Jenny
“No,” I said, frowning at my father. “I already told you. The cows are going to be fine. You hired good help. I’m not going to move back home.”
In fact, the last thing I would ever do in my life was live with my father again. My childhood had been wrought with horrible instances of emotional and verbal abuse. I wasn’t going to subject myself to the man’s unpredictable temper any longer.
“But nobody understands the way this place is supposed to run as well as you do. You were raised here. Come on, Jenny, this is your duty. You owe me!”
“I don’t believe I owe you anything, Dad. I mean, I appreciate you putting food on the table all these years, but I don’t owe you the last shred of my self-esteem, and I’m not going to hang around while you try and make me feel like crap about myself. It just isn’t going to happen. I hope that, one day, you can try to understand that.”
My father looked sourly at me. “If your mom could see you now, she would think you are the biggest disgrace she ever put forth on this green earth.”
I shook my head, “If my mother was here, she would be mad at you for the way you treated me all those years. She would be glad I married a man and we had managed to save enough money to buy our own home, our own land. She would be proud of me. Unlike you.”
“You wouldn’t have anything without your mother’s inheritance, don’t kid yourself. That rotten husband of yours left you deeper in debt than he is in his grave. You wouldn’t have any land to speak of if it weren’t for your mother. Cashing in on her death like that, it’s shameless!”
I scowled, the words stinging me even though I knew he was just trying to get under my skin.
“I don’t think that’s true. I did everything I could to work my way out of this debt. And on top of it, I have to deal with the emotional hell pit that you dug me into. And I’m going to keep working until I’m out of it for good. I don’t care if that means I never speak to you again after this. You can’t control me, no matter how entitled you think you are in trying.”
I turned my back on my father for the first time, his angry eyes burning a hole in my back. But I wasn’t going to give in. It wasn’t going to be the way it used to be when I was a kid and didn’t have any power. I had already done everything I could to put myself through school and get the emotional support I needed to understand my own worth, so he would no longer try to hurt me. It was the best thing I had ever done for myself, and I wasn’t going to let him wreck it.
“You’re making a huge mistake. I’m not going to give you a damn cent when I go. And I’m old, that should be any day now. You just made yourself an enemy of your old man. I hope you understand what that means. And you’re going to regret that.”
I shook my head, holding my hand up. To my surprise, it silenced my father. Maybe he wasn’t so tough after all.
“I don’t need your money. I don’t need anything from you. All I ever needed was love, and you were not able to give that to me when I needed it the most. I don’t want you to try to guilt trip me about what I’m doing to figure out my way through life. Please, just leave me alone or get used to the fact that I’m not going to let you push me around anymore.”
He didn’t speak, and I continued out of the house, letting the wooden screen door slam shut behind me. I was tired of this shit. I have lived in the middle of nowhere, in this godforsaken desert, my entire life. I was going to go home and do my best to try to wash off this experience with my father once and for all.
But when I finally made it out onto the open road, I sighed heavily. I didn’t feel like driving right now. I felt like going for a run, or just going out to my favorite spot and looking out over the sunset. It was the only thing I had ever been able to do to relax after my father’s emotional tirades against me.
I took a sharp turn down along County Road as an afterthought, and parked my car. It was a beater, but it did everything I needed it to do, and I loved it and took care of it as much as I would have if it cost me a lot of money.
I got out and stretched, taking a deep breath of the fresh, dry air. It was going to be evening soon, so I knew I had to hurry up, so I wouldn’t get stuck in the cold desert. It was always more dangerous to be out in the sand at night, never knowing what kind of creatures might be underfoot.
And so, I headed out, my legs carrying me automatically toward a very specific destination. To most people, it would seem impossible to tell where they were going, but I knew this place like the back of my hand, and was determined to reach my spot as quickly as possible.
I felt the cool wind caress my shoulders and shivered involuntarily. It wasn’t even cold outside yet, but I was beyond caring. I needed to clear my head, and this was the best way for me to do it.
As I made my way up the hill, I froze. There was something out there. An animal, maybe?
