Jessie is a Contemporary Fiction short-story series about a girl named Jessie. This series is written on photo-prompts and includes emotional themes of love, family, support, getting over fears, etc.

Each part of this story is written for the photo-prompts at Describli.

You can read the other parts of this series here: Baking A Pie (Jessie #1), Ruined Dreams (Jessie #2) and The Sting (Jessie #3)

Autumn

Six months later…

I wake up to Juno’s loud barking. He always wakes me up this way and, to be honest, I love it. It makes me feel like he cares for me enough to come running to me first thing after getting up in the morning. It makes me feel needed.

I get out of the bed and go to the big glass window that overlooks the lake in front of my cottage. I wait just for a second, pulling the robe around me tighter, and then I throw back the curtains.

The beautiful view literally takes my breath away. It’s September, the beginning of autumn and everything’s covered in the glorious red-brown leaves in front of the house. Except, of course, the shimmering water of lake. The sunrays are reflecting beautifully at the green water surface of the lake making it look surreal. It feels like I’m living in a storybook.

I stand there, taking in the beautiful view and breathing slowly, peacefully, filling my insides with the pure morning breeze. I smile at a small bird drinking water from the lake and mentally pat my back for deciding to come here.

It’s been six months and here I am, finally, making peace with my decision of leaving that stupid city and coming to this isolated island. I love it here, and I think that I’m starting to get over Riki. I don’t miss him like the way I used to just after he left me.

I really needed this time, alone. It was over due.

Its like he was so utterly perfect for me that I didn’t even give myself a chance to even think about someone else. And now that he’s gone, somewhere inside me, I’m feeling relieved. As if unconsciously I’ve always known that I’d always liked him, but maybe not loved him.

Yes, I miss him, but mostly because I was so used to him, like a person is used to eating meds. He was like a drug for me; I though I’d die without him, but in reality, letting him go of him freed me.

It’s hard to live without him because I’ve always been emotionally dependent on him, since childhood. It’s that dependence that I really wanted to get rid of by distancing myself from the city, were there were so many memories.

I feel liberated here. The moment I stepped onto this island, I felt like something inside me got free. Maybe my will. Earlier, I always did what Riki wanted me to do, or more correctly, what he expected me to do. He never directly asked me to do anything, never, it was like, I always knew what he wanted and always did that before he even asked for it. That’s why everyone thought that we were so compatible. That’s why I thought we were so ridiculously compatible.

Maybe it’s the same for him, but I really don’t want to think about him, at least not when he just dumped me.

I scratch Juno’s ears and then go to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. After ten minutes, I’m sitting in the front porch, sipping my coffee and petting Juno. It feels so free to not do anything and relax. Without worrying about what Riki needs. Now that I think of it, my entire life has gone in worrying about him and his small-small needs. I never even let myself think about what I really liked or what I wanted to do.

Riki was such a huge part of my life. We were childhood sweethearts. He is my mother’s best friend’s son so, naturally, we spent almost all our childhood together. When we were teens, he made a lot of other friends, embarrassed to be around a girl all the time, but I was always stuck up on him, alone. I just kept to myself and waited for him to come back to me again. I started dressing up and applying make-up and all those teen-things a girl does to attract guys.

But to my utter disappointment, when we were in high school, he started seeing someone else. It broke my heart, but still I never left hope and once we were in college, Riki was finally able to see my love. It was just a matter of time before he proposed to me for marriage and since that day we’ve been inseparable. That is, until he found someone else.

What a pity, I never realized that I could have done a lot better than this. I should have gone out and made some new friends, but no, I was always too shy to even talk to others. I always kept to myself and always thought that Riki was the one for me, without even actually thinking about it.

I close my eyes and rub my face, sighing deeply. I’m only twenty-four and even though I don’t have a career, I can do what I like now.

I have enough money to last me a lifetime and, now that I don’t have anyone who needs me, I also have enough time. But the question is, do I have the strength to start my life from scratch, especially with a small baby?

The Sting (Jessie #3)