[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Chapter Eight


Nick

I bought my own pair of sweatpants, two pairs of jeans, and a pair of camouflage pants, which Kevin got Uncle Devon to let me put on in the fitting room, which was full of boxes piled almost up to the ceiling. A peek in one of the boxes showed that these were the recently restocked Duck Dynasty t-shirts, and I wondered how many t-shirts Uncle Devon planned to sell with those guys on them. I sorta folded the sweatpants as best I could and carried them back out to Kevin, who was helping the old man back onto the bar stool behind the counter. He looked like he could be cousins with the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy. I wondered why Kevin called him Uncle Devon if they weren’t related.

“See, that wasn’t so bad, you found some stuff,” Kevin said as we walked across the lot back to the rental car.

“Yeah, I guess not,” I answered, and we climbed into the car.




It started raining as we were driving up the mountain back to the camp, and I hugged my bag to my chest as I watched the rain fall against the windshield, blurring the sight of the trees. We were just pulling up into the driveway when a loud crack of thunder shook the car, and a bolt of lightning like crazy close shot through the sky, lighting up the yard like day time, even though it had already started getting dark.

“Jesus that’s bright,” I marvelled as another crack of thunder rumbled overhead.

Kevin was squinting into the field, though. “Shit,” he said, “One of the horses are loose.” And without waiting for me to say anything, he shoved the door opened and got out, disappearing into the rain.

“Kev, dude!” I yelled. Had he not seen that lightning? I wondered. That was the kinda lightning people get struck by in the movies. And we were surrounded by trees. Running across a field was probably one of the stupidest things the guy could do.

And yet, I pushed the door open, leaving my bag there, and ran after him.

Because stupid is as stupid does, I guess.

He was right. Portia was loose, her mane flying behind her as she ran, wild eyed, through the yard, her hooves spraying muddy grass behind her and she panicked, the storm swirling in the sky overhead. There was another rumble of thunder and a flash of lightning, which glistened off the jet black fur on her back like a reflection.

“Where’s Caroline?” I shouted as Kevin came close, running behind the horse, who turned just before she got to the driveway, where I was standing, her breath heavy.

“I don’t know!” Kevin shouted back over the rumbling sky. “We gotta find her. She’s gonna be way more effective at getting this horse in the barn,” he added, looking around, like Caroline might just suddenly appear out of no where. “She knows it’s god damn name for starters…”

“It’s Portia!” I shouted.

“What?”

“Portia!” I shouted louder.

The horse reared around at the sound of it’s name and started toward Kevin and I, running through the dark. I blinked in surprise. The sky lit up a third time and the horse ran right for me. I held my hands up, praying it wouldn’t run me down, my heart racing as it came to my side and, though it clopped it’s feet in a wild, nervous fashion, it didn’t run me down. She looked like a little kid that had to take a pee, shifting her weight from one side to the other, nervously tossing her head, her hair flying through the rain. I reached out and touched it’s nose, “Hey, it’s okay,” I yelled to her, “It’s just a storm. You’re huge, you shouldn’t be scared, you big baby.”

Kevin reached for the hair of her mane, which he grabbed onto gently as a leash to guide her to the barn. He pulled her gently toward the barn, clicking his tongue. “Keep talking to her!” he shouted as she started to rear when he pulled her along.

“Hey Portia, hey!” I called, trying really hard not to be afraid of her, and I put my hand on her neck tentatively. “It’s okay!”

Together, Kevin and I walked toward the barn, and inside we found the other two horses clustered at the far end, their stalls still open, the wheelbarrow and pitchfork exactly where we’d left it earlier that day after the incident of the mucking had occurred. Kevin shooshed Portia into her mostly cleaned pen, and closed it before moving the other two horses into their stalls as well. Once he’d gotten them put in he looked at me, “We gotta drive up to the north end of the river,” he said, “That’s where Caroline was headed earlier... She was gonna muck out the stall after that, so she’s gotta be up there still ‘cos this ain’t done.”

I nodded.

The storm was nasty as fuck. The rain was falling so hard it stung on my bare skin and it was cold, though not as cold as the hose water had been thank God, and it was hard to see much further than a couple feet. We hurried back to the car and I looked over at Kevin as he started the engine. He was worried, I could tell. The look on his face was one that I hadn’t seen in a long time. In fact, I think the last time I’d seen it had been this one night when he’d come back to the hotel room back during the Never Gone tour and he’d found me drunk out of my mind, complaining that my heart was tight and hurting.