I had to take a second look. At first, I was worried that it could be something dangerous. Something that might want to charge or hurt me. But the longer I looked, the more concerned I became. It was the form of a human. Lying in the dirt, half covered by sand. Something about this wasn’t right.
I rushed over to it, no longer concerned for my own well-being. All I could think about was trying to get this human, a man, to safety.
When I reached the figure, I gasped. He was completely naked, and quite possibly the most beautiful living thing I had ever seen. His skin seemed to glow, almost as if made of ethereal matter far beyond anything I had ever witnessed before.
I gripped his shoulder, trying to shake him awake. The man’s eyes suddenly fluttered open and looked at me, and I felt my chest tighten. They were made of the most beautiful golden color. I couldn’t help but stare at them, lost and unable to speak for a few moments.
Finally, I managed to get a grip on myself and swallowed hard. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice a deep, silky rumble.
“Can you stand up?” I asked, alarm building in my chest. I had to get him out of here. Before night came. Who knew what might happen to him if I couldn’t?
“I do want to,” he said, laughing weakly. It was a pleasant sound, even considering the circumstances, and I found myself gazing at him once again, enrapt by his remarkable presence. “But whether or not I can is another story.”
“Here, let me try to help you,” I said, surprised by my forwardness as I leaned over and helped the man to get his arm over my shoulder. “I grew up on a farm, so you might be surprised by how strong I am.”
“I don’t think anything, at this point, would surprise me,” the man said grimly. Something about his tone gave me a little chill, but I couldn’t quite tell what it was.
Instead of pushing the matter, I braced myself to give a boost, and we somehow got him unsteadily to his feet, as he leaned most of his weight on me.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked. It looked like he had been the victim of some kind of serious crime, or a prank gone very wrong. He was battered and bruised, but still, more or less, intact. My eyes wandered down to his groin despite my valiant efforts to ignore it. Very intact.
I tried to ignore this, and we made our way slowly through the desert and until we came upon my car. When he saw it, he burst out laughing, although his voice was still fairly weak, and he ended up dissolving into a fit of coughing.
“It’s primitive!” he exclaimed.
I felt myself prickling Sure, it was old, but he didn’t have to be such an asshole about it. I was trying to help him.
“Yeah, but it gets the job done,” I said, glowering at him.
He was still smiling crookedly when I opened the door to the back seat and motioned for him to get inside.
Suddenly, the smile on his face faltered. “You expect me to ride in that? It doesn’t seem safe.”
Now this guy was trying to lecture me about safety? This was too much.
“What other choice do you have? You want to go back out into the desert and die there? Because I could totally let you.”
I frowned at him, and he smiled weakly. “No, I see your point. But are you sure it’s safe?”
“I’m sure, just get inside or I’m leaving you behind.”
He seemed to seriously consider this for a moment and I gaped at him in disbelief. He would really weigh his options at a time like this?
But he seemed to finally settle on taking his chances, and got into my car.
I shook my head and sighed. “We have to get you to a hospital.”
“No!” The man barked. “No hospitals!”
I sighed, my heart constricting tightly in my chest. So this was some kind of crime. Whoever he was, he didn’t want to go to a hospital. He was probably on the other side of the law, and if I brought him there, they would take him in and have him arrested. To some small degree, I didn’t really care, but for some reason, something in me compelled me to listen to him.
“Well then, where do you live? I will take you home.”
The man was silent. Quiet for a lot longer than I was comfortable with. Finally, he sighed. “I do not have a home here. I have nowhere to go.”
For a brief moment, I considered whether or not he was just toying with me. I wondered if he had some friends who would come out and attack me. But, if that were the case, he probably wouldn’t have gotten into my shitty little car. Instead, I turned to him and knitted my brow. “You want to come to my house? I will try to patch you up the best I can, but you really look like you need a doctor. This is no good.”
“Trust me, I will be fine. I have survived much worse.”
The words chilled me, but I had no choice but to believe them. There was something very grave about his voice.
“All right then,” I said, my heart drumming in my chest. “Home it is.”