Authors: Victoria H. Smith
The way her voice sounded, cracked and whispered, physically hurt me, dragged upon me like a new kind of torture. One where I could feel the evident pain lining her voice, making it mine. She always brought out new emotions in me, and this time was no different. They were the strongest they’d ever been because they were hers.
“But sorry just feels so inappropriate for her. So…” Her voice ghosted off into nothing, the air taking the quiet words. Then, her small voice came out of nowhere. “Why should they be so kind? Feel so sorry when she didn’t even care about herself?”
All I could do was stare at her as I didn’t understand what she meant. Why wouldn’t she want people to feel sorry for her loss? Why did hearing condolences bother her? And what did she mean about her mom not caring? But as I wondered, I feared her answer. Mostly because I knew it had to cause her pain.
“My mom killed herself, Griffin,” she said, her eyes unblinking, her body unmoving. “She killed herself when I was eleven.”
Her words caused the air to leave my lungs, sending tremors flowing freely inside my chest. Her mother… she’d
killed
herself?
“She was real heavy,” she continued. “Immobile and couldn’t move. I used to have to do everything for her. Feed her, dress her, clean her. My dad gave up on her years before, and I hate that I wanted to.”
Her words sounded so vacant. Empty. Like she was reciting a story of someone else’s life. Perhaps, for her, that’s what she needed. That’s what she needed to be able to continue on and to tell it.
“I don’t know whether she thought she was making it easy for us or if she just gave up on herself,” she paused, shaking her head. “One day she was just gone. A bottle of pills. I loved my mom, I did, but she hadn’t been my mom in so long. She was so depressed. I didn’t know her. It felt like I hadn’t
seen
her for so long.”
What she was telling me had my mind spinning, and I now felt like I understood her detachment. She did care for her mom. I mean, she was her mother after all. She tended to her and made accommodations in her life to be there for her. But I could imagine it would be real hard. Making yourself mourn, stretching your heart out for someone who
chose
to leave the world, but not only that… chose to abandon her daughter.
We had a similarly there more than I knew. Abandonment. Just in a different way.
She crossed her arms on the fence post, her eyes shifting with the moment in front of her. I lay my arms on the fence as well, doing the same, but really, I just wanted to simply be with her.
“How are you and your dad?” I asked her. She only mentioned him briefly, but she did say he wasn’t there for her mom. That had to leave some resentment. Because if he left her to take care of her momma, that meant he wasn’t there for her either.
She had no telling expressions when she discussed her mom. Her face had been blank, her voice equally flat. But at the mention of her dad, strong emotions moved over her face. Her lips pursed tight and her eyes narrowed at the land before her as if she was seeing something she took offense to.
“I don’t talk to him,” she said. “We live in the same city, but we don’t see each other. He married this horrible woman after my mom died and moved us out of Wisconsin to be with her. She had these daughters that were just…” Her breath went out in a strong current, and as she shook her head, a heated expression lit her face. “They were just nasty to me. And my dad, he never stood up for me. Not when they called me things. Not when they rallied a group of girls to throw candy and junk food at me thinking it was funny because of the struggles I had with my weight. I was foolish for confiding in them about that. Call me crazy, but I thought having new sisters meant I could trust them with stuff.”
I gazed away in disgust, my jaw clenched tight by what she was saying. My brothers and I, true we were rough and beat the tar out of each other from time to time, but one thing we did have was trust. We stood up for one another. She wasn’t crazy. She should have had that, too.
“Their mom, though,” she paused, giving a dry laugh without humor. “She was more subtle, but just the same. ‘Are you sure you wanna eat that, Roxie’?” she said, her voice mocking the quote. “‘You have such a pretty face if you’d just slim down,’ and ‘You don’t really
need
that butter on those potatoes. Do you, Roxie?’ She wouldn’t even let me be in the wedding party when she married my dad. She wanted the line to look a certain way, and my dad didn’t even do anything. He never did.”
My heart was racing at this point, but I didn’t interrupt her. Despite how damn hard it was not to, once again, tell her how she looked in my eyes, I kept quiet. She needed to be heard out. She wanted someone to listen.
