My first and only

My First and Only
By Laura McHale Holland

He was the first, my first love. So how could I not hug him, feed him, brush the lint off his jacket? How could I turn him away?

I know what he did. I live in a forest, not a cave. It’s just that when he came to my door, fear dripping off him like sweat, eyes jumpin’ hot like oil, I saw only the boy he used to be, the one who gave me my first corsage, the one who took me over the moon and back.

A SWAT team has the woods surrounded. They’re looking for a cold-blooded killer, and they’ve knocked at my door. But I stood on the deck, shrugged and said I haven’t seen him in ages.

Bullets ricochet in the canyon below my cabin. I don’t know what those men are shooting at, because their target is crouched in my pump house, waiting for nightfall so he can slip away.

Does this make me a bad person? I guess so. But he was my first, my first and only real love.