Pull The Stars • •

[rosalie carson love]

When Rosie first stepped foot into the farmhouse she now called home there was no hot water, and the lights flickered – if they even decided to turn on at all. Even now there was still a large portion of the house that needed work, but there was enough heat for the downstairs, and bedrooms to collapse in, and a bathroom to clean up in. Rosie was still working on the decorating, but she didn’t see the point in doing most of it when they were traipsing in and out with a lot of industrial materials to ensure no one was going to actual die in the place she hoped to call home. Plus, she wasn’t all that keen on putting a good floor down when they were so prone to bringing mud in behind them every day. She supposed that was the problem with choosing to live on a farm though. She couldn’t have everything perfect, and Rosie wouldn’t want it to be. Surprisingly, she found herself at her happiest when she was caught in a rain shower on the other side of her fields, left with no choice but to run through the unkempt, overgrown grass to find shelter. It was a mess that would take at least another year or two to turn around, but Rosie loved every inch of the land that was hers. It was a life long commitment, and one she knew she was going to grow proud of as her light hair became silver, and her face earned its laughter lines.

She stood at the clear kitchen window – fitted earlier in the month – and sipped at the mug of vanilla spiced coffee cradled in her hands. It was still early, before seven, but she was used to rising with the dawn chorus now. She’d move outside soon, once she decided on jobs for the day. There was so much to do. When it was a fine day, like it appeared to be now, she liked to get as much work done outside on the farm. Sometimes it was clearing the overgrown fields so something could actually grow there the following year maybe, and other times it was fixing up the buildings before they fell down in a bad storm. A lot needed to be done before the colder months, and that was when her attention would focus on inside jobs. There was painting to do, floors to fix, and a whole upstairs of a farmhouse she still dreaded looking at. In time, she was confident everything could be beautiful. Rosie had that kind of optimism and she wasn’t shy of hard work.

Rosie was very aware that there were people who thought she had lost her mind when she spent almost all of her life savings on the crumbling farm. It was worthless, pretty much a death trap, but Rosie saw its potential. She saw that it was something broken and lost that could be made whole and beautiful again. In it, she saw herself. No one heard her talk like that though. They saw her shrug, call it an adventure, and swap all of her smart business clothes for comfy jeans and a dozen pairs of muddy boots. Rosie had never been happier. She heard the door opening opposite her own temporary bedroom, and smiled to herself, turning her back to the window and digging her lower lumbar into the smooth edge of the well used counter tops. “What do you think we should do today?” She asked Weston as he appeared in the kitchen. Rosie might have technically been his boss, but she considered him the expert around here. She just paid for things, and kept the two of them fed as best as she could. Shamefully, that often meant a little too many take outs than she cared to admit to.

• • •

TAGGED! Weston Lee Highmore
WORDS! 642!
OUTFIT! Farm Fresh!
LYRICS! Hearts & Daggers - - - Foxes
NOTES!

[Weston Lee Highmore]

West had a plan for himself when he was discharged from the Air Forced. He'd wanted to spend some time with his friends in New York before returning home and helping his parents on the farm in Iowa. Getting that call only a couple of days after landing in the big apple had just about killed him. While his parents had been older, they were also so young at heart, spritely and fun despite how strict they'd appeared. They'd taught him how to take care of the land, work wood into whatever he needed it to be, can the fruits and bottle the veg they'd grown. He'd also been taught to sew and knit, though he didn't share those two particular skills; especially when he was in the Air Force. He'd been part of a good bunch of guys but they still took the piss whenever they could. West had never imagined his life without them in it, as terrible as that sounded. He knew people didn't make it out of life alive and yet, his parents were always there.

