Heartland

by Sarina Bowen

But I don’t ask, because it’s none of my business. I respect secrets, because I’ve had plenty.

  “All right, then,” Rickie says. “I’ll bring the wine. And I’ll even help you guys box up caramels if you need me to.”

  “No need,” Dylan says, passing me the giant cappuccino again. “We’ll be retired candymakers by then. In fact, we’re going to run out of goat’s milk this weekend. After one more set of deliveries, we’ll close up shop.”

  None of this is news to me, but my heart gives an unhappy squeeze anyway. There’s no getting around it. Jacquie and Jill are out of commission until they have their kids in the springtime.

  On the positive side, the vendors’ payments are piling up in Leah’s bank account. I’ll have enough money to buy my books and a cheap computer, too. Nannygoat’s Candies was a resounding success, even if I’ll never be ready to give it up.

  Or Dylan, either. But I doubt I’ll have a choice.

  That evening I’m in my room, writing my very last composition essay. The professor loves my stuff these days. On the last one he wrote: This is so raw and beautiful. Great expression! It stuns me to receive praise for all the scary ideas in my head.

  The class doesn’t have a final exam, either, which means my only tests will be in Spanish, my small-business econ class, and algebra.

  Totally doable. My first round of finals is still scary, but I feel like I can make it through my first semester of college without failing anything.

  When I get up to get a drink of water, I find Kaitlyn standing in our bathroom, using the mirror to touch up her lipstick.

  “Oops, sorry,” I murmur, even though I have every right to be here.

  She glances at me, but I don’t get the scowl I’m so accustomed to. “You can have the bathroom. I’m just going.” She drops the lipstick into her purse. She also grabs her toothbrush and a contact lens case and drops those in, too. Then she glances at me. “I’m out of here for the night. So I guess you don’t have to make yourself scarce.”

  “New boyfriend?” I ask a little too hopefully.

  “Something like that,” she says. “He’s a hockey player. Hands off, okay?”

  “Jeez, Kaitlyn.” I let out a nervous laugh. “I’m not—Dylan and I were friends for a long time before, you know?” I can’t stop talking, because I feel strangely guilty about Kaitlyn these days.

  “Actually, I was kidding.” She gives me a smirk. “Dylan always had a weak spot for you. And lord knows you’re a goner for him.”

  I swallow hard.

  “But when he moves on, you’ll have to go looking for your own hockey player, you know? I don’t envy you. It’s hard being the person who’s more in love.” She snaps her bag closed and shoulders the strap. “I prefer things the other way around.”

  She’s ready to leave, but I’m standing here with my empty cup, feeling unsettled, because she’s right. I always wanted what she had with Dylan. But now that I have it, I understand her a little better. She lost him, and then she was sorry.

  I’ll be sorry someday, too. “How do you stop?” I hear myself ask.

  “Stop what?”

  “Being the person who’s got it bad.”

  She nudges me aside, but her expression is more gentle than I’ve ever seen it. “If you figure it out, let me know.”

  After she leaves, I text Dylan. You won’t believe this! Guess who found herself a hockey player? She’s out for the night. And she took her toothbrush with her.

  I’m truly happy for her. I wonder if she knows that.

  Dylan interprets this news a different way. Goody. I’ll swing by later after my study group for bio. Unless you’re too busy? I’ll buzz from the lobby to make sure you’re done studying.

  As if I’d ever turn down a visit from Dylan. And the prospect of seeing him lights a fire under my ass. I’ve almost finished my essay when the house phone rings.

  I leap off the bed to answer it. “Hey there!”

  “Hi yourself,” Leah says back to me. “You sound really happy to hear from me.”

  Oh shit. A beat goes by while I try to reorient myself. “Of course I’m happy to hear from you.”

  Leah laughs. “Uh-huh. Who were you really expecting? What’s his name, Chass?”

  “Leah,” I gasp.

  “What? It’s so obvious that you met a boy. Why else would you be gone every night? Just promise me he’s a nice boy, and he knows his way around a condom.”

