She jerked awake with a racing heart and exhaled violently as the gasp her nightmare caused left her lungs. Sweat lined her brow. When she felt calm enough to open her eyes and face this new and difficult day, the first thing she took in was Sean sitting in an extremely uncomfortable-looking pink faux leather chair, slouched over her hand he still held, his head resting on her knee, still in yesterday’s clothing.

Though it touched her aching heart and she wanted to be able to keep this picture with her forever, she knew that the only way she was going to be able to get out of the hospital was to put on a brave face if she wanted the well-meaning people in her life to take a step back. She had millions of things that had to be done, so she reached down to shake him awake.

His eyes were still fluttering open when she shook loose from his hand and pressed the call button to the nurses’ station.

“Yes?”

“Hi, can you please send my nurse in here?”

“Yes, ma’am. I will page her now.”

Thelma walked into the room a few moments later just as Sean rubbed his eyes and stretched his arms over his head. Katherine opened her mouth to speak to her nurse, who also happened to be her godmother, but she sat slack jawed as Sean’s shirt lifted and showed part of his abs. He was so much harder than the last time she had stared this hard at his abs. She shook herself, and then she said to Thelma before the other woman could speak, “I know you guys are just trying to watch out for me, but I have to get out of here. I have to take care of the ranch. I haven’t even been in touch with work, and this is my week on call for the after-hours emergency clinic. Doc Matthews was going out of town for a fishing tournament, and I am the only veterinarian in town when he’s out; you know that. Please just let me go.” Her voice was trembling and tears began to spill over her lashes as she croaked out the last word.

Thelma sighed and finished making her way to the other side of the hospital bed. She didn’t speak while raising the hospital bed to put Katherine in a sitting position and fluffing her pillow, then adjusting the covers. Finally, while she sat on the edge of the bed, Thelma took the hand that had an IV attached and cupped her palms around Katherine’s hand, squeezing gently.

“Sweet girl, there is no rush. You can take your time and process this where we can keep an eye on you. There’s no shame in taking a little bit of time for yourself. Not a single soul would blame you.”

A sob tore out of Katherine’s chest before she could compose herself enough to speak, “Don’t you see? I have to go home. I can’t stay here. I have to figure this out.”

Thelma held her gaze for several long moments before she gave in, jumping to her feet with a huff, “Well, alright then. I’ll call the doctor, but I am doing this under duress. We are all worried about you.”

Pressing her lips to Katherine’s forehead, she turned to walk out the door, pausing in front of Sean first. “You better make the right choice this time, boy.”

Watching this play out, Katherine didn’t understand what the silent conversation Sean and Thelma were having was about, but he held Thelma’s eyes for several long, tense moments and then nodded before standing up and walking over to the older woman to wrap her in a hug. After he released her, Thelma’s eyes travelled from Sean to Katherine and back again, lifting her hand to cover her heart as she smiled brightly.

About half an hour later, the doctor walked into the room, passing Sean and giving his shoulder a squeeze before taking a seat at the end of Katherine’s bed and making a show out of crossing one calf over the other knee and sighing deeply. "Miss Dunlap, it seems you've been giving my staff a hard time this morning?"

"I’m ready to go home. I need to deal with this at home, and I have a ton of responsibilities that need to be taken care of. I know I have a knot, but surely, if there were something seriously wrong, you would have discovered it by now, right?”

"I know you mean what you're saying right now, but what about later? What about when you’re at home alone and it hits you? Don't you think you should ease into this? It's a lot for anyone to take in and perfectly natural to be overwhelmed, and that’s just the emotional aspect of it. You gave yourself quite a knot, and there was some extensive swelling the first day. It’s really not like anyone is overreacting."

“I mean no disrespect, but I have to figure this out, and I don’t want to be here any longer. I want to be at home. I need to make sense of this and figure out how I am going to move forward. I can’t do that here when every single time a door opens, my heart leaps thinking it’s Mom and this is all a horrible nightmare. I need to be with my animals and my memories.”

Dr. Beachum looked at her hard for a few minutes before standing up and walking to the head of the bed where she was sitting and saying, "Ok, here is my one and only deal. Take it, or you don’t leave here for another day, understand?"

