Promise Not To Fall

by Shey Stahl

  I realized something very important sometime after I left this island that first time. And Jake was the one to show it to me. Who I am now on the inside is who Jake said I was. The drunk me he got to know was me getting out of my own way, seeing past my insecure flaws I never knew ran so deep. He was right when he told me that if you hate something about someone, it’s because subconsciously you hate that about yourself.

  Before I met Jake, I was controlling, harsh, and… what was the other one?

  Callous.

  Here on the islands, I’m none of that. Being here allowed me to find myself, relax enough to get out of my own way, and show someone the real Kendall.

  “I need to ask you something,” Jake says again, pushing my drink toward me. It’s filled with orange wedges and a lime, and there’s something in the bottom of the glass.

  “Then ask me something.” Picking up the glass, I attempt to see what it is. You never know. Nash washes the dishes, and he sucks at it. I’m constantly back there trying to scrub shit out of glasses and plates. “Don’t ask me a question to ask me something. That’s redundant. Just ask it.”

  “Don’t be mean.” His eyes hold amusement.

  I continue to tip the glass around and realize it’s not a dirty glass, and my eyes snap to Jake’s.

  He says nothing, but the words are written in his eyes by his intensity. There’s no longer amusement. Just passion.

  And then I’m pissed. Livid, even.

  With a good amount of annoyance, I glare at him. I slam the drink on the bar without even tasting it and stare at him.

  “Okay, well, I guess that’s a no?” He looks nervous as hell.

  With an angry jab, I reach into the pocket of my jean shorts and slam the ring I’d bought two weeks ago on the bar.

  Jake looks at the black ring and then at me. Then back to the ring, and me again. “Seriously?”

  “Fuck off,” I snap. “I hate you. I was going to do it first, and you went and ruined it all.”

  He nods dramatically. “I see. That’s why….” He stops, laughter taking over. “Why didn’t I see that coming?”

  “I was going to propose to you, asshole.”

  Hopefulness returns to his eyes. “So the decision is unanimous then?”

  I nod, not exactly giving him the answer he’s looking for, since he’s ruined my plan. Stupid jerk. He has no idea how hard it was for me to wait this long after I bought the ring.

  My anger doesn’t stop him or the smile on his face as he sweeps me up into a hug, his arms tight around my waist. A few girls at the bar realize what just happened when Jake dumps my drink out to retrieve the ring and places it on my finger.

  “Can’t take it back now. It’s final.”

  I smile. “It’s not final until we’re married, silly.”

  He places his fingertips to my lips, halting my words. “That might be true,” he breaths, his lips on my temple. “But I know you. You keep your promises.”

  “You’re right, I do,” I gush, looking down at the ring.

  “You deserve your fairy tale, Kendall. You do. And I want to be the one to give it to you.”

  There are lucky people in this world. I can now wholeheartedly say that I am one of them. I’ve heard people say there’s one person where there’s no awkwardness. You just mend, bend, and break where the other is strong, and heal where the other is broken. They don’t need to add notches to their headboards. They break them.

  Lucky people do that.

  As we walk home, our home, the house on the beach we’re renting together, Jake stops on the beach and turns toward me. “I can’t believe you’re going to be my wife.”

  “You’re not scared?”

  “Me? Fuck yeah, I’m scared. I’m scared of a lot of things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Snakes.”

  “Jake….” He’s stalling.

  “Okay, sorry. I had to say it.” Then his face grows serious. “I’m scared,” he intones, holding my gaze to drive the meaning in deeper. “I’m scared of not being enough for someone like you.”

  I raise an eyebrow, not understanding the meaning behind the words. Or his facial expression. He looks… confused? “Like me? What are you talking about, Island Boy?”

  “You’re just… you’re you, if that makes sense, Island Girl.” He puts a careful intonation behind the words Island Girl, smirking. “You’re strong and independent. You don’t need a man in your life to be okay. That makes me have to be so much more to keep you.” The corners of his mouth twitch into a half smile. “That scares me.”