  Immediately, I feel sweaty. “You’re embarrassing me,” I say, because it’s the truth, even if it’s not all of the truth.

  “Look, I get that this isn’t an easy topic for you. The Paradise Ranch is where sexual positivity goes to die. It took me years to get over my hang-ups. But I hope you know you can ask me about anything.”

  “Uh, sure,” I say slowly. “I think I’m good.” But I’m probably going to burn in hell for lying to you.

  “Chass, seriously. I hope you do meet someone nice. Maybe it will help you get over your raging crush on Dylan.”

  Oh my God. “That will never happen,” I admit slowly. It’s another half-truth. “You should talk, though. You fell for Isaac when you were what, fifteen?”

  “You’re right,” she says quietly. “But I was very lucky that he was all in—he didn’t make me pine for him. Some men are ready to meet their forever person when they’re young. And some just aren’t. You could be waiting around a long time for Dylan to grow up.”

  Once again, she’s both wrong and very, very right. I have Dylan. And yet I really don’t.

  “Hey, I didn’t call to make you feel bad.”

  “You aren’t,” I say quickly. “Now tell me what’s up with you?”

  “You know I did that interview for Wyoming Public Radio?”

  “Uh-huh,” I say, even if I don’t exactly remember. Anytime Leah brings up Wyoming, I tune it out.

  “Well, something amazing happened. I got the attention of a very well-off rancher who wants to help me fund my foundation. I think this could be big. She could move my plans forward in a big way.”

  “That’s wild!” But I shouldn’t really be surprised. Nobody is more tenacious than Leah when she has a big idea. I’ve never seen anyone accomplish so much with so little. She was a runaway at seventeen, and has no education. But she never stops believing that big things are possible. This past summer her cheeses won an international competition. In France.

  “I’m flying to Chicago this weekend to meet the rancher.”

  “Chicago?”

  “She’s there for a convention. You won’t believe this hotel where I’m supposed to have lunch. I’m busy having a fashion crisis right now.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Dream big, Chastity. Sometimes you get what you’ve asked for.”

  “Mmm.” Does it make me shallow that I’m mostly dreaming of Dylan?

  “The other thing I have to ask you is this—could I possibly buy five boxes of caramels?” Leah asks me. “I don’t want to screw up your count.”

  “Sure. You can have them,” I tell her. As if I’d say no. My entire business relies on free time in her kitchen. “Are they for the fancy rancher lady?”

  “One of them is. I hope you don’t mind if I also send a box to your mother.”

  My heart skips a beat. “Why?” I haven’t seen or spoken to my mother in two years. She failed me when I needed her most. About a month before I left Wyoming, I made the mistake of telling her that I would run away if my stepdad tried to marry me off.

  You ungrateful bitch, she’d said. And then she’d slapped me across the face.

  When it came time to leave, I didn’t bother saying goodbye.

  “I thought she might want to know that you’re still alive and doing okay. It would come from me and not you.”

  “Oh, Leah,” the words come out in a rush. “I don’t know. Someone will see.” It unnerves me to think that my family would know where I am. My former family, that is. I used to have nightmares about getting dragged from
my new bed at Leah’s house and hauled back to the Paradise Ranch by my stepdad.

  “I don’t have to do it,” she says. “But think it over.”

  “Okay,” I say just as someone knocks on the outer door.

  “It would be a nice gesture,” Leah presses.

  “Um…” I’m a little distracted now. I open my bedroom door just as the knock comes again.

  “Company?” Leah asks.

  “Uh, maybe? Could be Ellie, I guess.” I stretch the curly phone cord into the short hallway and open the outer door.

  “H—” Dylan starts to greet me, but I cut him off with a chop of my hand through the air.

  His eyes widen.

  “I’d better go,” I tell Leah. “Talk to you this weekend?”

  “Sure. You have to let me know when your last exam ends. I can come get you if you can’t hitch a ride back with Dylan.”

  “I’ll ask him,” I say as Dylan grins at me. “Have fun in Chicago!”

  “I will! Later, sweetie.” We hang up.