She nodded eagerly, fully prepared to agree to anything as long as it got her out of the hospital bed and away from Sean Everett.

"I’ll sign your release papers, but I’ll write you a prescription for an anti-anxiety medication and something for the pain. And I want your word that you will take it as needed and that you will take it easy and not do any heavy lifting for the next few days. Can you do that?"

"She’ll take the meds exactly as you say, even if I have to force her. No worries, I won’t be letting her out of my sight for a while, so your orders will be followed to a T." His tone was firm; he allowed no room for arguments from her.

Fuming and tempted to change her mind simply because Sean freaking Everett thought he had some say-so when it came to her, she angrily crossed her arms over her chest. She would be disabusing him of that notion just as soon as the nice doctor stepped out of the room.

She sat there and stewed in silence, fighting the urge to growl in a show of frustration. Trying to look anywhere but at him, she accidently met his eyes, and as the doctor typed up his notes, she found it impossible to tear her gaze from his. She was a fly in his snare. And then he went and did the absolute worst thing he could have done. The dimple on the side of his face perked up, and he gave her an amused wink.

Asshole. Absolute pain-in-the-butt, evil jerk-face asshole!

As she signed out, she slowly cooled down. Besides, the smirk only angered her because it got to her, and she was no longer allowing that to happen. Starting now...ish.

After the tedious process during which time she did not utter a single breath in Sean’s direction, she was wheeled outside in a wheelchair—hospital policy; if you come in on wheels, you go out the same way. A guy close to her age put the parking brake on the wheelchair to lock it into place and walked around to the front, gently lifting her feet off the foot rests and placing them on the ground. Sean’s truck pulled up, and he rushed around the side to open the passenger door as the nurse helped her up. The nurse guided her to the truck and helped her into the passenger seat, under Sean’s heated gaze. Once she was in and buckled up, Sean slammed her door before she had the chance to thank him. She waited until he was in the cab before she let him have it.

“You know; this is nice of you; but you don’t have to babysit me. I am more than capable of taking care of myself and really don’t need you to take over for me. I appreciate the save back there with the doc but if you will just drop me off at the station, Sheriff will take me to get my meds filled and you can get on back to your life.”

“Peach, I already told you that I’m not going anywhere. There’s nothing pressing that can’t wait until you get back on your feet. Until you get there, I am here to help you out.”

“That’s just it! I don’t want your help. Don’t you get it? I am not the poor little helpless girl I was at sixteen. I am a grown ass woman and I don’t want or need anything from you. God Sean, we haven’t spoken in years and in you come like a hero to save the day. What do you want from me? I’m not your responsibility.”

“Katherine, I don’t want anything except to get these medications filled for you and get you home to your own bed so you can get some rest. We can figure the rest out later. Right now, please just let me do this. Let’s get through the funerals and then if you want me gone, I’m gone. At least from your place. Does that work? And just to be clear, I am not really giving you a choice, just the opportunity to agree. We are going to the same place either way.”

The exhaustion felt overwhelming and the fight went out of her so she just nodded her agreement and was quiet as he put the truck into gear and pulled away from the hospital. 

He drove straight to the only pharmacy in town to fill her prescription. He always had been a pain that way, always forcing her to do things his way by either completely overriding her or by giving her the dimple and his aww-shucks-ma’am, good-old-boy grin, making her forget her own name. Some things, it seemed, never changed, no matter how much others did.

“Peach, come on, skinny dippin’ will be fun!”

“Peach! Come on, baby, it’s just a break. I still have an arm!”

“You’re being a crazy little lady. I won’t get thrown off again. Let me just try it!”

Or my personal favorite, “We’ll make it in time, Peach. They won’t have a clue what we did tonight, so stop worrying!” Did we? Nope. Busted. Walk of shame on the night we lost our virginity.

The kicker was, “I’ll love you, only you, until the last breath leaves my body. For me, it will always be you.” That had been his promise to me the same night we did the virginity walk of shame. I had felt it in my soul that he’d meant it in that moment.

Sean slamming his truck door behind him, clutching her paper prescriptions, jerked her out of it.