“I can’t stay dry today,” I said, trying to lighten the mood a little bit.

“Yeah,” he mumbled.

He backed down the driveway and back to the dirt road that wound up the mountain, driving past the camp and up and up and up… until the road literally ended in a small parking lot. The storm was still raging like crazy outside, though the lightning strikes were getting further and further apart. Kevin slammed the car into park. “Wait here,” he said, and he got out without any further deliberation.

I sat there for exactly three seconds before I launched myself out of the car and ran after him.

He rushed down a short trail and even over the wind in the trees and the rumbling of thunder I could hear the rushing river. It smelled musty, like leaves and stuff. The trail reminded me of this park in Tennessee where Lauren and I had gone running during the Autumn the year before called Radnor State Park. I wasn’t one for hiking and trails much, other than for paintball purposes, so Radnor was pretty much my only reference. But unlike Radnor, which is paved and smooth, this trail was natural, jutted with roots that poked out and uneven and slippery in spots from the rain. The only good thing was the canopy of trees overhead kept most of the rain from falling through and it was more of a light mist under here.

“Caroline!” Kevin shouted her name over the thunder, and I could tell by the glow above in the leaves that lightning had followed it.

We were gonna end up toasted out here like marshmallows, I thought.

“Kevin?” I looked up, Caroline had emerged from a small wooden shed that was off to one side of the trail, her eyes wide. “Kevin?”

He ran over to her, “Caroline, you’re okay.” He wrapped his arms around her in a big bear hug as I hovered a few feet away, watching as he embraced her. She stared at me over his shoulder in surprise and delicately patting his back.

“Yeah I’m okay,” she said, “It started storming while I was fixing the dock so I went in the shed there… Are the horses okay? Did you see them? They’re still in the fields, I was worried about them, Portia’s terrified of storms and --”

“We got’em,” Kevin reassured her. “C’mon, we drove up.” And he grabbed her hand to steady her as she walked out of the woods to the uneven pathway and the two of them rushed ahead of me down the trail, back to the car. I kinda felt forgotten, even. I stumbled along after them back out to the car. The winds were calming down and the lightning was further away, less intense, the rumbling thunder quieter.

We all got in the car, me in the back seat this time, and I grabbed my bag from the front before Caroline could sit on my stuff. I was really glad I’d opted to buy more than one pair of pants - I’d been close to buying just the camo pants I had on that were now soaking wet. I was so not putting Kev’s sweatpants on again.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kevin asked when Caroline was shivering on the way back down the mountain.

She nodded, “I’m just cold,” she replied.

He turned the heater on so the air blasted out warm and dry.

By the time we got back to the house, it was only just barely raining. We got inside and Kev made Caroline sit down in the living room while he started up the fire place. “I’m okay,” she argued, “I gotta get out there and get Portia’s stall finished mucking so she can have fresh hay, she can’t sleep in that dirty hay.” She started to get up but Kevin stopped her.

“I’ll do it.”

“Kevin, it’s fine, I’ll --”

“Stay here, you’re cold, you’ve done enough for today, just relax,” he insisted. Then he went outside, leaving Caroline sitting in the living room and me standing in the doorway, holding my bag from Honchell’s.

I cleared my throat and Caroline looked back at me. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” I replied.

“I see you got some new clothes,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Kevin bring you to Honchell’s?” she asked.

I nodded.

“He’s always been obsessed with that place,” she laughed, shaking her head, smiling fondly. She undid the braids and let her hair hang down, all frizzy and messy and leaned back so she was laying on the cushions of the couch, staring up at me. “I’m sorry about getting that stuff all over you,” she added. “I know we were laughing at you and stuff earlier. Kevin and I always had a wicked sense of humor when we were together.”

“I see that,” I nodded. I walked around the couch and sat down on an ottoman in front of a big overstuffed chair. I really wanted to go upstairs and put on a different pair of pants, since now my camo pants were soaked from the rain, but the fire felt nice and I didn’t wanna go. Plus, it was kinda nice talking to Caroline. “Portia came when I yelled her name,” I said. “When we pulled up, she was loose,” I explained, “And Kev jumped out of the car and he was trying to find you ‘cos he didn’t know the horse’s name and I was like ‘it’s Portia!’ and she came. That was kinda cool.”

