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I woke up the next morning knowing Austin had already left for North Carolina. It hurt, and it made me cry all over again. But I also tried to rationalize the loss. I considered the possibility that maybe he was right, maybe we just needed some separation. Not just physically since we’d already experienced the long-distance thing, but maybe emotionally. Maybe he needed some time to realize that I’d always be there for him no matter what, and maybe I’d realize...
Well, I don’t know what I was supposed to realize.
For the next week, I pushed along like any other. I really did seem to have extra time, just from not being on the phone with Austin every day. I was back to focusing on school more dutifully, just to keep my mind occupied, and by the time I returned to the ranch again on Friday morning, I was ready to immerse myself in work again.
It was obvious that everyone knew Austin broke up with me. I received several looks of pity throughout the day, and even an “I’m really sorry” from Jack.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” was all I replied, and he nodded his head.
I guess it was also uncomfortable being around Austin’s family, even though I could tell they tried not to make it weird. Dave didn’t treat me any differently around the barn, but Marlo expressed her sympathies when she saw me for the first time that day.
“I still want you to come over to the house just like you used to,” she told me. “There’s no reason to be a stranger to me just because your relationship with Austin has changed.”
I agreed with her at the time. There was no need to cut myself off from his family just because he wanted to live it up in the racing world.
I finished my Friday afternoon with some time spent on my horse. He was pastured in Field Four a lot these days, hanging out with Down and Dirty and her clan. I sat on the top of the fence railing to socialize with the group for a little bit, sure to lock my feet under the railing below. I’d learned my lesson the first time I brought treats and sat on the fence, almost getting pushed right off because of curious noses.
I’d been sitting there for about ten minutes when a few of the horses brought their attention to something behind me, so I glanced over my shoulder to see Ben approaching from the house.
He didn’t speak at first and just stopped at the fence to pet the first head that greeted him. It was Bad Whiskey, and after she received some of his attention, Okie Dokie took a turn as well.
“How you feeling?” he finally asked.
I gave him a partial smile. “You talking to me or the horses?”
“You.”
I shrugged. “Mm, don’t know.”
“No? Not at all? You don’t know if you wanna scream at someone, or break something, or cry until the cows come home?”
“Hmph. Yes, to all three.”
“Wow, I’m in over my head.”
“Yeah, you should probably just stay out of it.”
“Yeah, probably.” He paused. “So, which of those things do you feel like doing the most?”
I laughed and shook my head, but he really seemed to want an answer. I swung my legs around and hopped off the fence, playfully glaring at him with warning. “Maybe scream at someone or break something. You game for that?”
He pretended to prepare himself for it, and then said, “Okay, but don’t mess up my beautiful face.”
“Really? I can hurt you?”
“Maybe start screaming first and then possibly I’ll take a punch if you catch me off-guard.”
“Wow, you’re an awesome friend. You’d do that for me?”
“Yeah, if it’s the only way to make you feel better.”
I looked him over for a few seconds, and then shook my head with a laugh. “Nah, no need to spread the misery.”
“So, you’re miserable? Is that the official report?”
“Don’t go jumping to conclusions.”
“Oh, so that’s just to throw me off?”
I didn’t reply since I really didn’t know what to say. Ben was staring at me, maybe waiting for an answer, but it made me uncomfortable and I turned for the house. He didn’t try to stop me, so when I got to the bench on the back patio, I decided to sit down. Ben was still standing at the fence facing me, having watched me make the decision to stay, so after a few seconds, he followed me over and sat down next to me.
“I left North Dakota because of a girl.”
I studied him carefully, actually shocked to hear him open up about something. “Yeah?” was all I said.
He leaned forward so his elbows rested on his knees, and turned to me with a sheepish smile. “Yeah. Her name was Jill. She was a ski instructor up at Bottineau. I met her about two-and-a-half years ago, but was too chicken to ask her out. That summer, she came into the shop with a couple of friends. They wanted to do some rock climbing. Long story short, I taught Jill and her friends how to climb, and then she and I started dating.” He shrugged. “I guess it was your classic head-over-heels type of thing. I fell in love with her and she broke my heart two years later. Game over.”