“I got out of there as quick as I could.” She swiped her hand across her chest. “Right after graduation. I couldn’t go fast enough. My dad left her shortly after. Most likely saw her for what she was now that her personal punching bag was gone. He tried to reconnect with me. He even got a new job to be closer to me and tried to help me pay for school, but by then…”
I looked down at her. “The bridges were too burned.”
With her short height, she followed my chest to get to my eyes. And for the first time since our conversation began, her expression softened. It did as she stared at me.
I lost her gaze when she looked out to the cattle again, and I watched her, wanting nothing more than to touch her and hold her tight so she’d know she had me there for her. At the surface, Roxie seemed okay. That she was all right with who she was and accepted herself, but with the knowledge of her previous online activity, I knew she still struggled. She was burned and scarred by the people in her past. It seared my insides that this was something she’d most likely always have to deal with. Shit like this didn’t go away overnight. She’d constantly battle with the perceptions she had of herself, but damn if I let her continue going at this alone. I wanted her to feel good about herself. As damn good as she made me feel when I was around her.
I reached out to her, slowly sliding my hand along the width of her back. I couldn’t hold back anymore. I had to touch her.
Her breath pulled in and she looked to the side of her, as if to make sure what I was doing was okay. My family was still socializing and resting in groups. No one would care about us just being near to each other, which was all we were doing.
My fingers curled around the curve of her waist, and I tugged, bringing her attention back to me.
Her hat tipped up and her eyes fluttered, her breaths escaping slowly as she stared at me. I’d seen this look before. That first night I kissed her on the couch. There was still that hesitance she brought with her on the plane. That night in her apartment she gave in. I was going to let her know it was okay to do so again.
I brought my baseball cap around so the bill was behind me. After I did, I leaned into her, slowly easing toward her.
The brush of my nose to her cheek caused her eyes to close. When my lips feathered there, she turned to me, putting a warm hand on my chest, charging an intense beat into my heart.
I brought her closer by the waist, moving my lips slowly up her cheek, making her tip her head back so her hat would shield us from others.
She did so willingly, urgently, and a desperate whimper escaped her luscious mouth.
“Roxie…” I breathed, moving toward those very lips. This was so incredibly bold, to kiss her right here and now, but I couldn’t help it. This girl maddened me and drove me to the point of indecency. I needed her. I needed her so damn bad, and when she slid her hand up my chest to my chin, I knew she was going to let me. She was going to let me kiss her in front of anyone who wanted to watch.
She parted her lips, and I shifted to move in, to take her.
“That’s enough of a break. Let’s move on and finish before the rain hits. It’s expected soon.”
At my gram’s voice, she opened her eyes, and when the group started moving away from us, she released my chin.
I fought the curse from escaping my lips. I’d been so close. As much as I didn’t want to, I really didn’t have a choice but to follow my family on. My gram gave an order and it was to be respected, no matter how much I wanted to continue being close to Roxie and break down the walls I finally felt were shattering. We had gotten somewhere and I forced myself to believe we’d only continue doing so. I had to so I could be okay with leaving things how they were.
With a heavy heart, I pushed off the fence post, but Roxie didn’t follow. She had her hands twisted up, wrestling with them.
“I think I’m going to head back,” she said, pointing behind with her thumb. “I need to use the restroom.”
I went to her side. “Are you sure? The rest of the tour isn’t that much longer. Just to that hill out there.” She followed my gaze ahead. “My family will double back after that. My gram will make sure to finish quick. You heard what she said about the rain.”
She chewed her lip, and she picked up her feet, backing away. “I hate to miss it, but… I should really go. I need to.”
If she really didn’t want to miss anything, I had an idea. “I can take you to the barn where the guys are staying tonight. There’s a bathroom there. It’s closer and we’ll be back before the group even leaves the area. That way you won’t miss anything.”
