New York had been tougher than the world presented it to be. On TV, it was the place of hopes and dreams. In books, it was a place for love and humility. For Sofia Plaza, it had been nothing but a place of fatigue and of pain, of watching her dreams crash and burn into the ground without warning. She’d laid out her body on the pristine ground of New York in the hopes of becoming someone else, somebody important, and yet, Sofia had come back empty all the same. She’d come back hopeless. Helpless. Useless. New York was not as the world presented it to be, and Sofia had learned its true colors the hard way.
And yet, for years, she’d endured. For years, she’d made a martyr out of herself and pretended like nothing hurt. Even when her music career did not take off, Sofia had tried and failed and tried and failed to get back up. The few singing gigs that she got here and there were of no use, though. People remembered her for the tragedy of a decision that she made; if they didn’t, they told her they didn’t think she could go any further. Why it had taken her so long to understand this was a mystery, one that she did not know how to solve. But, perhaps, she was getting somewhere now that she’d accepted the truth. She’d accepted the truth of her destiny.
And the truth was thus: that she would not go anywhere in her career. This was what she had been told over and over, and she’d finally come to believe it.
Sofia Plaza had come to accept the inevitable, and, with packed bags and a broken heart, thus returned to Nashville in an attempt to find herself. A part of her said it wouldn’t work; a part of her said she was as good as lost forever. But, here she was nonetheless, trying. Here she was. Here she was. There was nowhere else to go, and so here was where she found herself. Nashville was no longer home — this was certain —- and yet, it reminded her of a time that it was exactly that.
Two weeks into the city, however, she found herself looking for what exactly made it feel like home.
Perhaps that was why she found herself in the Gallagher Equestrian Center. There was a part of her, a part longing, that was drawn back to the roots of her adolescence, of her teenage years. Deny and forget all she wanted, Sofia could not remove from herself the Equestrian Center and the young man she fell in love with so closely associated with it. As she stood petting one of the horses that she recognized from her younger years, Nashville felt a little more like home. A little more like the place she used to love. A little more than just a city.
A part of Sofia knew she shouldn’t be here. A part of her knew that this was a place she’d left behind when she pursued a career that came back fruitless. A part of her knew that the boy she left behind — a man now — would not be glad if he saw her here. Yet, all the same, Sofia tried to justify her being here. She didn’t even know if this still belonged to the Gallaghers, for heaven’s sake! She didn’t know if Beau was still around, or if he’d gone and pursued something else outside of the four walls of his hometown. This was what she told herself, at least.
The part of her that knew it was all just lies to see the boy she left behind stayed still.
Childhood. Adolescence. Such twisted words for Beauford. They were manipulated with and mangled up so fiercely that he had not a clue what such words should truly mean. By definition for him, it was his chance of growing up too early. Of taking care of a drunken father who could barely clean up after himself, much less than the ranch legacy that he had squandered on. It was a mother who held back angered breaths and swallowed her own anguish at watching the man he loved lose himself. It was having Beau step up to the plate of being a caretaker by the mere age of ten. He didn’t know what a true form of adolescence would contain, hell none of the Gallagher’s really did. But there were always those fleeting moments. Times he grasped onto so clearly for whatever semblance and comforting thought they offered.
Yet many times, such comforting thoughts were not a place or a material item he clung to, but a who. A person, a girl. Somebody he let in and allowed to love him so carefully, so trusting. She was the one that taught that saying all too well. That home was not a place. But rather a who; a feeling. Sofia was all of those things tangled in one. She was a place to call home, in the ridges of her collarbone when he could find himself falling asleep on her chest. To the ways her soft natured fingers rolled carelessly through his sand colored locks. Home was never a place for the young, adolescent Beauford Gallagher, it was her.
But just as soon as that home was given to him, it was taken away.
He never believed in such things as forever. In the pristine dream that soulmates and eternity existed in the crook of the words love. Forever was a transparent term to him, crapped out by the way his father so angrily crumpled ever dream the starlit boy had imagined. Forever was not real, but Sofia made him believe, at least for a moment. But alas, she was the golden girl with a shining heart and untameable spirit. Sofia was a dreamer and not love, not heart, nor the mere taste of security could stop the effervescent beat of her heart. She rolled along to her own tune -- and who was Beau to ever stop her?
Home was not a place. It was always moving, always changing. It was not an it. Home was her. And out of sheer hope for own happiness, Beau had let his home go away.
And who would have ever thought such a fleeting taste of home to come back? There were many times after Sofia Plaza had left to pursue her dreams that Beau bargained on a phone call or a flash of her smile in the newspaper. She had a smile that drained all the bad out of people. That shone even in the dullest of photographs. Sofia may have been weighed down by her own dreams, but there was a happiness etched in her that could not be wiped out. A fire that made Beau believe she could go far. There were many times, he opened the newspaper hoping to see her name etched in the spotlight, her face captured by dozens of photographers; surrounded by her fans.
Yet the day never came and he could only wonder where. Where she was, how she ended up. But in the end, life moved on. And even on his worst days, where his body could barely urge him out of bed. Or when he so angrily wanted to give up, Sofia never passed his mind much again. If only perhaps for a fleeting moment. But one could never forget a face. A face and a home that meant so much to one, even over ten years past. Even the golden tendrils that encompassed her face so gently, one could never forget.
One could blink twice at the sight of her. Facing away from him, latching on to one of his horses so kindly. Beau blinked, over and over again, as if wishing such a sight away. It was weird, it was unpredictable and all he could do was let out a breath of nerves and walk forward.
“--Never expected to see you again.” He breathed, in hopes they would turn around and his eyes were merely playing tricks.
