow.
Natalie leaned forward in her seat, her hands gripping the steering wheel with a mix of anticipation and exhaustion.
Her car's tires crunched along a gravel path that twisted up toward a clearing, where the trees began to thin, and the sanctuary finally revealed itself in the golden afternoon light.
It looked like something from another life. A postcard scene she might have saved for later, back when she was still collecting dreams like pressed flowers. A place where wild things healed, where nature was the architect, and time slowed to a rhythm older than grief.
The main cabin sat nestled between two wide-boughed pines, its weathered wood siding dark with age and accented by a wraparound porch adorned with planters of early wildflowers.
Nearby, smaller buildings dotted the open meadow, a converted barn, a long, low medical cabin, and what looked to be an aviary with glinting mesh.
Beyond that, the land rolled gently into forest, where the tree line swallowed everything in shades of green and pine-shadow.
Natalie parked near a split-rail fence and stepped out. The air was different here, cooler, thinner, but clean in a way Boston never was. It smelled of earth, sap, and the unmistakable crispness of altitude. The stillness was so complete it made her head swim .
The front door to the main cabin swung open, and Olivia Hayes emerged, wiping her hands on a canvas apron, her dark hair pulled back by a scarf. Her face lit up the moment she saw Natalie.
"You made it," she called, her voice low and warm.
Natalie didn’t trust herself to speak. She just nodded.
They closed the distance between them in a few long strides, and then Olivia was wrapping her arms around her, tight and grounding.
Natalie stiffened at first, her body not yet used to comfort but then she melted into the embrace, her forehead pressing against her friend’s shoulder.
"You’re here," Olivia murmured. "You’re really here."
There was history in their embrace. Years of friendship, late nights studying for exams with coffee-stained notes and laughter echoing off dorm walls.
Summers spent on wildlife fieldwork together, ankle-deep in mud or perched in trees watching nesting falcons.
The kind of bond that didn’t need upkeep to stay whole.
When they pulled apart, Natalie saw the questions in Olivia’s eyes, but none were spoken. Not yet.
"Come inside," Olivia said, taking her bag. "I put you in the private guest cabin at the edge of the woods. It’s quiet and gets good sun in the mornings. I figured you could use both."
They walked together along a stone path that curved past a low enclosure where two foxes napped beneath a wooden shelter, their russet coats glowing in the light.
A hawk circled overhead, wings spread wide, gliding on invisible currents.
Every detail seemed heightened here, clearer somehow, the bark rougher, the sky wider, the light cleaner.
Natalie felt like she had crossed into another world.
"This place is magical," she murmured.
Olivia smiled. "It saved me, too."
The guest cabin was small but lovely, with cedar plank walls, a covered porch, and a view of the distant ridge.
Inside, it smelled faintly of woodsmoke.
A small bed sat beneath a wide window, a quilt folded neatly at the foot.
There was a writing desk, a couch, a stoneware lamp, a shelf lined with paperbacks.
A pitcher of water and a bowl of fresh-picked apples waited on the dresser, and a single framed photo of a fox cub peeked out from the nightstand.
"It’s beautiful," Natalie said softly.
"It’s yours for as long as you need," Olivia replied. "Unpack later. Come see the place first."
They walked together, the rhythm of it slow, natural. The sanctuary unfolded in gentle spaces. Pens lined with pine shavings, a feeding station nestled beside a thicket, an open-air aviary where barn owls blinked down from wooden beams.
Olivia showed her the clinic, with its modest surgery room and shelves lined with carefully labeled jars.
Jars that held herbs, treatments, and tools.
The scent of antiseptic mingled with cedar, and the walls were pinned with notes, feeding schedules, and Polaroids of animals who had come through and gone free.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4 (Reading here)
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41