Caroline smiled, “She liked you,” she said.

I wanted to be that guy that was like well I liked her but I was still only halfway there with the horses and I had a feeling I’d be staying that way.

But halfway is a lot closer than I’d ever been before, so Portia could be proud of that anyways.

“So did you talk to your fiance?” Caroline asked.

“I texted her,” I said.

“And?”

I stared at my knees. “I dunno… I told her I was sorry, like literally that’s all I said is I’m sorry, and she answered back. She said --” I reached in my pocket for my phone and tried to pull Lauren’s text message up, but it wasn’t there. I stared at the phone, confused. I had actually sent the text hadn’t I? Or had I dreamed that? I remembered waking up thinking I’d had a dream I wanted to tell Lauren about, but I couldn’t even remember if that was this morning or the morning before. Had I dreamed that I’d texted her and I hadn’t actually said sorry at all?

“What’s wrong?” Caroline asked.

“I - I dunno. I can’t find the text. I thought --” I scrunched up my nose, trying to remember.

Caroline was still staring at me expectantly.

“I dunno. Maybe I dreamed I texted her. I thought I did, though.”

Caroline pulled a blanket around herself. “Well, if you haven’t you should,” she said. She looked over at me thoughtfully. “Why did you leave?”

I shrugged.

“No fair shrugging, you gotta actually answer,” she said, shaking her head.

I scratched my neck and thought about it a second, then I said, “Well… what we’ve had for the last five years has been really good,” I explained, “And… I dunno, when I was little, my parents used to fight and I could hear them screaming at each other down the stairs and they’d break stuff and yell all night and it scared me. And I remember them when I was really, really little and how in love they were, like before, and my mom always told us this story about how they met and how much in love she was with my dad and stuff and…” I shrugged, “It seemed like the point in the story where it changed was where they got married and had me.” I stared at my hands. “I dunno. I didn’t want that to happen to me and Lauren.”

Caroline was hugging her knees. “Well, I mean, that’s not gonna happen for sure. That’s just one story out of a million stories.”

“The divorce rate is higher than it’s ever been, though,” I pointed out.

“That doesn’t mean you will get divorced,” Caroline persisted.

I nodded.

“Do you still love her?” Caroline asked.

“Yes,” I said, no hesitation at all. It surprised me a little. I dunno why. I guess because the I love yous had been a long time coming on both ends for Lauren and I, and the wedding seemed like eons ago, I felt like I’d been in Kentucky for centuries, rather than just days. I understood why Kevin used to say time stood still in the bluegrass hills.

“So you should tell her that. You should tell her everything you just told me,” Caroline said. “Because she’ll want to know. She needs to know.”

I rubbed my hand on my knees. “So how come you know so much about all this?” I asked.

“Because,” Caroline said slowly, “It’s happened to me.”

“Someone ran off on you on your wedding day?” I asked, surprised.

Caroline nodded, “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t picture that,” I said, “You’re really hot, who would do that?”

Caroline shrugged, “I guess he just wanted other things is all. It wasn’t really fair of me to have expected him to stay with me to begin with, he had bigger dreams than I could ever fulfill, that’s all.” She picked at the fabric of the blanket. “But after he ran away, I didn’t hear from him again, and I’ve always wondered if -- if I’d been more willing to change, if I hadn’t been so stubborn about being home and --” Caroline shrugged again.

“Was it Kevin?” I asked.

Caroline shook her head. “I’m not going to answer that. It’s his prerogative to tell you if he wants you to know.”

I folded my hands together. I mean that meant yes, but it meant she didn’t want me to tell Kev she’d told me. I pictured Kevin at nineteen standing in the same church I’d been in when I’d left Lauren about to run out on Caroline. I couldn’t picture it. Kevin seemed too… I dunno what’s the word… good, I guess… to have run away on someone like that. But then again… I flashbacked to my panic attack, to the way he’d taken control, how he’d looked into my eyes like he was reading my mind. He’d been able to see into my mind that day because it was so like his own mind twenty-two years before.

“Promise me you’ll tell her,” Caroline said.

“I’ll tell her,” I promised.

