*Author's note: This is my first time writing in this genre, so try not to be too critical. ;)
*
Eric "hearted" her latest Instagram post before it had even been live for a whole minute. She was even more surprised when she received a message from him shortly after.
"Keep the pictures coming. I miss seeing the trees change in fall...Or any trees over 30ft tall, for that matter. And aren't all gnarly and twisted. Lol"
"I can't imagine living somewhere without many trees. Even if there weren't many deciduous ones, I would still settle for some conifers. Tbh, I'd be hard-pressed to live anywhere without mountains or rolling hills, at the very least, now too. I've gotten spoiled out here. Haha" Carissa replied.
Eric and Carissa had what some might consider a weird relationship. They had met through an online game several years before. He was about a decade older than her, but it had never bothered her. She actually liked him more for that reason. She had always gotten along better with people older than her.
Neither of them played the game anymore, but had kept in touch through Facebook and Instagram. They messaged each other fairly regularly at first, but like all things in life, died off over time. Life always seems to have a knack of getting in the way of things, doesn't it?
Carissa had been a newlywed with her husband, Beau, when she and Eric met. It wasn't long before she and Beau started trying to have a baby. Aside from that being ever-present in the back of their minds, they had moved across the country a year or so later from Illinois to Idaho.
She and Beau had always hated Illinois, always planning on getting as far away from it as possible. After much research and deliberation, they took a leap of faith and moved to the Caribou-Targhee National Forest in eastern Idaho. They loved the Sawtooth Mountain region (who wouldn't?), but there wasn't much in the way of jobs there. Which was kind of important for Beau, at least.
They ended up purchasing 20 acres of land near Rexburg, a fairly well-to-do town with decent job growth potential. While they realized he would still have to work, at least for a while, the plan had always been that they would have a little homestead of their own. Grow their own food, raise their own meat, the whole shebang. Carissa would do the regular chores of weeding, milking, feeding, etc throughout the week and Beau would help out with the big projects on the weekends.
Eric and his long-time girlfriend, Marley, were a different story. They had moved from upstate New York to Oklahoma for a job transfer. Eric ended up quitting a couple of years later, becoming a manager at a large supply chain store while Marley stayed behind at the factory they had both worked for.
Although it was none of her business, Carissa never could figure out why on earth he would want to leave the beautiful area he lived in New York to live in Oklahoma. She hoped he was at least making good money there.
"I guess so. Lol Definitely not the same, but you would have loved New York too."
It made Carissa uncomfortable when she thought about that. Eric had offered to let them move in with him and Marley in New York before any of them had moved. The "what could have been's" still made her squirmy and a bit sad, if she was being honest, even though she loved Idaho now. It was America's best-kept secret in the way of natural beauty as far as she was concerned.
"I'm sure I would have. So what have you been up to anyway, stranger? Haven't heard from you in a while," Carissa expertly changed the subject.
"Well...Shit's not great, tbh."
"Oh no. What's up?" she messaged back instantly before Eric even had a chance to continue.
"I got laid off at work a few weeks ago. Marley hasn't exactly been happy with her job either."
"I'm so sorry." Carissa didn't know what else to say. It wasn't that she didn't care, but she felt a certain emotional detachment from him since their correspondences had become fewer and fewer over the years.
"Me too. Hopefully, it will be for the better, though. I've been showing Marley some of your pictures. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous. Lol I've been trying to talk her into moving again for months, before all this shit with my work even happened."
"Where would you want to move to? Back to New York or somewhere else?" Carissa asked.
"I don't even know. Somewhere with woods, that's for sure. Lol New York is out of the question, though. The cost of living there is insane!"
"I bet."
"Plus, I've been tossing around the idea of going to school. I just need a change, ya know?"
"I can understand that. Look at the one we made! Haha"
She and Beau had gone from living in a duplex in nowhere Illinois to having their own custom-built log cabin on a sizeable piece of land in the mountains of Idaho.
"See? I need something like that. But I don't want to be tied down here any longer as far as the schooling thing goes. I feel like there's nothing left for us here."
Carissa felt a pang of sadness for her friend. It was an awful, but liberating, feeling to have about your situation in life.
"What about online school?" she offered. "Then you could go anywhere you want and not have to worry about it."
"I guess. I don't know. I'm still not even sure what I would want to go to school for. Or where we would even move to. I need to get my shit together, huh? Lol"
"Why don't you guys move out here? We have plenty of room. You could stay with us until you figure things out. We'd be happy to have you," the words flew from her fingertips before Carissa really had a chance to think about them. Eric didn't answer back right away.
"What about the cost of living? Would Marley be able to support my sorry ass by herself while I go to school? Lol"
Him and his "lols"
, she thought.
Always trying to lighten the mood.
"Eric, almost anywhere is going to be higher than Oklahoma. :P But, it's not nearly as bad as New York. More like Illinois. Plus, may I remind you that Beau supports my 'sorry ass'?"
"Lol Fair enough. What about the snow?"
Carissa couldn't help but laugh out loud.