“Game over?”
He shrugged.
“You guys were together for two years, though? Sounds like it was pretty serious.”
“Well, yeah, we were going to get married. A month before the wedding, I found out she’d been seeing another guy. She kind of fell apart when I confronted her about it, and begged me to forgive her, insisting that it was just a stupid fling. I fell for it until I actually saw her with the dude a week later. Then I lost it.”
“Because it wasn’t really over with him,” I stated sympathetically.
“No, because she’d been sleeping around with my best friend.”
“Ooh, double ouch.”
“Yeah. And Duke and I owned the shop together.”
“Awkward.”
He chuckled but nodded his head. “Yeah, not only awkward, but we wanted to kill each other any time we were in the same room together. Didn’t make for the best business environment.”
“So what did you do? Sell your part of the business?”
“Pretty much. It was a little messier than that, but eventually I got some compensation out of it, and finally got the hell out of there.”
I paused for a moment. “I know this is a cruel question, but are Jill and Duke still together?”
He chuckled again. “She dumped him, like, a few days before I left town. She even tried to get back together with me but there was no way I’d ever be able to trust her after that. There was no way I’d respect myself if I let that happen.”
“Do you miss her at all?”
He shrugged with one shoulder. “Maybe a little. Maybe not her really, but the feeling of being in love. For the most part, what we had was good, but then I think about how long I had been lied to and... She wasn’t the right girl for me. I see that now. It was just a live-and-learn type of thing, I guess.”
“And what have you learned?”
He laughed with amusement. “I have no idea. Maybe to be more cautious of you vixen-ish women.”
“Hey, now.”
“I know, not all of you are that bad. I could think of a few more names to call her, but I won’t.”
“Maybe she learned something from it all.”
“Meh, I doubt it. I look back and see her personality a little clearer, and I realize she loved the game. She liked the attention she received from the opposite sex—the fun of captivating them into submission, and then the glory of breaking them down.”
“Wow, a true player.”
“Exactly. Men get a bad image for that, you know.”
“I see that now.”
“You’d be pretty good at it.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you actually knew how to manipulate people.”
I cast him a cautious side-glance. “I’m hoping that’s a compliment.”
“It is indeed.”
“It’s a very weird compliment.”
“Okay, let me rephrase it. You have all the qualities it takes to reel a guy in for good.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. I think I understood what he meant, but I’d never actually been told anything of the sort. “Okay. Thanks?”
“You want me to say it? Okay, fine. You’re beautiful and smart, and everything about you is pretty amazing. So, don’t you ever accuse me of thinking you’re not good enough for someone. I don’t even care if it’s Gandhi.”
“He’s a little old for me.”
“Yeah, and he’s a little dead for you, too, but you get my point, right?”
I slowly nodded, looking at Ben with a watchful eye. “Yeah, I get your point.”
We both drifted into silence again. I wasn’t sure if I should return some kind of compliment—it kind of felt natural to do such a thing at that moment—but it felt strange.
“Did I make you feel uncomfortable?” he finally asked. “I can tell you don’t know how to take a compliment.”
I sort of laughed. “Well, maybe so. But I was just considering if I should say what I was thinking or not.”
“Since when have you monitored what you say? You usually have a pretty quick tongue.”
“Well...”
“Unless...”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you were going to say something nice for once,” he smiled. He nudged me with his elbow and said, “Uh-oh, Nova Reynolds really does have a sweet side to her.”
“Pssh, that’s what you think.”
“Oh no, you can’t fool me. I knew it was there, I was just waiting for it to come out.”
“Well, it’s not going to now.”
He scoffed. “Oh, come on, Nova. Make my day. Please?”
With a smile, I shook my head reluctantly. “Fine. I was just going to say you’re a surprising guy, Ben. I kind of had this opinion about you—”
“Ahem, inaccurate opinion.”
“—Inaccurate opinion,” I corrected with a smile, “but I’m glad I was wrong.”
“So you’re saying...?” His hopeful smile was prompting me to say more.
