Lincoln

An encompassing sense of sadness hit me as I listened to the tangent Harper went on about how I had changed. Her eyes were narrowed so that the corners of her eyes began to crease, her cute button nose was wrinkled in a way I had only seen when she was upset with me, and her words were as sharp as the knives in the kitchen. I listened to everything she said, but I was unable to respond, because she stormed out of the kitchen before I could even process that everything that had happened wasn’t just a dream. I had never seen her so upset in my life, and I had done some pretty upsetting things to scare her when I’d been younger.

I felt like an asshole. She made it seem like I had become some sort of monster. She failed to see that I had actually made something of myself. I wasn’t at fault for how far I had come compared to where I’d once been. In fact, I thought I was one of the only success stories our town had to offer. People should have held parades to celebrate someone from such a little town making something of himself. Instead, people seemed to shun me more than they had when I’d had nothing to offer the world but rough hands and a hard head.

I couldn’t wrap my head around exactly why Harper would like the old me better than the me I had become. The two were drastically different, and I was happy with the person I had turned myself into. The old me hadn’t had a single cent to his name, and he had struggled to do the little things women went crazy over. How could someone like who I’d once been when I didn’t even like who I had been before? It just didn’t make sense. I had become a new and improved version of Lincoln Heatherton, and that didn’t seem to impress Harper at all. In fact, it seemed to repulse her entirely.

As I thought, I decided to clean up so that Harper could at least see that I was true to my word. I grabbed her plate before the dogs could get to it and put her food away in a container so she would have enough to eat the next day. I had noticed that she wore a lot of baggy clothes, and I knew it was because she had lost so much weight after losing her parents. Worry filled me whenever I thought about it. I had to make sure she didn’t lose any more weight, or else she’d be in dangerous territory. I washed all the dishes and cleaned off the kitchen counter before making my way down the hall and to my bedroom.

The bedroom I was staying in was one of the rooms the Callahan family had turned into a guest room. It had a large queen-sized bed with a wooden headboard that had been made by Harper’s grandfather. The bed had red and blue sheets with little flower designs across it. It was tacky enough to be charming. I didn’t waste any time undressing and changing into my bed clothes. As I grabbed my three-hundred-dollar silk pyjamas, I felt a nudge of guilt. Harper’s words replayed over and over in my head. Of course, I didn’t agree with her, but it was odd to feel bad for having nice things and being successful.

I climbed into bed, but I couldn’t seem to get comfortable. I wound up tossing and turning for what felt like hours before I gave up and decided to let my mind wander until I fell asleep. I glanced out the window in my room that looked out onto the backyard. In the distance, I saw the tree where I’d had my first kiss and lost my virginity. I thought back to how Harper and I would ride her horses—her on Ash and me on Cow. We would ride for hours, just enjoying the outdoors and one another. Then we’d let the horses roam around while we talked beneath the tree. That was our tree. I was sure if I walked over to it, it would still have the little carvings we had made on the surfaced roots.

Harper had changed a lot since I’d left. She had once looked at me with eyes full of adoration and wonder. In her presence, I had felt like I could do anything. The world had been mine when she’d been by my side, and I’d felt so much bigger with her than I had seemed around everyone else. The love she’d had for me was one I couldn’t find in any of the other women I had encountered since. It was like a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing. After returning, there was no love, no affection, and no wonder. She looked at me like I would look at a spot of mud on my shoe. It was disheartening, but I understood why.

She had admitted that she’d been hurt when I’d left. I knew it had hurt her, but I had been hurt too. I’d turned my hurt into something I could show off. She had turned her hurt into resentment. I deserved her anger and her hate, but I did not deserve to be treated like I didn’t matter to her when I knew she still had feelings for me. Seeing her resist her feelings caused my heart to sink. I wanted her affection and the warmth of her body pressed against mine. Those doors didn’t close when I left. I left so that I could one day give her the things I couldn’t have given her then. But it seemed far too late to try after seeing how badly she was hurting. Even if we did get back together, there was no way in hell I would move back to Wyoming and give up everything.

