Saddle up

Chapter Two

My heart nearly leaped through my chest at the sight of him. He stood there leaning against his truck with his hands in his pockets. I sat in my car for what seemed like an eternity, too stunned to move. Cole slowly made his way to my drivers side door. I tried to calm my nerves as I reached for the handle and exited the car.

"Hey you.", he said, leaning in for a hug. He wrapped his strong arms around me, the same arms that held me close on our first date, that protected me every night in our sleep, that pinned me down when we made love...my mind was in a fog as I breathed in the familiar scent of the man I gave everything to since I was 14.

"It's good to see you", he said, finally releasing me. I cleared my throat, trying to compose myself.

"Um, yeah. It's good to see you too. Done with school for the summer, huh?" I was looking everywhere but at Cole. I knew if I looked at his face for too long I'd jump into his arms, begging for him to take me back.

The hurt I felt from what Cole had done slowly turned into rage as days turned into months. I couldn't keep myself from imagining another woman beneath Cole, crying out his name in pleasure. It was an image that haunted me daily and it was the reason I needed the job at the ranch to keep myself busy. But when I made eye contact with him, all the anger melted away. I just wanted to be in his arms again, but I knew I'd never be able to fully trust him like I once had.

"Yeah." He responded. I'm home now for the summer. His expression was full of guilt, as if he could hear every thought that was racing through my mind.

"So what brings you here?", I questioned, wiping my sweaty palms on my dirt coated blue jeans and folding them across my chest, still trying desperately to calm my nerves and put off a confident vibe. I didn't want him to see the effect he still had on me. Not after what he had done to me. He couldn't see how I fell apart under his gentle gaze. He needed to see that I was hurt and that he couldn't just drift back into my life like nothing had ever happened. I needed to be strong now. The fury I had felt these past few months had begun to make it's way to the surface again. I welcomed it, knowing it would only help me maintain my confident composure.

"I've just been thinking a lot..." He trailed off, as if waiting for my approval to continue. I raised an eyebrow but broke eye contact as if to say 'You can keep talking, but I'm not exactly interested'. "...about what I did..." Just hearing him mention it made my blood boil and my eyes snapped back to his in an instant. "I never got the chance to apologize to you." He tucked his hands back into his pockets and stared down at the ground, unable to maintain eye contact seeing as how I was now glaring at him. When he realized I wasn't going to speak, he continued..."I don't know what the hell I was thinking, Jess...I was so drunk, it just sort of...happened..."

"Stop!" I shouted, interrupting his recounting of events that took place that night. "Stop..." I said again, barely a whisper this time, tears starting to flow down my pale cheeks. I was so angry with Cole. After all the years we spent together, all that we had shared with one another...all of it thrown away in one night of drunken stupidity...'that's how much I meant to him', I thought to myself before Cole's sudden movement towards me snapped me to the present and I immediately took another step back away from the man I gave everything to for the past 4 years of my life. He just wasn't the same anymore. Although my feelings for him hadn't wavered in the few months that we'd been apart, I still knew that we couldn't pick up the pieces and start where we had left off. The trust just wasn't there anymore.

"You should go, I said, wiping away the tears that were still flowing. I have work at the ranch tomorrow and I need sleep." With that, I turned towards my little house surrounded by woods and left Cole standing alone in my driveway. He never protested, never came after me like the guys do in the movies. He just watched as I walked away and closed the door behind me. I turned the light in the foyer off as if I was heading up to my bedroom but instead I stood there and watched Cole through the frosted glass, knowing that he couldn't see me. Cole stood there with his hands in his pockets staring at the door for what seemed like forever before finally climbing into his truck and heading in the direction of his house, just a quarter of a mile up the road. When I got to my room, I stripped my clothes off and headed for the shower. I turned my iPod on full blast knowing my parents were out for their usual poker night. I climbed into the scalding water and closed my eyes as the water cascaded down my body, numbing my pain as my mind drifted off to a happier time...

"We can't move!" I screeched at my parents. "All my friends are here!"

"You'll make new friends, Jessica. My dad protested. It's not an option. I've been driving an hour to work everyday for 15 years now and I'm tired of it. We're moving closer. I can't keep doing this." I could see how tired my dad was. He had been working at the state prison as a corrections officer since I was a baby. The only reason we lived so far away in the first place was because my grandma wanted to sell her house that she and my since deceased pap had built together and raised my dad and his three other siblings in. My dad didn't want strangers to have it, so my gram sold it to us. It was in a beautiful suburban neighborhood. I quickly made friends with a girl two houses up from me and we grew up together. We walked to school together and spent almost everyday at each-others houses. I was crushed to learn that I'd be leaving behind my best friend.

When the realtor brought us to the home we now own we were blown away. My parents told her that we were looking for a more private location with more land and boy, did she deliver. The home was a modified A frame covered in stone. It was built right in the center of 3 1/2 acres of land and surrounded by miles and miles of beautiful state gameland forest. There was a detached two car garage to the left and directly behind the house was a large in ground pool surrounded by fence with a shed on one side and a greenhouse on the other. What sold me though was my bedroom. My parents gave me the master bedroom because it was off by itself on the third story and they knew I needed my space. It was huge with its own bathroom and a balcony that overlooked the pool and the beautiful garden behind it. It was so peaceful being surrounded by nothing but trees.

I was still extremely bummed to be away from all my friends and I was still sulking the day my parents had decided to throw a house warming party and invite all our new neighbors. That was until Cole came over and introduced himself as one of those neighbors. From then on it was history. He took me out on hikes and quad rides through the woods and showed me all the trails and places there was to see in the beautiful area I now called home. My favorite was the pond. We had to take his truck or the quad to get there unless we wanted to tackle a 4 mile hike, but it was simply amazing. There were loads of wild flowers  growing at the edge of the pond where we sat and caught frogs and salamanders until the heat became too much. Then we would just strip our clothes and dive in to cool off. The first time we made love was in the bed of his truck right by that pond. The sound of frogs and crickets chirping filled my ears as I gave myself to Cole that night.

The song The Scientist by Coldplay came on bringing me back from that cherished memory and again the tears began to fall as I listened to the lyrics of the song...

'....Nobody said it was easy, it's such a shame for us to part, nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this hard, oh take me back to the start...'

I cried even harder at the irony of the song. As it came to an end I turned the shower off, dried myself, and slipped into bed. I dreaded this time of night because it's when my mind always wanted to replay memories. I would toss and turn praying for sleep to find me only to wake up a few hours later from a terrible nightmare. But this time I was so physically and emotionally exhausted from my work at the ranch and the ordeal with Cole that sleep welcomed me...