Hello everyone,
I'm so very sorry … I feel horrible doing this, but I have no choice. You see, I have published my first book on Amazon/Kindle! This piece (and many others) had to be taken down because they do not allow published material to be available online for free. (Go figure) I wanted to leave the shell of the posts because I felt compelled to leave all your helpful and loving comments. (Silly sentimental, I know), but I also didn't want to just have the pieces disappear without an explanation. I feel bad enough as it is!
I owe ALL of you so, SO much for all of your reads, love, and support. It was YOU that gave me the gumption to FINALLY get off my **** and publish! Thank you all for the warm comments, camaraderie, and encouragement! I will still be here, reading, uploading and just being the Rascal that I am. How could I EVER leave you guys?
The book is called “The Way I See It – FictionPhilosophySoul Food” and it will be FREE for the first few days on Kindle Select, so watch for it, if you are interested. I hope that you go and grab it. If you do, I would also hope that you find it worthy, you would leave me a good review. That will help me get in the public eye! Soon afterwards (2-3 days or so), it will be available in paperback.
Find the book(s) here: www.amazon.com/author/jeff.gaines
Or find the book(s), and all about me, here: www.JeffGaines.world
Soon after, I also hope to have my first novel (a supernatural thriller), called “Wanderer” available as well!
Wish me luck!
Big, Biggest Love,
Jeff Gaines
After five years, and being engaged with, my high school sweetheart and I split up. It was inevitable. We were kinda bad for one another anyways. Lies, cheating, etc. and far too young to really get what being married really meant. And even if we were finally realizing it, it was far and away too late. The damages were already done. It would have ended in tears, no matter what, I'm certain of it. Leopards rarely change their spots.
While in the "daze" of this split, I met a girl that was known, in my small town, as the most beautiful around. Everyone knew her, as she was a bartender at the hottest club in town and when guys spoke in circles of women in town ... they were inevitably compared to her.
I knew her in passing. she had made me many a drink. But I paid her little mind as I assumed someone of her caliber dated professional athletes or really rich guys. She was nice, as was I ... but that was it. Besides, in those moments ... back in those days ... I had a fiance.
I got a DJing gig at the after hours bottle club and lo-and-behold, guess who worked there? I was in such a daze, I still gave her barely a glance. This drove her mad, apparently. She asked the other bartender, an old friend of mine from school who had gotten me the gig, why I was so ******. Her reply was to explain about my ex and I and that I was really tore up about it.
Being the Angel that I later learned she was, she decided to be my self-appointed rebound girl. You read that correctly. SELF APPOINTED! I swear, I wanted nothing to do with it. Like I say in the lullaby, I tried to resist. But she was having NONE of that. In those next several months, she was my constant, and I do mean constant, companion. Unless at work, she wouldn't let me be alone for a moment. I have to admit, while it sounds like crowding or choking, it wasn't ... and I didn't mind at all. She constantly made me laugh and smile.
None of the guys in town could believe she was my girlfriend ... and none would believe me when I swore we were "just dating", because we were seen all over town day and night ... Restaurants, Pubs, Pool Hall, Beach, the Mall, parties, slow dancing at the local Dance Clubs, the Go Cart Track, Denny's at 4 a.m. ... everywhere.
Being with her took all that soul crushing pain away. I was eating again. Laughing again. Holding my head up again. I wasn't drunk out of my mind every night. Even my thousand mile stare had disappeared. She made me happy and filled me with the cocky confidence I'd once wielded like boss. She was just a Godsend.
But towards the end, I began to really fall for her. She had told me that we would NEVER be boyfriend/girlfriend. THAT was how she convinced me that she wouldn't end up hurt as a rebound girl and to let her in.
But now, ironically, it was me in danger of being hurt. Angel that she is, she sensed this and gently let it end just after our big New Years "weekend".
I knew it was coming, we'd actually agreed to it being our last hurrah. But on Christmas Eve, I wrote this lullaby and I sang it to her in my waterbed, with a Santa cap on, as I held her in my big arms with her head on my chest. She cried a bit and squeezed me tighter than she'd ever done before.
It was my way of saying "Thank You" ... and "Goodbye".
I was such a mess when she had scooped up my heart. I suffer to think of the downward spiral she never let me fall in to ... especially after I tried so hard to resist her in the name of chivalry.
In hindsight, it was HER who had given ME the lesson in chivalry.
She truly is an Angel.