  I kiss him then. It seems appropriate, and then we’re falling, just like that first night. Rolling around in the sand isn’t the best idea, because then it gets in my lungs and my laughing turns to coughing. And I fucking choke and nearly die, right there in the arms of the man I love.

  “Are you okay?” he asks after I catch my breath, looking worried as fuck.

  “Yeah,” I say while inhaling deeply—essentially a bad idea because I think it made the sand go down further. I’ll probably be getting a lung infection from this whole unnecessary event. “I don’t know what that was about. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay.” He isn’t letting up and goes back to kissing me.

  He can’t get enough. And we’re going to have sex on the beach despite my fears of the sand. I’m living. I’m letting go and doing what I want for today despite planning.

  “Holy fuck,” he says roughly, looking at me in surprise when I reach for the button of his jeans. “You said you’d never….”

  “I know… but I’m Island Girl now,” I pant, crawling on top of him, closing my eyes as I grind into his hardness.

  My life doesn’t suck.

  "My favorite read of 2018! Flawlessly written, fresh and unique! Breathtaking story of finding yourself, friendship, and love!" - Diary of A Book Fiend.

  The summer Maesyn Calhoun turns eighteen, she assumes the rest of the summer will be spent on her parents’ ranch.

  That’s until champion bull rider Grayer Easton returns home. She’s warned to keep her distance, but there’s something about Grayer’s harsh dismissal that brings out her most forbidden desires. Giving her a glimpse into the wild and explosive life he lives, Maesyn’s plans change. A road trip, a different town every night… what’s not to love when you’re wild-hearted and a wandering soul?

  Grayer Easton tames raging bulls in the daredevil world of professional bull riding. The last thing he expects is to be held hostage by untamed and reckless Maesyn. Protective to a fault, he’s loyal and determined. He doesn’t need unpredictable in his life.

  With a need to explore the unknown, Maesyn lives life like there’s no tomorrow. It’s something Grayer’s never allowed himself to do. Up against the biggest ride of his career, he can’t ignore that Maesyn ignites something deep inside him. Sparks fly between them until an injury threatens to end Grayer’s career, and Maesyn’s definitely the distraction he doesn’t need.

  With rebel blood and a ruthless heart, their love is untamed, wild, and passionate. Can they hang on for longer than eight seconds?

  The expression “down the well” is used by bull riders to describe a situation in which a bull is spinning in one direction and the force of the spin pulls the rider down the side of the bull into motion’s vortex. This is a dangerous scenario that often results in a bull rider getting hung up to the bull.

  I give myself to others, even when I can’t or shouldn’t. It’s something I’ve always done.

  Which might be why I’m careless. Reckless . . . loveless. And in the aftershock of lost love, I don’t smile more.

  Or maybe I should say I smile less. Or, maybe not at all. I’m not fine. In the loneliest moment of devastation, when my world fell apart, all I could do was stare blankly. I lost the love of my life. I had a boy who looked at me like the world revolved around me. I pushed until he caved, until he couldn’t take my ways and now, all I have left is his memory.

  So y
eah, careless, reckless, and whatever . . . loveless. I would love to say this is a story about a girl who took the path less traveled and it ended up being the right one, but I would be lying. It’s about a girl who knew right from wrong and still chose wrong because the right way seemed insignificant and quite possibly irrelevant at the time. Sometimes it’s the wrong choices made on a whim that teach you what life is really about.

  You know that song by Lee Ann Womack “I May Hate Myself in the Morning?” It’s playing on the radio in my room and though it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with my situation, I certainly don’t love this heartbreaker in my bed now, but he’s someone I can ignore; he just won’t let me. And maybe the song has nothing to do with me, or my situation, other than me hating myself in the morning for continuing whatever this is we’re doing.

  End it. Set yourself free from him. You don’t owe him anything.