I had come so far, too far to walks back into the life I had left behind. My business was my baby, and I still had so much nurturing to do before I’d be happy with everything. I couldn’t settle down and give everything up, and Harper didn’t even want me around. Perhaps in a different lifetime or dimension we could have had the happy family and the future she had planned for us. I just couldn’t let myself get sucked back into the empty abyss of my hometown. I had been nothing while I’d lived there. I had been less than nothing. People had treated me as if I’d been worth so little compared to them. Returning was like walking back into a nightmare that I’d worked so hard to forget about.

Eventually, I drifted off into a less-than-peaceful slumber. I rarely dreamed, but that night I dreamed so vividly.

I was walking down a long hallway that resembled that of the one in my New York penthouse. The cold white marble of the floors felt like ice beneath my feet, and the white walls resembled that of snow. It was like walking down a hallway in heaven, but, for some reason, I was weeping. I wept as I walked, like I had lost my mother. My body was shaking and my heart was beating faster and harder than it ever had before.

Finally, the hallway came to an end right in front of a large wooden door. The door looked like it was from an old Western. It was old, sun bleached, and rickety. I hesitated before pushing it open, and, as soon as I did, I was transported from my home to the center of a stadium. The cold marble floor was replaced by warm dirt and mud, and the white walls had turned into bright lights and stadium seats filled with people just watching me. There were familiar faces mixed in a pool of blurred strangers. I looked around, confused and scared. It wasn’t until my eyes landed on Harper that I felt some sense of relief. I wanted to make my way over, but my legs wouldn’t move. It was like I was stuck in quicksand.

I tried my hardest to get out but to no avail. It seemed like hours. The harder I tried, the harder it got, and the more I struggled, the more the audience members laughed at me. The only person who wasn’t laughing was Harper. Instead, Harper was weeping. Her captivating eyes were red and swollen, but she looked just as ethereal as ever.

“Harper, help me,” I called out, extending my hand toward her.

As soon as I moved, a loud thud echoed behind me. I turned my head as much as I could to look back and see a gate had opened. The gate opened into darkness, but within that darkness I saw two glowing red eyes. Fear filled me once more, and I began to struggle harder against the dirt and mud. The roar of laughter from the crowd grew louder to the point that it hurt my ears. My heart began to pick up its pace.

Slowly, the glowing red eyes got closer. As the creature walked out of the darkness and into the bright lights, I realized it was a bull made of pure gold. It was decorated with the finest gems. Its eyes were large red rubies, and it had money as its tail. I wanted to stare in awe, but something within me was telling me to get out. I made a move to jerk my leg out and, thankfully, was set free. My good fortune didn’t last long.

As I ran away from my place and put distance between me and the bull, I made eye contact with Harper. I sprinted over to her as fast as my legs would allow. When I approached the gate, I reached my hand up for her to help me get up. I heard the bull getting closer. His footsteps were getting louder and heavier with every passing second.

“Please, help me up, Harper,” I yelled, frantically reaching my hands up for her to grab.

She shook her head. She was still weeping as she took a step away from me.

“Harper, what are you doing?” I panicked. Was she just going to let the bull kill me?

“You left me, Lincoln. I wish you would have never come back,” she cried out. “I wish you would have never come back!”

Her words echoed through the stadium, and even the crowd began chanting her words. All around me, all I heard was “I wish you would have never come back” over and over. Between the chanting and laughter, I heard the bull. Just as I turned around to confront my fate and accept the bull’s horns, everything went black.

I woke up with a start. I shot right out of bed, panting heavily. My first reaction was to do a quick check of my body to make sure I was awake and to assure myself that my dreams were far from reality. There was little comfort in realizing that I, a thirty-year-old man, had had a nightmare about a golden bull chasing me down. I shook my head at how silly it was and glanced over at the clock, surprised to see that it was already ten in the morning. I rolled my eyes and kicked myself for panicking so badly over a bad dream, but, no matter how hard I tried to fight the thoughts, I couldn’t help but feel like my dream meant something.

After spending some more time relaxing and calming myself down, I got out of bed. I slipped into my Gucci house slippers and made my way to the bathroom to start the day. I had a lot of work to do to figure out how I was going to change the stables to make them suitable for the imported horses. I got dressed quickly and skipped breakfast. After the night I’d had, food was the last thing on my mind. While walking, Jack and Gin trotted up behind me and excitedly followed me out of the house.

