The perfect relationship

Chapter 23

Edwin

I couldn't say when Mia became more than a complication for me, but I knew exactly when I found out. It was at the moment when the plane detached from the ground.

It occurred to me then that she would no longer be waiting for me in the apartment every day, that she would no longer drive me crazy, that she would no longer raise my blood sugar with her stupid remarks, and that I would miss her laughter, her sense of humor and her snug hot body.

I took Scott's advice and took a few days off. I didn't want to spend them at home, so I called my father that evening and asked him if he would lend me his log cabin in the mountains for a few days. Since this was my first leave in the last few years, he was surprised by my decision. Words like leave, holiday, rest or relaxation were not in my dictionary. He immediately realized that there was probably something wrong with me, and he offered to join me.

At first I wanted to reject it because I wanted to be alone with my memories and thoughts, but in the end I agreed. Since I knew my father well, I knew that I would have a lot of time to think about him as well. My father was not one to need to fill the silence with conversation at all costs. It didn't stop him from sitting, eating, or walking in silence.

Although I needed solitude to think undisturbed, in the corner of my soul, I was grateful that he had decided to join me. We've only seen each other a few times a year in recent years because I was completely buried in the office, but the sad thing was that I didn't realize it at all.

I got up early in the morning, loaded my luggage into the trunk of the car, and stopped at my father's home. When I rang, Tess, my father's girlfriend, whom he had been dating for the last few months, opened the door for me. I had met her with my father before, but I did not expect her to sleep here. I was a little surprised, but on the other hand I was happy. My father deserved to have someone by his side who cared about him, and I was glad he didn't spend his days alone in this huge house he had left after the divorce.

Tess was four years younger than my father and was also divorced. She had two sons I had never met, but she told me about them once in the evening. Both were already married and one of them even expected to join the family in the near future.

She greeted me warmly and with a smile on her face, but since we didn't get to know each other better, her attitude towards me was a bit reserved. It wasn't her fault, but I never found the time for the family reunions she and her father had organized. Either I was just abroad, or I had a business meeting, or I urgently needed to complete the project I was just working on, or I just forgot about it.

Until my father showed up, she offered me coffee and cake, which she baked herself, but I refused. We talked for a while, then I loaded my father's luggage into the car and set off.

We arrived at the cabin shortly in the afternoon. I still remembered the journey, although I had to admit that the area had changed beyond recognition in the last years I was here. The sight of the surrounding countryside hurt me. Not because there are a few new cottages and even a hotel in the area, but because of the visible decline of the country. Half of the forest has disappeared, the trees have faded, which have either cut down or succumbed to age and weather, but the level in the nearby lake has dropped by almost a third.

As soon as I got out of the car and took a breath of fresh air, I realized that was exactly what I needed. Get out of the apartment, from the company and from the noisy city. I needed air and a cool head, which I had lost since I met Mia.

I was taking things out of the car, and as my father started a fire in the fireplace, I began to settle down. I set the food bags that Tess had packed for us on the kitchen table. In my mind, I thanked her for that, because I didn't even think about what we would be eating here all that time, and we had about thirty kilometers to the nearest store.