He also knew that he carried them with him wherever he went. They weren't overly religious people but they did come from a small town and church Sunday morning was just done; even if you didn't really believe. West lost a lot of his faith in that church the day they'd held his parent's funeral. He couldn't accept the apology from the parents of the teenagers involved in the accident; he just wasn't ready and wasn't sure he ever would be. That was part of the reason why he left his home for New York. He couldn't be there but couch surfing hadn't been what he needed either. There was a lot he needed to work through but he hadn't been prepared for it. That was in part why he'd applied to be Rosie's farmhand. He could do all the carpentry work, clean up and work the fields when they were ready and tend to a flower garden if she wanted one because it had been one of his mother's favourite hobbies and he'd helped out whenever he could. Football and school only took up so much time and instead of getting a proper job in town, he helped out in the little shop his family ran.

West wanted quiet for now and Rosie's farm was exactly that. He could wake up in the morning, grab his coffee and some food and go outside and do what needed to be done. If it was raining, he could do what needed to be done around the farmhouse itself, aside from the electrical and the plumbing. Those were two things even his own father called out for. He woke up that morning in a cold sweat from the same dream that haunted him since that call. He sat bolt upright, breathing deeply and looking around to remind himself that he was not back in Iowa. It was terrible but he scrubbed his hand over his face a couple of times, checked the bedside clock and finally rolled out of bed to get dressed in torn jeans, a random t-shirt and a plaid over-shirt just in case the weather took a turn. It looked nice enough outside that window but he knew well how things like that changed quickly. Rosie was standing at the kitchen window, looking out over the land she called her own when he walked into the kitchen in search of coffee. "Good morning to you, too, Rosie." He said with a smirk, reaching for a mug and the coffee pot at the same time.

♦ ♦ ♦

 
TAG; rosalie carson love
WORDS; 605
LYRICS; Cold Coffee --Ed Sheeran
NOTES; <3

[rosalie carson love]

Rosie had needed a fresh start. After the Trigeminal Neuralgia, and then the cheating boyfriend, there hadn’t been much goodness left in the former project manager’s life. Everything good had crumbled over a matter of months and then at the first glimpse of hope fate just came and snatched it away from her. All of her plans had been destroyed and she was left with no compass for the future. She had discussed children and weddings with Calvin, all of which vanished in the shower steam when she caught with the redhead from the floor below; Rosie didn’t even know her name she saw her so infrequently. Then she was all she could see. It was like she was glued to the back of her eyelids, ruining any and all semblance of a good night’s sleep for a very long time. She was ashamed to have crumbled after that, to have given up on everything just because of one man. A year’s worth of therapists taught her not to think that way – to accept that the depression had been creeping in since the first nerve pain, if not sooner.

That was her past though. She hadn’t seen a therapist in four months, and she hadn’t needed to. Working on the farm, building her dream, was better at helping her mental state even if it was costing a similar price to what she had paid for those sessions. At least this might have a lasting effect; as in, the farm would still be around long after she was gone from this world. At least that was what Rosie hoped for. In a perfect world – if she dared dream of it – she would have children who would take over and continue the life she was creating here. Eventually, Rosie wanted animals, maybe a small field of crops, but mostly the animals. Goats, sheep, chickens – the kind she could keep and tend to without slaughter. Weston knew more about that then she did, which is why she hoped he stuck around long enough to see her dream become a reality.

Before animals, they needed a liveable home. Downstairs in the farmhouse just about passed that inspection, but there was a lot to do. Rosie enjoyed a challenge though, and sometimes she had to be prised away from a project to eat, drink and get that much needed sleep. At times she forgot she was a human with basic needs before anything else. She laughed warmly, reaching back to scrape her long hair into a messy ponytail. “I forgot I woke up early this morning.” It was still early, but Rosie had been up with the sunrise today, with a wild energy buzzing through her body that she couldn’t wait to put to use. “There’s a bagel left if you want it. We’ll have to get some more groceries soon – we’re down to scraps.” She joked, though it wasn’t all that far from the truth. Living on take outs made the perfect excuse to “forget” shopping, which was fine by Rosie since she disliked the chaos of the stores.

• • •

TAGGED! Weston Lee Highmore
WORDS! 519!
LYRICS! Hearts & Daggers - - - Foxes
NOTES!