Caroline smiled, “Thank you.”

I nodded.

Kevin came back in a few minutes later, and he went out in the kitchen and washed his hands before he returned to the living room and sank down into the brown chair across from me, groaning as he gripped the armrests. He put his feet up on the ottoman in front of him and wiggled his toes in the direction of the fire. “That Portia’s a sweet horse,” he said. “Beautiful horse. Gorgeous.”

Caroline smiled, “She’s a sweetheart. She lived at a farm in Tennessee that auctioned her off when they had to downsize and I got her for a really decent price. She was already mostly trained and everything, just needed a home.” She smiled. “I trained her once she got here, but she was used to children already because the farm she was at did events at the Nashville Fair and stuff.” Caroline turned to me, “Portia’s a trained autism therapy horse,” she explained. "Someday I want to start an Autism Equine Therapy camp program.”

“What’s autism equine therapy?” I asked. It sounded painful.

“Working with horses helps kids with Autism because studies have show that the movement of riding a horse can soothe a child with a disorder on the spectrum… It helps them learn to focus and socialize and it’s helps them to be drawn out of the prison that many of them feel like they are in because of their disorders. I’ve been working on getting a degree in therapy so that I can start a program like that and hopefully one day I’ll be able to open the camp up for children with autism to come and visit and help take care of Portia and the other horses. It’s perfect because I’d be able to let them rent cabins while they were visiting the horses, so Ann would make more money and I’d be able to do the therapy work I’m studying for... I’ve been working with Peepsa and Barbara, too, but Portia’s already trained. She was sort of my final project when I did the equine veterinary program in Louisville and realized I wanted to get into this field.”

“That’s really cool,” I said. “Lauren would fucking love that.” The words had come out of my mouth before I’d really thought about them. I looked down at my hands.

“Well, if I ever get the opportunity to start the, then you’ll have to come and visit,” Caroline replied. She smiled, then added, “With Lauren.”

I looked up.

Kevin was staring at his lap.

“I dunno if she can even stand me anymore,” I said. Then I said to Kevin, “Dude, do you know if I texted Lauren or if I dreamed that?”

Kevin looked up, “What? Why would I know if you texted Lauren? It’s not like I look at your phone.”

“I know,” I replied, “But I mean, like, did I mention having texted her? I thought I did, but I can’t find the text I sent her. I thought she replied even but there’s no messages on my phone from her at all. Which, actually, that’s weird, ‘cos we definitely texted when we first got to the church ---” I rubbed my chin.

“You said you texted her when we were coming home from Kroger,” Kevin said.

“Okay so I’m not crazy, then. My phone’s crazy.” I stared at it, “I wonder what the hell it’s doing? All my other texts are there, it’s just Lauren’s that’s missing. I wonder if I deleted it somehow?” I started playing with my phone, trying to see how hard it would be to accidentally delete an entire text message conversation.

Pretty hard it seemed.

Kevin stood up suddenly. “I think it’s time for bed,” he announced.

Caroline raised an eyebrow at him.

“Okay,” I agreed. I had a lot of thinking to do with how to tell Lauren what all I’d told Caroline that night. I wasn’t sure how I was gonna word it to her, but I figured I could pull up an email and start trying to piece the words together so that I could eventually send it to her. Especially the part where I still loved her. Because, yeah, as hot as Caroline was and all, I knew it wasn’t really gonna go anywhere anytime sooner than the whole me and Kristin thing was going to. It was something to say, something to fantasize about, but nothing that would ever really happen because at the end of the day the only woman I wanted in the bed next to me was Lauren.

I just had to tell her so.

And figure out how to get over this phobia of weddings.

And see if she’d still have me after all the crap I’d put her through.

I got to my feet and Caroline did, too, and the three of us went upstairs. I nearly tripped on the trick step, though Caroline and Kevin both stepped over it like it didn’t even exist. We got to the doors and I said, “Night guys,” as Caroline was passing by on the way to her own.

“Night,” Kevin and Caroline both said at the same time.

I pulled the door shut and kicked off the camo pants, pulling on a pair of grey sweats I’d bought myself at Honchell’s. I put the phone on the charger plug and I was just about to get into bed when I realized I could hear their voices still in the hallway.

I heard my name.

I got curious.

I went over to the door and listened.