Chapter 4

I know what you are probably thinking.

This dude is going to carry her into his festively lit living room, the pop of the fireplace crackling about, the smell of pine incensing her nostrils. He will set her down gently on the living room couch and help her stretch out her injured leg across the table, which he will first, with one swift brush of his arm, sweep all things to the ground to clear the way. He will tell her to relax and be still and that he will take care of her wounds. He will then disappear into the kitchen to gather gauze and other such first aid supplies.

While sitting alone in the candle lit living room, she will look around and notice pictures of him in a white lab coat, with a stethoscope around his neck, in a remote Southeast Asian village, surrounded by smiling, clearly impoverished children, one of which will be sitting on his shoulders and pulling on his ears while laughing hysterically. He will, of course, be wearing a smile as wide as his heart, revealing his brilliantly white and unnaturally straight teeth.

A superstar of Doctors Without Borders. An adventurer who just happens to be living in this town to help his ailing grandma and sickly cousin but maintains close ties to his international connections and is ready with an overnight bag and passport at a moment’s notice.

Then, in crashes the missing puzzle piece to his extravagantly humble life, the damsel in distress school teacher with a latent travel bug and freshly renewed passport, ready to be whisked off her injured feet and superimposed into her very own international edition of a Hallmark romance.

The End

***

But that’s not what happened.

As I was “drinking in the scent” of his perfectly cologned neck, en route up the hill, impressed by his strength, grace, and chivalry, the brute dropped me flat on my wider-than-I-would-care-to-admit-but-still-not-cushioned-enough-to-dull-the-pain-derriere and then proceeded to, himself, tumble down the hill into the very ditch from which he had just pulled me.

Fantasy abated.

The weight of my own body against my tailbone sent shudders down my legs, stopping along the way to mingle with the pain already settled in them before releasing itself into the atmosphere and allowing me once again to form cogent thoughts.

The first of which was concern for the durability of this guy’s neck, but my concern was pacified when, as soon as he landed, his arms sprouted into the air and gave me two enthusiastic thumbs up. Still laying on the ground with arms in the air, he exclaimed to me with spirited reassurance, “I’m fine! I’m good! Everything is good here.”

His house had better smell of pine, I thought.

*

Chapters 5 and 6 have been omitted. Please move on to chapter 7.

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