  “Leah, I guess?” he asks. “She’s going to Chicago?”

  “Yeah. Something about a new donor for the—” This sentence gets cut off, because Dylan yanks me against his chest and kisses me. Hard. His hands cup my ass, and his mouth claims mine with speed and authority.

  Even after the best month of my life, I’m still surprised when he does that. But not too surprised to cup his face in my hands and give it right back to him.

  “Hi,” he says after a long, wonderful minute or two. “I missed you. Can you tell?”

  “A little,” I say, breathless. I hope he takes me right to bed.

  “I come bearing cheap beer and YouTube. Can you take a study break?”

  “Of course,” I say. “My last essay is almost done.”

  “Can I read it?” he asks, easing past me to remove his backpack and drop his coat on my desk chair.

  “No.” I already know it’s good. All you need to get an A is to bare the ugliest parts of your soul.

  “It was worth a shot.” He opens the backpack to pull out two bottles of beer and his laptop.

  It’s not long until we’re ensconced on my bed, watching SNL replays while cuddling. The videos are funny, but I’m distracted by the woodsy scent of Dylan’s skin, and the way he’s resting a hand on my tummy.

  I love everything about this moment. The casual ease of our time together. The sound of his laughter. Dylan is better at living in the moment than I am. He reminds me to stop and just be.

  Even after all the times we’ve been together, I still crave him. I want that hand to unbutton my jeans and then slide into my panties. I want him to roll me to the side and kiss me again. Right now, please.

  “Can I play a different video for you?”

  “What?” I ask stupidly. My attention is shot.

  “These guys. Hang on.” He clicks around the keyboard and pulls up a website I haven’t seen before. It’s for a French-Canadian fiddle band. “They’re playing in Lebanon on New Year’s Eve, and I’m thinking of getting tickets. Will you come with me?”

  “Well, sure. Who’s going?”

  “It would just be you and me.”

  “Like a date?” I ask, turning to look at him.

  “Just like that,” he whispers, his brown eyes soft. “You got better New Year’s plans?”

  “Of course not.” That’s crazy talk. “But how will we explain it?”

  He shrugs. “We don’t need to. We can go wherever we want together.”

  My chest contracts with discomfort. “It’s not a good idea. Besides, I’m saving up for my computer.”

  “It’s my idea, I’d buy the tickets,” Dylan argues. “Think of it as a New Year’s present.”

  “You already gave me a present. A big one,” I point out. “And I always babysit on New Year’s so that Leah and Isaac can go out.”

  “Oh. Okay.” He looks a little deflated.

  “Sorry,” I say, my heart hammering. I hate saying no to him. But if I suddenly had big plans, Leah would want to know why.

  Dylan plays one of the videos anyway, and I can see why he likes this band. It’s funky, but the music is based in the same fiddle music that he plays.

  They’re really good. And now I feel like crap for turning him down. “You could go without me, you know.”

  “I suppose.” He wraps an arm around me and doesn’t say any more about it.

  Curling a little more tightly toward him, I ask myself what the hell I’m doing. I should be enjoying every minute of time he wants to spend with me. I should just live it up while it lasts. Protecting my heart is a lost cause, anyway.

  And now it’s becoming a problem.

  That night in the library, we promised each other we’d tell the truth. But every day I fail to do that. I love Dylan, and I don’t think I should tell him. He might end things if I do. That’s probably what would happen.

  And I don’t want to see his face when I say it, either. I don’t want to watch him flail around trying to explain why he can’t say those words back to me.

  Kaitlyn was right. It’s hard to be the one who’s more in love. It’s frequently excruciating.

  The band is still playing on Dylan’s screen. But all I really see is Dylan’s perfect hand resting on my stomach. Tonight I just ache for him. Right before my period, I always feel… Whatever the female version of horny is. Needy, maybe. Heated.

  It’s not a new phenomenon. When I was a teenager I used to lay awake at night fantasizing about sex. I dreamt of a man’s weight pressing me into the bed.