“I’m saying you’re a nice guy. Kind of...a closed door, but I see a little bit of you. I still think you’ve got a lot inside that you’re keeping tucked away, but for the most part, I can tell you’ve turned out to be a pretty decent guy.”
“Hmm. Interesting assessment. And what if you’re wrong?”
“Then I guess I’m wrong. It’s only my perspective. Maybe you can enlighten me.”
He stared ahead at the horses again. “I don’t even know who I am anymore. It’s hard to say what’s there these days.”
I considered that for a minute. I could understand how mistakes in my own life made me question who I was, and even when the tough challenges hit—like situations that had to do with my dad, or especially when my mom died—it really made me wonder what in the hell I was even doing.
“I told you my dad used to beat up on me and my mom, right?” I finally said.
He looked my way and nodded.
“Well, as a kid, I couldn’t do anything about it. My mom stepped in every time, and she would pretty much take the brunt of his temper—whether he was drunk or not. He finally left California when I was ten and we didn’t have to deal with him anymore, but I always had that fear in me—that he was going to come back, you know? —And feeling that way made me really angry. I kept it all inside, though. I guess I don’t know how to own my emotions or whatever.
“When I got older, in my teens, I started to compare myself to everyone else around me. I began thinking I’d really been screwed over. Maybe I started to feel sorry for myself, and I felt like I’d missed out on a lot—a normal life. I’d hear my grandpa say stuff to my mom about my dad, like if he ever came back he’d kill him, or that he belonged in jail for the rest of his life. I hadn’t considered those ideas because I was just a confused kid. But that fear was always there. I always worried he was going to come back, and I hated feeling that fear. I guess I adopted my grandpa’s way of thinking, because after a while, when I let the hatred really settle in, I decided it felt better than being so confused. The anger seemed to make things easier to accept. I decided I preferred my dad to be gone for good, too. Here I was, this kid who tried to save a fly in the house, and I wanted my dad to be dead.”
Ben smiled sympathetically.
“It really messed me up,” I continued. “I wasn’t sure if it was normal to feel that way or if there was something wrong with me. I mean, after a while I realized the issue with my dad was the only thing in my life I had ill feelings about. I eventually decided I was an okay person and I didn’t have to let that take over my life.”
“You can’t help what happens to you sometimes. Some things are out of our hands.”
“I know, but it took a while to realize that. Even after my mom died a few years ago. At that point, I was really pissed. You know? After all the crap with my dad, I had to lose my mom instead? Sometimes it still doesn’t make sense to me, and I question everything all over again. But I tell myself, almost every day, that I can only do my best today. There’s nothing I can do about the past, but I have a lot of say in what I can do about my future.”
Ben remained quiet for a few seconds before he asked, “Is that why you’re so driven? You get this idea in your head, and you don’t stop until you accomplish it?”
“I guess I’m an overachiever. And yeah, it has to do with how I grew up. I used to hide in the corner of my closet when my dad would come home from work. When he started yelling, I would cover my ears. I used to think, ‘Please, please, please don’t hurt Mommy...’ I don’t know how many times I said that plea as a kid. I had no idea who I was talking to.” I shrugged. “My mom always talked about God and how good He was, and that He would someday make things better for us if we just hung on a little bit longer. After each week, I think I asked her, ‘How much longer?’ ...Now I realize it probably hurt her to hear me say that, but I suppose I didn’t know any better.
“But when I was older, I started challenging myself more. I’d make these little bargains with myself like... ‘Okay Nova, if you try a little harder, do a little better, maybe something good will happen.’ I pushed myself and pushed myself, and yeah, occasionally something decent would happen and I’d think, ‘Did that deal really work out for once?’ But other times, when we were still broke, still struggling, I’d get mad at...I don’t know—the world, God, myself—and feel like no matter what I did, things were still going to be tough. Then I’d kind of kick myself and say, ‘You’re not trying hard enough,’ and get back to the grind.”
Ben was shaking his head slightly. “Wow, you really kicked your own ass over the years.”
“Yeah, pretty much.” I chuckled. “But I still stick with that mentality. Hard work pays off, right? If we don’t make an effort, how can we expect to be rewarded?”
“Rewarded by who? The people around us that hardly notice, or God?”