  The boy on the edge of my bed, I don’t owe him anything despite what he thinks. His back is turned, and like my mind, his focus is elsewhere, unaware of the hurt we’re causing by what we just did. But guys like this, they’re like lighting a torch to your soul and he’s the wrong one. His name is Joel Peterson and he’s the perpetually bad side of the one I lost.

  “Thanks,” he mutters, buttoning his jeans and pulling on his shoes. His cheeks are flushed, his breathing still ragged, reminiscent of moments ago, but that’s not why my attention shifts to his. It’s the tattoo on his back, a bull’s skull outlined in what appears to be blood dripping from the horns, and then it’s the Central Washington hoodie he pulls over his head. “I’ll see you tonight sometime?”

  I hate the sound of his voice. It reminds me of his twin brother.

  I shrug. “We need to stop this.”

  Pulling on a shirt from beside my bed, I cover myself, hide away from the humiliation I hold within. I don’t look at his face. I’m not sure I ever do. Why would I? I don’t mean anything to him. And I’m not entirely sure why he’s telling me thanks. I just found out he’s seeing someone now. Has been for the last month.

  Before you judge me, I never imagined myself as the other woman. Or in my case, girl because can you really call a seventeen-year-old girl a woman? I don’t want to destroy relationships. That’s not me, but then again, maybe it is. Maybe I don’t know anymore.

  Standing, he glares at me with a deep crease to his brow, all traces of his earlier relief I gave him fading. “What the fuck do you mean we need to stop this?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. You’re seeing someone.”

  His face falters, his too-familiar brown eyes narrowing. “Who said I was seeing someone?”

  “It doesn’t matter who told me, Joel.”

  Joel’s jaw flexes and his chin dips, nodding once. “Whatever.” His deep voice is barely above a whisper, his features controlled, sharp, not giving me much to go on.

  I don’t say anything else. He leaves, out my window, like he came, without another word.

  I watch him walk up the driveway, his steps quick and light, coming back from someplace he never should have been.

  Lighting a cigarette, I sit next to my window, my eyes drift, smoke filtering through dawn blue. Pinks, reds, smudges of colors that make this world beautiful surround me. It’s a summer sunrise in Ellensburg, Washington. I flip my cell phone around in my hand. There’s a message on it from almost four years ago I refuse to delete. A heavy weight gnaws at my chest. A decision I made . . . a consequence I never saw coming. I can’t say that night will haunt me forever, but here, now, surrounded by the same colors as the morning I found out he left my life forever, I’m reminded of the boy who changed my life—who continues to change my life—maybe for the worse. Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped in a room full of mirrors, each one reflecting back at me the mistakes of my past. I want to smash them to pieces, destroy the reminders, but that’s bad luck, isn’t it?

  Cracking the window open, I draw my bare legs to my chest and let out the cloud of smoke drifting from my lips. I angle my head so the wind blows over my face. Drawing in gentle breaths, I close my eyes. It’s relaxing. Breathe in the fresh air, hold it in, imagine it’s everything you want it to be and then some. The wind is blowing, usual for Ellensburg, but I don’t mind. It gives me the fresh breath I’m looking for. Something pure, so unlike what I’m drawing into my lungs.

  I like to think despite my young age, I’m an old soul. I believe there are parts of this world that are pure and natural. It just happens. Like the way a river cuts through a valley. The way a sunset blankets the flat plains of eastern Washington every night. The way a sunrise on a crisp fall morning clears the early morning fog. Or the way the stars, so glittery and beautiful, light your way through even the darkest of nights.

  As Miranda Lambert says, “I feel a sin coming on.” One I know I’m going to love and regret at the same time. It’s buried in my bones, a need, a desire for more out of a life laid out for me, only it’s the wrong life and one I’m not about to follow. This can’t be it. I want to look back on my life and say, damn, that was a wild ride. I don’t want to look back when I’m fifty and be like, it was okay. I wish I had, or maybe I could have. . . . Life needs to be lived, not wished.