  Open your body to your husband when he asks you to, the Divine Pastor used to preach. Receive him and take his seed whenever he is restless.

  I couldn’t wait. I was already restless. But I knew better than to say so. Girls were slapped just for looking too long at the boys. They were reprimanded for flirting, or for showing any skin at all. Our dresses came down to our anklebones.

  And any girl who was found walking near the young men’s dormitory would be severely punished. It was also forbidden to walk around with wet hair—because that was too sexual.

  I still don’t understand that last one. There’s nothing too sexy about my post-shower hair.

  Female desire was never mentioned, even by the women. I honestly believed there was something weird about me until I worked that job at Walgreens and discovered magazines. They were very educational. “Find the Big O!” “Drive Your Man—And Yourself—Wild!” “How to Tell If He’s As Hot For You As You Are For Him!”

  It was there in the magazine aisle that I realized I wasn’t a freak after all.

  None of that is helping me right now, though. The music plays on, and I roll closer to Dylan, tucking my cheek against his shoulder, wondering when we’re going to take advantage of all this unexpected privacy in the dormitory.

  I love him. And I also crave him.

  He clicks on another song, and I privately groan. Then he gently runs his fingertips across my tummy, which only makes things worse.

  “Chass.”

  “Hmm?” I ask, woozy with need.

  “You’re very quiet tonight.”

  “Mmm.” I stroke a hand down his chest and sigh.

  “You can ask for it, you know.”

  That wakes me up. “For what?”

  He chuckles. “For whatever. A kiss. Another beer. A hard fuck. Just come and get it.”

  I lie perfectly still, wondering why that seems so impossible.

  “Sometimes I think your tutor has failed you. And I’m not really joking right now. I feel a little bad that you don’t feel comfortable initiating.”

  I sit up quickly, because this turn in the conversation is alarming. “Don’t feel bad. That’s not your fault.”

  He shakes his head. Then he closes the laptop, silencing the music mid-note. “It’s just that I worry that you don’t feel comfortable asking for what you want. I mean—I’m so easy. Just smile at me, and I’m ready to go.” He grins, and I know he’s tr
ying to lighten the mood.

  “You’d prefer if it was my idea sometimes?” My voice cracks at the end of the question.

  “Yeah, but not because I need it. I just want that for you. The freedom of it.”

  “Oh,” I say, taking his laptop and moving it to the floor, just to have something to do with my hands.

  “There’s power in it,” he whispers. “Take off your shirt.”

  It takes me a second to realize that he just gave me an order. But when my brain gets onboard, I lift my T-shirt immediately and toss it off the bed.

  “See that?” He cups my breast, stroking a thumb across the swell above my bra. “I asked for what I want. Because I don’t feel any shame in wanting it.”

  “Right,” I agree. He’s right to assume that shame is an issue. My hang-ups used to be a hundred percent about shame. “I grew up thinking that boys were supposed to want it and girls weren’t.”

  “Yeah, I get that,” he says quietly. His wicked fingers are still handling my breast. I want them to handle more of me. “Tell me something you want. Even if it’s a little thing.”

  I swallow hard. Lately my hang-ups have shifted. I used to fear my sexual impulses because they made me a sinner, and sinners were punished.

  But now I’m only guarding my heart. I can’t ask Dylan for what I want, because he already said he can’t give it to me. So I can’t ask him for sex, either. It’s too revealing. I want more because I’ll always want more. I’m an infinite loop of wanting him.

  “Okay, here’s my demand. Are you ready?” I ask him.

  “Yeah. Hit me.” His brown eyes are smiling.

  “I really want you to stop talking so much.” And just to make my point clear, I unhook my bra.

  His laugh is carefree and happy. “Fine. Sure.” He removes my bra, and, with hungry eyes, he lowers his mouth to my breast, and everything is right with the world.

  Thirty-Three

  Freshman Composition

  Section Four

  Title: The Root Cellar

  Author: Chastity Campbell

  The house where I grew up had no real basement. But there was an old root cellar dug beneath one side of it. The only entry was via a hatchway with two slanting metal doors above it.