The air was still, thick, and full of fog that morning. I could see far enough to spot the outline of the tree out in the distance, but anything past that was a mystery. I zipped up my jacket and made my way over to the barn, whistling loudly as I walked. I didn’t notice that Harper was tending to the horses until I was close enough to see her long blond ponytail swaying with her movement. The urge to walk over and pull it filled me, but I resisted. I had always loved a woman who tied her hair up. I couldn’t explain why, but it had something to do with how Harper always wore her hair. I stopped whistling and smiled at her politely.

“Good morning, Harper.”

She glanced at me over her shoulder and then looked right back at the horses. I knew then that she was still upset about our exchange the night before, but I didn’t want things to get worse between us. I could live slightly comfortably with her being resentful for me leaving, but having her hate the man I had become hurt too much. My heart stayed in its placed at the bottom of my stomach, but something inside me was still motivated to do something right.

As if I were a marionette puppet, it felt as if strings moved me toward her. My body found comfort being close to the angelic, yet extremely stubborn, woman in front of me. I cleared my throat once more. For once, words failed me. I didn’t know what to say, but I wanted her attention.

“Can I help you, Lincoln?” she asked without turning to look at me. She busied herself with brushing the gorgeous horse before her. I smiled as I remembered Lady. He had been her mother’s favorite horse.

“A-are you busy tonight?” I asked her softly. I stumbled over the first few words, but I recovered gracefully. At least, that was what I thought.

“You’ve been here a week. You know my day-in and day-out schedule,” Harper retorted in a monotone voice.

“I was thinking we could go see the rodeo,” I said. “It’s Friday night. I know it’s free to enter tonight, and we could get some dinner while we’re out. You’ve been cooking the entire time. It’d give you a break.”

“I’m not in the mood, Lincoln,” she muttered.

“Look, I feel bad about what happened between us last night,” I said. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I don’t want things to get worse between us. I’m just trying to help you out, and I’m just trying to make it easier for both of us. Please, just one night.”

Harper sighed heavily and turned to face me. Her face was drained of color, and it looked like she hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep the night before. Still, she was as beautiful as ever. She almost reminded me of a porcelain doll just staring up at me. Her eyes were the things that got me the most. They were so full of emotion yet as gentle as they’d ever been. I knew just looking at her that there was not a single evil bone in her body. Harper was as good as they came.

“Why the sudden change in personality?” she asked. “Last night you were talking down about everyone in the town, and now you want to be a part of the festivities? Didn’t you leave the rodeo behind when you moved to New York to become a ‘better’ person?” She used quotations around the word better, and it increased the intensity of the sting in her words.

“I may have moved far away from this place, but my love for the rodeo never changed. One of the main things I missed in this town was the Friday night rodeos and the way the whole town got together. There aren’t things like that in the city. There’s no sense of community,” I said.

“You really miss the rodeos?” she asked me suspiciously. Her eyes looked over my face like they were searching for a sign of false play.

I nodded. “The only bulls I’ve seen in the past few years have been mechanical.”

With great hesitation, Harper thought over what she was going to say and how she was going to say it. I watched her with eager eyes, hoping she said yes so that I could give her a good time and show her that things were the same. I was still the same Lincoln, but I was a much better version because no one could hold any power or status over me. After a while, Harper sighed out heavily and nodded.

“Fine. I’ll go to the rodeo with you on one condition,” she said with crossed arms.

“Anything,” I responded.

“You have to wear normal clothes. I’m tired of seeing you waltz around here wearing clothes that cost more than my car,” she said. “No city slicker clothes, no suits, and nothing from a company with a name I can’t pronounce. You have to dress the part if you’re going to a rodeo.”

I was so happy to hear her agree to go to the rodeo with me that her condition didn’t bother me one bit. I nodded happily. “Fine. I’ll find some normal clothes and wear them out tonight.”

“All right. I’ll be ready by five,” she said before turning her back to me and going back to brushing Lady.

I couldn’t keep myself from smiling as I thought about the approaching night. For once we were going to hang out like old friends. I was determined to have a good time and show Harper that we could have a good time together.