Roxie
I made a mistake with Griffin. I did, but it had nothing to do with telling him about my mom and dad; I was glad I had. That was something I’d been harboring all my life, a thing I just didn’t tell others. I hadn’t even told Clare and she was my closest friend. But with Griffin, it felt okay to talk about it with him. He didn’t look at me all sad. True, he said he was sorry, but his condolences were about connecting us. Instead of pitying me, he meant to let me know that it was okay. He understood. He got it. He got me, and being able to connect with another in such a strong way on that level had never happened to me before.
No, I wasn’t regretful I told him, but I was that I let him get close again. He was making me lose my grip on reality, which was one I never held strongly in the first place. I had to put space between us, so I chose to end the tour early. I needed to use the time to walk back to the ranch house and clear my head. I never expected him to escort me in the other direction toward the barn, alone, with the heat already thick between us. We always created this heat, even just walking casually side by side as we did now. If I wanted to I could reach out and touch him, feel him, and make him hold me like I wanted to be held. I wanted him so badly…
Why was the world so cruel?
By the time we got to the barn, I couldn’t see the hill anymore with his family. I knew we hadn’t walked far, but the barn was downhill a bit, hidden by some trees. It was quite nice looking. Not like the ones I used to pass on the highways in the Midwest. Griffin said his grandpa built it. The place even had indoor plumbing.
“Sometimes the ranch hands stay here,” he said, opening the door for me.
I stepped inside. The clusters of overnight bags for the boys decorated the floor with blankets and pillows in the middle. Near the walls were farm tools, hay, and even a small tractor.
“Not in the winter of course.” Griffin chuckled. “There’s no heat out here, and it can get pretty cold at night. Gram let’s them stay for free sometimes in return for labor. She feeds them at the house. Times have been pretty hard for her. They need work and she needs hands. They work out a deal.”
With how beautiful this place was, the house so pretty and timeless, I would have had no idea his Gram was struggling. It reminded me of what he said about him, his brothers, and his dad. Living in a trailer even still. People like Griffin… it was easy to assume they had it all and didn’t have challenges or barriers. They couldn’t possibly because their world was in such an abundance of good fortune now. But what one sees was only the surface of someone. I had so much respect for him. His family. He said they liked me, and I very much liked them.
I tried not to think about that as I stepped with my borrowed boots across the concrete flooring. Griffin stayed at my side, his hands in his pockets as he led me. A clap of thunder shook us both, and I had to look outside to verify. His grandma said there was supposed to be rain soon, but I didn’t believe it. It was still so sunny.
Griffin lifted his head, the bill of his backwards hat tilting back with him. He laughed. “Gram’s always right. We better hurry, I’m guessing they’ve probably already turned back. The bathroom is right through there.”
I followed his finger point around a corner. Closing the door, I sat on the closed toilet, my head in my hands. I needed a moment. Just a breath. The walk back with Griffin would be long. Hard. Just like this trip had been so far. I wished I could just blink, make a wish, and be on a plane headed back home. What I was doing here wasn’t right. It just wasn’t right.
I made myself take a breath then washed my hands so I could at least kill a little time and make it seem like I was doing something. By the time I dried my hands on the paper towels, it was getting dark around the barn. The storm was coming in quickly. Griffin had his hands on his hips, facing the door when I came out of the bathroom. Hearing me, he turned, his brow twitching up. “That was quick.”
Crap. I guess I didn’t take long enough. I couldn’t even fake going to the bathroom right. I rubbed my arm. “I actually just had to wash my hands. There was something sticky on that fence post. I feel bad you insisted on coming.”
His eyebrows narrowed in. “Something sticky? Like sap or something?”
Right. That was something sticky that would be on a fence. He saved me from poorly trying to make something up. “Yeah. Tree sap.”
He gave a curt nod, rocking back on his sneakers. We both stood there for a moment and slowly he slipped his hands out of his pockets, sliding them down the front of his jeans. He hesitated a moment, but then he approached me. Unhurried, his feet touched the floor without a sound. Like he feared the sound, wanting the quiet, and with every move he made toward me, my heart felt the impact. Sparked in activity.