Free All You Get Is Me by Yvonne Prinz Page B

down and taking in the dramatic view. “What do I have to do to live here?”
    “Give up all your worldly possessions and meditate eight hours a day.” I sit down next to him and finish my bread, savoring the crunchy crust.
    “Sounds reasonable. Do I get to eat this bread every day?”
    “Yes, but the monks are vegan. And no Doritos, no soda, no microwave popcorn.”
    Forest looks sheepish. “Hey, thanks for bringing me here. This is incredible. Really, I’m loving it.”
    “You’re welcome.” I smile, happy that he knows that this place is special. Part of me thinks that maybe I brought him here as a test. If you want to know if you like someone, bring them to a sacred place and see how they behave. I snap a photo of him in profile just as he looks away.
    “Am I going to have to start combing my hair?” he says, smirking.
    “No. I’d hate that.”
    A kitten runs across my feet and puts on a show, chasing a fly for a few seconds. When she comes within reaching distance I grab her and put her on my lap. She attacks my fingers with her little paws and mews contentedly.
    “All the smart animals end up here,” I say, scratching the kitten’s chin. “The monks take great care of them. No one goes hungry.”
    “How do the monks survive? Who pays for all this?”
    “Well, this is a monastery but it’s technically a working farm, just like ours. The monks sell a lot of what they grow, plus the bread, and they’re famous for their jams too. You can also come here and take seminars. The monks teach people how to meditate and chant and find peace and recover from trauma and things like that. The land was a gift from a rich Californian who became a Buddhist and wanted to unload his material possessions. He lives here a lot of the time too.”
    “How do you know all this?”
    I shrug. “I don’t know. I just picked it up in bits and pieces. The monks aren’t chatty but they’re happy to answer a question or two.”
    We sit there for a long time. This place does that to you. It makes you lose track of time. When we finally make a move to leave I have no idea how long we’ve been here. On the way out of the monastery, we pass a wooden donation box. Forest pulls a couple dollars out of his pocket and stuffs them in. I’m pretty sure I would marry him on the spot.
    We climb back in the car and I direct Forest to my farm. I ask him to let me out a safe distance away and he doesn’t question it. We have yet to talk about his mother and what happened. There was that awkward apology at the farmers’ market but I think that we should talk about the accident before it becomes that big, ugly thing that we don’t talk about. But not today. Today was about something else. I give him my phone number and my email address and he gives me his and now we’re connected. We know how to find each other. Everything from here on will be different.
    As we’re pulling my bike and my backpack out of the trunk Forest tells me he’d like to do this again. When he says it, he looks away as though he’s afraid I’ll say no.
    “This? You mean the monastery?”
    “No, I mean this going somewhere together thing. Can we do it again?”
    “Sure.” I smile and my mind races ahead to secret meeting spots, code words, nicknames, maps, letters, all of the things you do when you want to see someone and you have to keep it a secret. I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into but I know it’s already too late to turn back.
    I snap a photo of the back of his car bombing down the road away from me. As I lower my camera and stand there with my bike leaning against my thigh, I can see him watching me in his mirror and I know that I’m half in love with him already.

Chapter 8
    T omás materializes on the porch from out of nowhere. There is no car pulling away, or a bus, or a van, or anything. Rufus didn’t even hear him until he tapped on the screen door. I open it to find him standing there, his straw cowboy hat in his hand and a small duffel