"It feels like everyone else is trying to take the words out of my mouth before I am ready to say them."
---------------
"I am sorry for everything," Maximillian quickly apologized as soon as they stepped away from the back porch.
"It's fine."
Maximillian let out a sigh. He took Julian's hand and led him along the animal enclosures lining the farmhouse's backyard.
Hens clucked contentedly from a weathered wooden coop, their rhythmic cackle punctuated by the occasional, more sonorous crow of a rooster.
A nearby pond glistened with the shimmering rays of sunlight, reflecting the graceful forms of ducks and geese gliding across its surface.
Beyond the pond, a sturdy fence enclosed a grassy paddock where three horses grazed, their coats gleaming like burnished copper in the fading light. The scent of hay, manure, and the sweet perfume of wildflowers mingled in the air in a heady mix. Douglas liked to call it the nature's perfume.
