Chapter 8: Chelsea

I should’ve headed straight back for that trailer, but as I was traveling along the highway, I saw those same trailers being pulled behind trucks to go be stored for the next rodeo. Obviously, he’d woken up yet again to an empty bed, and it made me sick. Yet again, I’d left the only man whoever made me feel worth something and important alone in bed after bearing his soul to me.

I made me physically ill to think about.

I thought about traveling around town to find him. I thought about going to his parent’s home and asking if they knew where he was. I wondered if they were still alive, rickety in their old age and still rocking on their porch, or if they had passed. I wondered if they were buried somewhere I could visit. Somewhere where I could shed tears over not being there for their funeral.

Flynn was close to his family, and I adored every single one of them. He was an only child, but his mother adopted many boys and girls around the neighborhood. Not legally, of course, but they always seemed to be in and out. She’d feed them, give them a place to sleep, and even gave out keys to her own home in case they wanted to come over instead of going home. Flynn and I, we were fortunate to have loving families, but a lot of the kids around here weren’t as lucky. Some had abusive homes, and some had poor homes. Some had homes with too many children, and some had homes with absent parents. Flynn’s mother was never able to have the house full of kids she wanted, so she took in everyone else’s when they didn’t have a place to go.

I decided to drive by their old home, just to see if anyone was there.

The house was up kept really well. The porch looked to have been repainted, and the roof was obviously new. The old rocking chairs were swaying with the wind on the porch, but no one seemed to be home. There were no cars, there were no lights on, no children were frolicking around the property. I mean, Flynn’s mom kept a good house, but their house wasn’t new by any means.

And then my eyes drifted to the “For Sale” sign in the front yard.

I parked my car and got out to pull a slip of paper out from the open box, and when I slipped back into my car, I looked over the information. Four bedrooms, two and a half bath ranch-style home with a basement that sits on nine acres of land. Wrap-around porch, forced heating, central air conditioning, hardwood floors… the works.

“Someone really put a lot of work into this home,” I murmured to myself.

The home and property were trying to be sold for $200,000.00, but I could tell it had been on the market for a while. My eyes watered at the idea of Flynn experiencing the passing of his parents by himself, and it made me sick to my stomach with guilt. I should have been here to help him.

Jesus, I really needed to tell him what happened. I needed him to know it wasn’t his fault.

I needed him to know he didn’t chase me away.

I opened up my phone and called the only restaurant in town that I knew took reservations, and I made one for us for 7 o’clock tonight. I still wasn’t sure how I would get in touch with Flynn, but I was sure if I asked around town enough, I would figure it out. That’s the thing about a small town, you never really can hide from where you are and where you’ve gone.

Unless, of course, you up and leave without telling anyone except your parents in a note.

I tossed the piece of paper to the floor after I hung up my phone and I sped down the road towards the stables. I used to go there whenever I felt overwhelmed or needed to think, but the owner’s son knew Flynn from high school. If they still owned the barn and he was still working there, they might know where Flynn was, and I might be able to get in a relaxing ride before cleaning up and meeting Flynn tonight.

That is if he would come.

I weaved my way to the stable as if I had been there yesterday. I looked exactly as I remembered it: apple trees lined the half mile gravel driveway so the horses could have snacks while they were out to pasture. The grass was a lush green that could be seen for miles. My parents owned the second-largest piece of property to this stable. It sat on close to forty acres of rolling hills and land, and no matter how much the city tried to buy out some of their land, they simply paid the higher taxes and kept on going with their services. They provided everything anyone could possibly want when it came to horses and their care: boarding services, breeding services, grooming services, shoe services, and even training services. They gave lessons and had a partnership with my parents in the summer to help with the summer camps, and they even held horse shows and competitions so the local kids learning to ride horses could compete.

It was where I found my solace whenever I felt stressed during my days in high school or college, and I volunteered my time whenever I could in the summer to help out when I was a kid. I shoveled stalls, I brushed horses, and I even helped birth a few foals in my day, too.

My smile hurt my face as I pulled up to the stables, and the shaggy-haired boy I’d known throughout high school turned around with the face of a man plastered onto his neck.

“Well, I’ll be! Chelsea is that you!?”

I threw the car into park and barreled up the parking lot. I jumped into his arms, and he swung me around, and he held me for a while before he put me down.