She looked around the half-filled parking lot and spotted Old Man Davis’s beat-up, ancient truck and Miss Bessie’s Cadillac, finding herself grateful that she was waiting inside the safety of his truck. She leaned her seat back as far as she comfortably could, then drew her legs up and turned onto her side, facing away from the driver’s side door, eyes squeezed tightly in the hopes no one recognized her and that Sean would hurry back soon. For all of her bravery at the hospital and in trying to convince him that she didn’t want him around, she had no clue what she was going to do when Sean finally left her and she was all alone. She had lived in the home she had shared with her parents through her childhood before leaving for college; and then again after moving back in a couple of years earlier when her father had told her she could either move back in with them or start collecting a paycheck for all of the work she put into the ranch, since in addition to her day job as a veterinarian, she’d also helped her father run the ranch because he had taken back over the foreman responsibilities when Sean’s father had died. There had been a time when she had thought she and Sean would be building their own home somewhere on the acreage of the sprawling ranch her father owned and his father had run, but that was not to be.

She hadn’t had a real chance to think about it yet, but now she found herself wondering why he had shown up. For three years, she hadn’t heard from him.

Growing up as neighbors, they had been everything to each other, and she had grown up thinking their love would get them through anything, but before she could even decide where she would go for college and how they would stay connected, he’d left.

Seven-year-old Sean would chase her around, cajoling, “C’mon, Katy, it’s just a little worm. Look, he’s cayute,” or “Oh! A frog, maybe he’s your prince. He wants to kiss you.”

Twelve-year-old Sean would sound so reassuring. “Peach. Seriously. Green Kool-Aid. Pete says Sarah did it and it looked so cool. Your folks won’t care!”

Her heart would pound in excitement as they ran hand in hand to the four-wheeler they had stashed earlier in the day, giggling and shushing each other, with nothing more than the moon guiding their way so they could snuggle under the stars and make love illuminated by the stars.

She remembered as the years passed, how she slowly went from seeing him as an annoyance and sometimes bully to a cute guy to, finally, the boy she loved more than life. Then it all went to hell.

Right after Sean’s high school graduation, he and his father had yet another fight. These had become more and more frequent, although when she asked him about it, he would just give her a brush-off and change the subject. She had had a nagging feeling for a while that something was off, but that afternoon he’d seemed more carefree than he had in ages.

He had playfully bent her backwards over his arm after making his way to her and their families, and kissed her deeply before righting her on her feet, but the tension between his father and him was palpable.

When they all left the graduation, Sean riding with his parents and Katherine with hers back to the ranch, the plan was for Sean and Katherine to quickly change and then go out to dinner together to celebrate. Quickly, while waiting for Sean to make his way over to her house, she fixed her hair and touched up her makeup before sliding into her dress and flats; but before she could make it back to the door, he was ringing the bell. She walked out the door to her mom yelling, "Not too late, Katherine!" from the kitchen, and expected him to take her hand in his and walk her to his old, rusty Chevy; but instead, he stepped back, leaving her feeling uncomfortable in the awkward moment, and asked, "Follow me?"

He stomped around the side of the house to the backyard, where they had played as children, not noticing that she was lagging behind. There was an old-fashioned rusted swing set, which was where he stopped and waited. She picked up on his body language as she sat down in a swing and waited, gently kicking off and swinging her feet back and forth to increase her speed. She didn’t try to understand why her heart was slamming against her chest in trepidation. She simply waited and listened to the alternating squeak and squeal of the chain sliding back and forth while she tried to calm her racing heart. Somehow, it seemed that Sean’s attitude today had been a fluke and he was back to the sullen, angry boy he had increasingly been over the last several months.

"Peach." Heaving a deep breath, he ran his hand through his hair before he started again. "Katherine, I have to leave. Tonight. I can’t be here with him anymore, and I don’t know what else I can do. If I hurry, I can make it to OKC by tomorrow night. One of the ranch hands told me last week that the rodeo will be there and he can get me a spot if I want. Look,”—he pulled his hat off and scratched his scalp in frustration—“I'm sorry. I know it’s sudden, but I think we should just forget dinner, after all. I need to hit the road."

Silently, she ran this over in her head and finally responded, "OK, when will you be back?"

He spun away and looked up at the moon. Rocking back on his heels, he answered tightly, "Peach, I'm not coming back, not for a while, anyway."

