The boy and his ribbon

Ren had promised when the world thawed, we would be just us again.

But when the birds chirped at night and woodland creatures woke from hibernation and I asked when we would be leaving, Ren told me the second part of his bargain.

He’d agreed to stay working for John Wilson in return to sending me to school.

I’m embarrassed to say, I screamed at him for that. Here he was sacrificing everything for me, and all I could do was complain that the almost fairy-tale way of life before Cherry River was now forbidden to me for a regular one.

Even though I loved our regular one where he had a job and I had school and together we made friends with Cassie and Liam.

I’m making myself sound like an ungrateful cow, but I have to make you see the topsy-turvy world I lived in to understand how fragile my heart was.

How one moment I was queen of everything good and happy, and the next I was princess of everything bad and painful.

So much happened at that farm.

For me and for Ren.

And along the way, I lost count how many broken hearts I endured.