“You ain’t been ‘round here in a while! How ya been!?” he asked. Bradley had always been such a good kid, even after losing his mom so young. His dad stepped up the best he could, and the two of them decided to open this place when he was in middle school. They dedicated it to her and everything. They always said this place had her soul: she loved apples in the fall and there was nothing she loved more than a horse in white. Every horse they ever purchased to own of their own volition either had white coats or white manes and tails, and it made me teary-eyed every time I thought about it.

“Thinkin’ ‘bout mom, aren’t ya?” Bradley asked.

“Sorry,” I sniffled.

“Don’t be. So! What brings you here? Wanting to take a ride?”

“Well, yes, and there’s something else,” I said.

“You wanna know where to find Flynn,” he smirked.

I felt my face flush before he held out his phone.

“Give it here.”

I watched him open it up and type something in, and when he turned it around, I realized he had put Flynn’s number in my phone. I looked up at him with tears in my eyes before taking the phone from him, and I slipped it back into my pocket before throwing my arms around his neck.

“I don’t know what happened with y’all, but call him. He’d be happy to see you.”

Lord, didn’t I know it.

“Any chance I can cash in that ride?” I murmured.

He led me out to the barn and showed me this beautiful white horse. His coat was white, and his mane and tail were black, and I could have sworn the horse had a mischievous smirk on his face.

“This here’s Oreo. Let’s get you saddled up, and you can take him out. He hasn’t been out yet today, so he’ll love you just for gettin’ him out of his stall.”

“You think I don’t remember how to put one of these on?” I asked. Bradley laughed while he saddled up Oreo, and when I swung my leg over, he whistled lowly before he turned to walk away.

“Flynn’s a lucky guy!” he called back.

I wish I could’ve believed him. The truth was Flynn deserved better. I fell in love with him, and I knew he loved me, and yet when I was tossed my dream job I left his side without so much as consulting him in the matter before I booked a flight for Paris. On the one hand, that’s my career. They handed me my dream on a platter and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna turn it down. But Flynn was my soulmate, the man I clung to all through college. I supported his bull-riding endeavors even when his parents were too worried about his safety to see how happy it made him. He supported me in my fashion passion, even though he repeatedly admitted he didn’t understand a lick of it. We feasted on each other’s presence during the day and dined on each other’s bodies at night, and we had dated so long that our parents had already begun planning our wedding before Flynn had even proposed.

It was just… one of those things you knew would eventually happen. We knew it, our families knew it, and the entire town knew it.

The least I could do was give Flynn an explanation as to what happened. Even if my assumptions were incorrect and even if he would’ve followed me to Paris or, at the very least, supported me as I went, I needed to let him know that it was all in my head.

I needed him to know that I still cared for him and that there had been no one after him.

God, there was so much I wanted to say over dinner, and I felt my hands trembling as I held Oreo’s reigns.

“Steady now,” I whispered to myself.

I ducked us out of the barn and got us going in the field. I ripped my hair down from my ponytail and let the wind comb through my hair, and I held my arms out while my hips synced to the rhythm of his thunderous hooves. My god, I had forgotten how powerful I felt on the back of a horse. I always used to tell Flynn that being on the back of a horse was more liberating than being on the back of a bull, and then he’d just smirk and tell me I hadn’t been on a bucking bull before.

And then I’d prove to him wrong every single night whenever I straddled his hips.

Everything was going so well. I had Flynn’s number, I had reservations, I finally had the guts to tell him what happened all those years ago, and I had actually gotten to sink my hands into the thick of his muscles again. I was on top of the most beautiful horse in this town, I was galloping through the greenest fields this state had to offer, and I felt absolutely unstoppable.

But then, Oreo reared back onto his haunches and started shrieking up a storm.

“Whoa! Oreo… calm down, boy. Whoooooooa.”

I grabbed tight onto the reigns and flexed my thighs, but my foot slid from the stirrup to my right. I felt my body slowly slide off to the side and figured if I tucked and rolled, I could at least run back to the barn while Oreo shook off whatever it was that was spooking him.

But, when I looked down, I realized it was a massive snake.

“Shit,” I bit.

I tried desperately to rein him in, but when he brought his feet back down, he bucked back with his hind legs. He was whinnying in pain, and I was in unfamiliar territory, and I heard Bradley screaming behind me as the hooves of another horse quickly approached. I felt my body being thrown from Oreo as Bradley continued to roar my name in the background, and when I hit my back, the last thing I remember is Oreo’s hooves above my face and a sharp pain ricocheting down my neck.

And then? Everything went black.