"Sean! What... what do you mean, you aren’t coming back? How does that work? We’re together. You can’t just up and leave with no plans and no idea when you will be back home. That’s insanity!"

A growl of anger rose from deep within his chest and he tore his hands through his hair before spinning around to face her again, his chest heaving, so great was his emotion. "Katherine, please! We can be friends or whatever, but I have to think about myself now. You? You know your future; it’s all but planned out. Leave this town and go to some big college, come back home and go work with Matthews for the next few decades until you take over the ranch. But mine? I have not the first damn clue who I am or what I want to do. I’m stuck in a small town with no prospects but working for you or your pop for the rest of my damn life. Rodeo is the one thing I enjoy, and I can make money doing it, so that's what I'm going to do until I find something better. I am not cut out to be a ranch hand or my wife’s errand boy."

“Wait. Where is this coming from? What are you talking about? I haven’t tried to push you into anything, and I’m sorry, but anytime I thought of our future, I pictured us running our ranch together. A legacy our parents left us that we would have left for our kids. God, is this why you have been arguing with your dad so much lately?”

"What is with this legacy crap? And kids? Katherine,”—ouch, shot to the heart—“we are way too young to be thinking about that. We’ve been together our whole damn lives; don’t you think that is a little insane? Don’t you want to live a little? See what else is out there for the taking?"

“What else is out there for the taking? Seriously? You are all I have ever wanted. I always knew that we were it for each other and that we would get married and build our lives together. I mean, would that be so bad? Do you not love me anymore? Or do you want to sleep with someone else? Is that it?”

"What? Are you stupid? I’m trying to get out of one relationship; why would I jump right into another one? Hell, what business do I have getting married? What am I going to do? Sit at home while you go away? Marry someone else and start popping out kids? That is not the life I want. I want to BE someone, not be TIED to someone. I need to cut ties and figure out my own life. Maybe I can finally be happy for once in my damn life.”

Now, that wasn’t a shot to the heart. It was a missile with laser accuracy. Her heart shattered inside her chest. She couldn’t understand this reality. What was he saying? What could he mean? They were in love. She felt like her chest was going to explode and her lungs were shriveling away to nothing. He continued on, not even realizing that she was dying right in front of him. Her heart taking its last beats as he looked on with no understanding of her suffering.

“What?” he interrupted. “What did you think? That this would be some happily ever after? That we would be that high school sweetheart couple that spent every day together from the moment they started dating and never looked to see if there was anything better out there?”

How am I not bleeding out at the pain? Can he not see my soul turning to ash? She just couldn’t understand how she made him so unhappy when he made her the complete opposite. She couldn’t sit here. She had to get away. She knew she probably wouldn’t see him again, so as she stood, she stepped to him and rose on her toes to kiss his cheek and whisper, “Sean? I love you. Please be safe." The first tear fell before she could turn away, and she heard his muttered curse before he spoke up. But it was too late. Way too late.

"Katy! Peach... wait! That's not what I meant to say. You don’t understand." An awkward pause followed. "Look, honey, I'll write, OK?"

Running into the house, she slammed the door and darted through the living room. Her parents were sitting on the couch, cuddled up, watching the evening news together. The normalcy of their actions made her stomach quiver as her world was rupturing at the seams.

"Katy?"

"Katherine!"

"Hey! Are you OK?"

She didn’t answer; she couldn’t, not as her heart was breaking and her dreams were crashing down around her. Through the tears, she could hear the shrill ring of the telephone in the kitchen, and a few seconds later, she caught brief snatches of a one-sided conversation as her mom wandered around in the room below her.

"He's leaving? Rodeo— I know..." Then, "OK, I'm sorry, hun. I had hoped with the way things were going between them he'd changed his mind."

Changed his mind? Had everyone known about this but her? Am I the only person oblivious to Sean living a life he despised with a girl who wasn’t good enough?

"No, it's OK, she'll be alright. Call if you need anything. I am always here with an ear... K, bye."

She could only guess so. That put everything Sean had said in a whole new light. As she felt her heart crack anew, the sobs she had been desperately attempting to hold back slipped through and she buried her head in her pillow as her tears came even faster.

