by Lexi Whitlow
But she took all that with her when she left without a word and never looked back.
Hell, she didn’t even tell her parents where she was going!
I made my way out to the bulls and fed them good before I headed on over to the little heifer barn I had. I didn’t keep too many heifers around, just enough to breed with the bulls who were retired so I could sell the calves they birthed for the rodeos, but I’d always made sure they were reared to a certain age before I ripped them from their mothers. Some breeders sold them the moment they plopped, but I wanted my heifers healthy. There wasn’t any reason to give away any calf that was born before their first birthday, and I kept it that way on my farm.
Just because I made money off my animals didn’t mean I had to be cruel.
Once the bulls were taken care of, and the few small babies I had were tended to, I trotted on over into the heifer barn. Right then, I had eight of them, and three were already reaching an age where they wouldn’t be able to bear calves any longer. I had two that were pregnant, and I made a mental note to call the vet and come check on them. One wasn’t due for a few more months, but one we were keeping an eye on. She had been due two days ago, but she was still upright, and the calf was still growing regularly, so the vet wasn’t fussing.
But I guess I just worry too much about my animals.
I milked the cows in the barn before I fed them their next meal, and I went over to pet both of my pregnant heifers before giving them some words of encouragement. I snaked my phone out of my pocket and dialed the vet up the road, and he agreed to come by and take a look at them. I told them I didn’t think she was in labor, but I did want to keep an eye on her in case something were to go wrong. If she was carrying a bull, I could use the money, and if she was carrying a heifer, I could use one to replace the three aging out in my little population.
Julie would’ve done wonderfully in this type of lifestyle.
As long as I’d known her, she’d loved animals, but horses were her favorite. The first time we ever went horseback riding together was on the weekend in between one of her family’s camps, and I just couldn’t get over how beautiful she looked on that majestic animal. Her hair blew back in the wind, and her hips rolled graciously on top of the horse’s galloping form, and it was the first and only time I’d ever fallen off the back of a horse. She turned herself around and galloped back towards me, and I could see the worry in her eyes before a smirk upturned on her face.
“Got them bulls under control, but can’t handle a little horse?” she had quipped.
To this day, it’s my favorite memory of her. She was concerned, but confident. Graceful, yet dominant.
My god, the life we could’ve had.
I finished tending to the cow barn and slowly made my way over to the chickens. It was egg collecting time before I sprinkled down some seed, and I could hear my dog howling at my presence from the kitchen window. Lord knows the mess my beagle probably made while I was gone, and while Julie continued to flood my mind, I couldn’t be angry at myself. I had gotten another chance to lay with her. To feel her skin underneath my fingertips and hear her sounds whispered into my ear. God, she felt just as warm and tight as the first time I had laid with her in college, and it was as if I could feel her legs still wrapped around my waist. I mindlessly gathered the eggs from the nests as the memory of her scent wafted up my nose, and my hand shook while I fed the chickens as her groans and grunts filled the caverns of my ears.
She had flooded my soul in college, and she wiggled her way back in, and while I was mad at being weak, I couldn’t be mad at caving. That woman was a mystery I had yet to decipher, and I had to admit that I’d still give quite a bit to spend my life trying to figure out why.
I might not give everything, but I’d still give up a lot more than I should for a woman who left me the way she did.
I still wonder to myself why in the world she left...
I guess I technically could have asked her last night, but damn, I was so fucking shocked to see her at my door. Of all the people that could’ve come knocking on my trailer door after that ride, it had to be her. I should’ve asked her why she was there… whether she came to see me or if it was just a coincidence that I was riding that particular day. I should’ve asked her why the hell she left. I should’ve yelled about how much I loved her, how much I cared for her, that her leaving threw me off a bull I couldn’t stand to get back on. I wanted to blame her for so much and yet, I still wanted to throw her onto that bed and fuck her body senseless into the mattress in that rickety trailer.
So, that’s what I did. I threw away my anger away the moment she began crying on that fold out couch and I decided to show her what she left. I decided to show her exactly how I had memorized her body. I decided to shower her with my affections just like I would have every day in between our last meeting and our current one.
But I didn’t want to shower her because I was angry with her.
I wanted to show her because, deep down, I really was hoping, that this time, she would stay. Whatever made her leave the first time, I was hoping to trump it. To be better than it. To show her that I supported her and cared for her and that I would give up and do anything to make her happy.
But I still woke up alone.
That’s what actually made me angry. That’s what really made my blood boil as I ripped the egg basket and marched for the house.
It wasn’t the fact that she left.
It was the fact that I didn’t want her to leave… and it was the fact that she didn’t care that she did.
Julie
Julie - Chapter Eight
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.
Axel 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. Axel 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. Axel’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, Axel’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.
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 Axel, 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 Axel from high school. If they still owned the barn and he was still working there, they might know where Axel was, and I might be able to get in a relaxing ride before cleaning up and meeting Axel 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! Julie 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 Axel,” 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 Axel’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.
“Axel’s a lucky guy!” he called back.
I wish I could’ve believed him. The truth was Axel 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 Axel 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 Axel 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 Axel 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 Axel 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 Axel’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.
Axel
Axel - Chapter Nine
I’d finally gotten done mucking out the stables when I heard my phone vibrating on the counter. It rang, and it rang, and I rushed over to catch it just before it fell off the counter and onto the tiled kitchen floor. I didn’t recognize the number on the screen, and part of me was tempted to simply let it go to voicemail. It was easy around here for people to get numbers and then start soliciting things, and while I loved buying cookies from the scouts around the area, I didn’t like politicians and churches calling me up and asking stupid questions and wanting me to donate money to some campaign I’d never heard of.
But, something told me I needed to take this call. Something in the pit of my gut told me that the local area code that was flashing meant something terrible had gone wrong. I thought of all the things that could’ve happened: maybe someone broke into my parent’s old home I renovated, or maybe something had happened to Bradley at the stables. I told him he was taking on too much work with his dad climbing up in age, and I’d offered my services on a part-time basis time and time again to him.
However, the voice I received on the other end of the line was one I never thought I’d ever hear again.
“Axel!?”
I recognized Julie’s mom immediately. There were so many nights I spent at Julie’s parents’ house after dinner shooting the shit with them around a fire. Her father would always put a beer in my hand, and her mother would always tell me stories, and she was always so sweet to inquire as to how my parents were. I always just felt the longing need to tell her everything: about my mom’s inability to have more kids and how she always took in the more unfortunate ones around the neighborhood. I talked to her about how much I loved her daughter and how I wanted to marry her one day.