“God. But through Him we can be blessed by the people around us.”
“So, you believe in God?” he asked. “Even after all you’ve been through?”
“What do you mean? You think my life hasn’t done me any good? It’s all been a waste?”
“Uh, well, no. That’s not what I meant.”
I tucked a leg under me and faced him on the bench. “I did stop feeling sorry for myself at some point. I have an aunt and uncle that took me in, a feisty grandfather I can’t do without, and I had a fantastic career plan that was somehow going to get me somewhere. And then...”
“And then you met Austin.”
“And then I met Austin.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What has that done for you?”
I didn’t respond. Austin was still a touchy subject, but not only that, I was so deeply connected to that aspect of my life, I still didn’t understand why it had become such a struggle. What had Austin done for me? Well, pretty much everything. Until a week ago, I finally felt like my life was heading in the right direction.
“I’m not capable of expounding on that right now.”
Ben shook his head at me. “Expounding? Isn’t it a simple question?”
“No, not really. I mean it’s a simple question, but my answer is...probably a bit profound.”
“Profound, huh? You mean Austin has saved your soul or something?” he chuckled.
I smiled along with it but answered, “In a way, maybe. And because things have changed, it makes it a little confusing, okay? I don’t know how to explain it.”
He shrugged. “Well, if I were to put myself in your shoes, I guess I can probably figure it out. So maybe you feel like Austin has completed you. Maybe you feel you two were meant to be. Maybe you feel you’re soulmates? Now, because he’s changed everything, possibly you feel a little slighted? Maybe even betrayed? Cheated? Like you were wrong? Or maybe the stars weren’t aligned like they were supposed to be, or your signs really weren’t—”
“Okay, quit. Now you’re just mocking me.”
“No, I’m not. I’m just guessing here. I really don’t know what kind of higher powers you rely on here.”
“Higher powers?”
“Whatever it is that’s told you Austin is your soulmate or whatever.”
“And what about you? What about Jill? Didn’t you feel that about her?”
“I loved Jill. I was in love with her. But...soulmates? I don’t know if I believe in that.”
“Then you can’t understand what I’m talking about.”
“So that is what we’re talking about here, right? You had some sort of...revelation?”
“Don’t make it sound so far-fetched.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to say it.”
“I don’t either, which is why I didn’t want to talk about it. I thought my life finally made sense and then Austin had to complicate it. I don’t know what to think anymore, okay?”
I got up to leave but Ben rose to stop me. “Whoa, wait a minute,” he said, holding my wrist. “I am in no way trying to make you feel bad, or question how you feel or...whatever it is you’re upset about. I’m just trying to understand you better. I’m trying to get what differentiates loving someone from feeling like they’re your soul mate.”
“I guess you’ll know when it happens to you.”
“Mm, probably not, so I’ll just have to take your word for it.”
I had to smile. “Never say never, Ben.”
“How about probably never?”
“Same thing.”
He smiled, but shook his head to dismiss the subject.
“Okay, my wounded little hummingbird,” I said. “When your wings are healed and you’re ready to fly again, let me know. I’ll introduce you to some of my friends.”
“You have friends?”
“Besides the animal variety? Yes, I have a few.”
“I’m teasing. I just don’t know you outside of the, uh...” He motioned around us. “The reservation.”
I laughed. “Well, let me know when you’re ready to jump back into the game. It’ll be good for you.”
“Good for me?” He scoffed. “You just want to show off this nicely packaged piece of meat so all your friends can drool and be jealous that you know me.”
I laughed loudly, especially because he did a nice job of selling the arrogance of it.
“You’re so right,” I said, “falling” for his manliness. “In fact, you’re so grade-A, I’m thinking of a big, juicy steak right now.”
“Steak, huh? Thanks. But I’m more of the burger type. The In-N-Out burger type.”
“Mmm, now I’m starving.”
“Me too.”
“What’s for dinner?”
“I think my mom made some sort of casserole.”
I made a face.
“I think I want In-N-Out.”
My face changed into a smile. “Me too.”
He glanced at his watch and said, “Shit, five minutes until she rings the bell. We’d better jet.”