Half an hour passed before she heard a light knock at the door. "Katherine, baby, it’s Mom. Can I come in?" Without waiting for a response, she tried the knob, and finding it unlocked, she entered.

"Are you OK, sweetheart?"

Wiping the last of her tears, Katherine nodded.

"Would you like to talk about it?"

Katherine answered with a weak "No" before clearing her throat and trying again. "No, Mom, I'm fine." She smiled slightly through tear-swollen eyes. "I'm fine. Promise."

After a few minutes of watching Katherine silently, she blew out a sigh and went over to hug her daughter tightly, wishing she could take away her heartbreak before walking out and closing the door behind her with a soft click.

A long night and several thousand tears later, Katherine woke up to a bright morning and a new perspective. She showered, dressed, and decided to head out and enjoy the first day of summer.

I’ll be damned if I hold anyone back, not even me. I cannot believe that I made him so miserable and he never even said anything! I mean, did I really even know him? And what about me? Who am I without him? Do I even know anymore? I’ve been with Sean since he started high school, and being with him is really all I know. But if he chose to walk out on me, and now I have to spend the next two years of high school and the rest of my life without him, maybe it’s time for me to get out there and try going to parties and having the experience that my friends all swear I need. I can do this. I will move on if it freaking kills me.

She was in the kitchen eating toast; she felt sure her stomach couldn’t tolerate anything more substantial and drinking her usual cup of coffee when the phone rang. No one was around, so she slid off the counter and went over to answer it.

Her voice was rough from the emotional outpouring she had suffered last night, and it broke when she answered the phone with, "Hello?"

"Peach? How are you doing?"

"Oh, I'm great," she answered with false sincerity. "Actually, I was heading out; I’m going to meet someone and maybe see about hitting that new club the next town over tonight.” Her eyes burned and so did her chest with the lie, but she refused to hold him back another second.

"Well, that was quick. We were going to have a picnic and go fishing today. Re-planned already?" Boy, did that one hurt her, because picnics and fishing were their version of a date, and there was always cuddling and shenanigans when they spent the day doing that.

"Well, ya know, it’s the first day of summer and we live in a small town. Word spreads fast. I actually just got off the phone with Chad. We're going to lunch."

"Chad? Katherine, seriously, you know he's trouble."

"Look, Sean, you're gone. You said some things last night that made me think. I am so very sorry that I made you miserable and that our relationship was so hard for you, but if you are moving on, then I am, too. Why should I spend my whole high school career in a relationship and then pining for a guy? You made this choice, not me. No more dictating my life. Go be a cowboy, Cowboy. I’ll be fine. No worries. Go live your dream, and I'll stay here and live mine." She spat all of that out with not just a little of her teenage hormones rushing through her, feeding her adrenaline.

"Katherine, I didn't mean it the way it sounded, you know that. This is just not the kind of life I want right now. I'm—"

"Hey, Cowboy," she cut in, "don't sweat it. I’ll always be your friend. Keep in touch, ‘kay? I've got to go."

"Wait! Now, just wait a damn minute. What the hell do you think you are doing? You can’t do this, Peach. You love me and you know I—"

No. He won’t get away with going there. He made this choice. It isn’t what I want, but he didn’t give me a choice in the matter. I am putting a stop to this BS before he tries to go any further.

"Sorry, Cowboy, I've got to go. I need to go shopping. I need a new dress for my date."

Her facade dropped just a little as she murmured, "Be safe, ‘kay?"

"Katherine!” he said sharply.

"Hey, there's someone on the other line. Have to go. But keep in touch. I'll, uh, I’ll really miss you, Sean." Her voice broke on the last part, which only came out in a whisper. She hurriedly hung up the phone.

No sooner fell her hand away from the phone than it rang again, but she walked out of the house without a backwards glance.

I didn’t ask for any of this, but if I am being forced into this new life, then the very least I can do is try to keep moving forward. No one has to know how broken I am or that every dream I have ever had now lies shattered at my feet. The ruins of the future she was sure of twenty-four hours ago were haunting her as she imagined the future yawning out in front of her, with no color, no hope in sight.

She might not have asked for these changes, but if they were going to be forced on her, then she was determined that the only thing people would get out of her from then on was a superficial brick wall.