  Blowing out another breath, I snuff out the cigarette I know my dad will kill me for smoking and turn to stare at the clock on my nightstand. It’s nearing four in the morning and it’s time to get on with the day. Living on a ranch, there’s a good amount of work to be done and you need every ounce of daylight you can get.

  It’s already late July and so far my summer has been the same as it’s always been. Working on a ranch time has forgotten. Problem is I’m young and I have dreams, things I want out of life, and they’re not going to happen if I stay here forever. My Grandpa Lee used to say life is your story and death is a sentence only to be defined by living your best life. He was like a hundred when he died so I tend to believe in everything he said to me. Nearly as old as the nineteenth-century buildings in the Kittitas Valley.

  You know what he said to me the morning he passed away?

  “Be wild, be free. In the clouds I’ll see you again.” He had dementia. I’m not even sure he was talking to me that spring morning we said goodbye, but I like to think he was.

  Just before sunset, I’m ready to get out of the house and let loose. The moment I reach for the front door, stacked bangle bracelets giving my presence away, and the old wood squeaks, drawing my dad’s attention to me. There’s nothing worse than trying to sneak out of the house unnoticed only to have the door and bracelets give you away.

  Damn you, door. Should have used the window like Joel did.

  Come to think of it, he’s been sneaking into my room for the past two years and he’s never been caught. I guess he knows a thing or two about sneaking around.

  Dad’s throat clears from the living room. He stands, hands on his hips, eyeing me from head to toe. He doesn’t like when I dress like this. It’s not even that what I’m wearing is revealing, because it’s not all that bad, but it’s the fact that I don’t wear simple covering sundresses like my mom or the other girls around town. I’m nothing like that. I wear statement pendants, long chain multi-strand beaded necklaces and distressed vintage threads that speak to me. Give me reds, rich browns, deep purples, and turquoise colors with tattoo style wings, hearts, and arrows and I’m at peace with my mind and body. Today I chose a black cowgirl hat, a fringed bullhorn top I tied just above my hips and a purple, blue, and white bohemian style long skirt with a belt. Still barefoot, I reach for my Ariat boots in misty turquoise elephant print next to the door, but I don’t put them on. I prefer to be barefoot as long as possible.

  Doesn’t exactly scream homegrown girl, does it?

  “Where do you think you’re going, Maesyn?” Here’s the thing about my dad. Not only does he rarely smile, but he’s also not kindly asking, “Hey, kid, what are you doing tonight?” Nope. It’s more like, “Where the fuck do you think you’re going and with who?”
He’s demanding I tell him, and forgive me here, I don’t want to tell him. Rebellious by nature, and after nearly eighteen years, I’m so sick of his stupid rules. He’s totally that stereotypical helicopter parent, always in my business.

  The defiant teenager I am, my first instinct is to ignore him, but I know if I do—because I’ve been there before—it’ll lead exactly where I don’t want it to. It starts with him laying into me about responsibility and ends up being more about respect for your parents and everything a teenage girl who’s dying to get out of the house doesn’t want to hear. I’m all for respecting your parents and authority figures, but it’s starting to feel like a prison here. If a ranch in Ellensburg was a prison. Given my nearly eighteen years of captivity, I’m pretty sure it is.

  “Relax, Dad. Just going out.” I try to keep the sarcasm from my tone. “I’ll be back later.”

  Maybe tomorrow.

  While I’m sure he means well, Archer Calhoun comes from a time when girls didn’t go out and they certainly didn’t spread their legs for boys. Girls were young ladies and said yes, sir and yes, ma’am and never talked back to their parents. Like Morgan. My little sister who’s perfect. I may not be anything like her, but I adore her in every way.

  I can see it more and more, the need to control my wild and free spirit, especially in these moments when my dad looks at me with his scrutinizing glare. I bet my dad wonders what went wrong with me. How’d his precious daughter turn into this? For an entire year, from two years old to three, I refused to wear clothes. Not even joking. Would. Not. Wear. Them. Family pictures were interesting. My point is, he should have known the kind of girl I was going to turn into.