It was a month before I felt like dragging myself out of the hole I had dug and reached out to Cash.
“Hey Duke,” he greets me at the door of the farmhouse, looking as worse for wear as I felt, and probably looked.
Pulling him in for a hug, I say, “Hey Cash. Sorry it took so long.” If I regret anything, it’s making my best friend of thirty years wait a month, under a gauntlet, to know I wasn’t mad at him.
He sighs. “I know, brother, this sucks.”
We spent two hours that day talking about life, and Caroline. We each detailed exactly what happened, how we mether, when, the events that led up to the rodeo. Satisfied Cash would never have done this to me on purpose, I was able to examine everything else more clearly.
I found out about her troubled past a week before he did. He knew she was talking to someone else, me, well before I did. Telling him about the day in the truck, he winced but remembered me texting her while they were at lunch. The night we fucked in the storeroom and she changed immediately after? I, now, know it was because Cash was on the television dedicating his win to her. The day I came to her apartment and she confessed to having someone else in her life? It was the day after they crossed the physical line in their relationship.
I try to look at her actions objectively; I’ve been trying for months. Hearing Cash’s whole story and comparing it almost day to day with mine, I see her more clearly, too. She wasn’t trying to hurt us. She wasn’t some horrifyingly precise manipulator; she was a wounded girl who wanted to be loved. Cash and I got caught in the crossfire. Our relationships each grew organically, and they fit the two people who were in them. Cash and I viewed her differently.
To him, she was a storm, unpredictable, exciting, but she also fit his life. She seemed like the ranch was where she belonged, and she slipped right in. With me, she was sunshine; she brought light and warmth to the cold expanse of my future, and we were gasoline lit and fueled by passion. She could have landed with either of us and it would have been the right person. And every damn day since I have wished Cash had not walked into that dining room at Lizzie’s the day after I met her. I met her first, and fuck, did I want her to be mine.
Iwanther to be mine. Not a day has passed since our collision at the rodeo that I haven’t wished she had chosen me. I know it’s selfish, and wrong. So fucking wrong. But I wanted her to choose me. And yet. I also know Cash needed her, needsher now the same as then. He needed someone to see him for the man he is, without the glamour of the rodeo, just him on his horse, being him. Someone else who sees him the way I see him, as worthy.
But Cash did walk in that day. He did pursue her, and she reveled in it. She deserved happiness—deserves happiness. Every time I think back though, knowing weeks before I talked about Cash, Cash told her about me, and she didn’t say anything. She didn’t address it. Secrets like this can’t stay buried. That morning at her apartment when she cried as I threw a tantrum finding out there was someone else, I think she was realizing there was no way out. She was in a corner.
Now, Cash has gone back to his playboy lifestyle, a shield he ducks behind every time something gets hard. He has fucked his way through everyone left in town, and any girl who has approached him at the rodeo. He’s still hurting, still burying his pain and all I can do is sit by and watch.
The only time I ever said anything was in early July.
“Cash, seriously?” I ask him when I show up on Sunday morning for a ride and find him still in bed, two women wrapped around him like a blanket.
“What the fuck, Duke?” he yells back, barely stirring.
“We are supposed to ride today. And yet…” I trail off, letting him fill in the blanks.
“Yeah, well maybe I feel like something different,” he says, grabbing the tiny brunette and pulling her mouth to his. I storm out, a stream of giggles following me.
I’ve counted at least a dozen, maybe more, but I haven’t seen a single blonde or a woman with curves with him since our shared blonde goddess tore our hearts to shreds.
I have decided to finally do the thing years of begging from Indie and her subsequently leaving couldn’t do. I learn about myself, outside of Inspiration. I hired a second bartender. Ispent the month of July going to rodeos with Cash, visiting nearby cities, ranging further and further out. Pushing the limits of how far I can drive.
Every time I went for a hike or found a new site to see, I would think of the excitement in green eyes and hear easy laughter. I remember that drive, back in May, when the rain created a cocoon for us on the side of the road. But that isn’t what I remember most clearly that day—I remember the radiant smile she wore as she pointed out the window of the truck at every animal and interesting sight along the way. I know she would love to go and explore with me. If I saw the back of a woman, blonde hair streaming down, a hat shoved on her head, I would hope she would turn around and Caroline’s face would smile at me.
In actuality though, I only visited the feed store when her car wasn’t in the lot. If I did see her anywhere, I turned the other way. I stay on my side of town and let her have hers. The heartbreak in this town is shrinking it by the day and I’m starting to worry I will need to find a new place to settle just so I can walk down the street freely, my head held high, and not feel my heart cracking. I spent a decade walking these streets by Indie’s side and when we broke up, I happily, and easily, shared this town with her, the awkwardness wearing off quickly. But one month by Caroline’s side and Inspiration is a three-block war zone. I can’t take the chance of allowing the bomb in my chest to detonate by seeing her on the street.
I haven’t seen or heard anything about her meeting anyone or seeing anyone else. She seems to be imposing rules on herself about staying single for a while, and honestly, I respect it. We all jumped in too fast. She was too soon out of things with Roger and needed to heal herself. The kinds of wounds he inflicted on her didn’t heal when the bruises went away. I hope Cash and I helped though, that we fed her soul andhealed her wounds, just a little. She may have hurt us in the process, but she needed what we had. She needed to know she was enough.
My phone dings on the table next to me, it’s late, has to be after midnight. I pick it up to read the text.
Caroline
Are you at my door?
Why would I be at her door at, checking the time, 12:36 am?
No.
Sitting my phone down, I lean back again.
“Who was it?”
His voice across the fire startles me. I was so turned inward, I forgot he was there. I hesitate. I don’t know if I should mention the ghost that haunts us.
“Caroline.”