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“What are we going to do?” I asked, as Lexi shuffled me toward Beth’s car in my driveway. Beth hopped in the driver’s seat and I slid into the back.
“I happen to have an in with one of those sexy cowboys at the fair,” Lexi said, turning around to grin at me from the front seat. “Don’t you worry. You’re going to love this. For once, our flirting skills will pay off.”
I held in a groan. If Lexi thought I was just going to fall into another guy’s arms after just being rejected by the most perfect boy in the universe, then she was sadly mistaken. No one could take Hunter’s place. He was the perfect kisser and best friend—up until the moment he walked away.
No, I couldn’t be thinking about him like that. I was sticking to the plan. If Hunter wanted to end us, that was fine with me. I’d dissolve him from my mind like cotton candy under a faucet. Poof. No trace. And no more of this aching, painful feeling in my chest.
Beth parked at the fairgrounds and we hopped out of her car to follow Lexi up to one of the metal buildings. She kept grinning at us over her shoulder, as if she were delivering me to a surprise party. I made a mental note to never trust her with the secret of that magnitude in the future. And when she led us inside, we headed straight to the back where a large pen had been set up.
“There’s Ian,” she said, pointing to a gangly boy with cut off sleeves standing next to the pen. She ran up to him, batting her eyes for a brief flirtation session which had Ian seriously falling all over himself. And then, he nodded at her and she trotted back to us.
“Come on, girls,”
she said, grabbing our arms. “Time to have a little fun. Forget about boys. This is just for us.”
We walked into the pen and Ian went to open some crates stashed in the corner. Immediately, an adorable stampede of puppies, kittens, and bunnies spilled into the wood-chip lined pen. I fell to my knees, laughing as a puppy with floppy ears began to lick my neck and a kitten started pawing at the fringes on my shirt.
This was heaven. A petting zoo all to ourselves. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect place to go when I left this earth. The puppies had a smell about them that made me want to cuddle them in close to my face and never let go. The bunnies were so soft to the touch I couldn’t stop stroking their backs. And the kittens made me laugh with their playful and jerky movement. It was at least fifteen minutes of pure play before the depression about my current situation came back.
“Feeling better?” Lexi asked, sitting cross-legged in front of me and cuddling a large black and white bunny.
I nodded, tickling a little orange tabby on its belly as it tried to nibble on my fingers. “I think so. But it still hurts.”
Beth gave me a sympathetic smile from where she sat on my left. She’d amazingly abandoned her video games for the entire time, choosing to pour her affections on a golden doodle puppy with the sweetest little face.
“That makes sense. He hurt you. Bad. But are you sure that you want to erase him from your mind? He was your best friend, Charlotte. I’m not sure you want to forget six years of good memories.”
I hugged my arms around my knees and considered her words. That was a long time to scrub from my memory. Did I want to forget about the time Hunter and I both had the flu, so we huddled in at his place watching season after season of his mom’s DVD collection of Breaking Bad? Or the time I dared him to jump in the lake in February, not thinking he’d do it, and then had to spend the next three hours pumping him full of hot chocolate to warm him back up? Or how he’d shown up at prom a couple months ago, just to surprise me? There were so many other great times. Scrubbing them from existence didn’t seem right. Not even when Hunter had completely broken my heart.
“Okay, you’re right.” I whimpered into my knees. “I don’t want to forget him. But I also don’t want to feel this way ever again.”
Lexi’s eyes softened and she scooted close enough to rest her hand on my knee. “I know, girly. I’m sorry.”
Beth moved closer on my other side. “Just know, we’re going to help you through this. I promise.”
I sent teary-eyed smiles to both of them. For the first time, I felt grateful for Mandy and her friends’ evil plans to make us all best friends. I wasn’t sure I would’ve survived this without them. With their help, I was going to come out on the other side—maybe a little sadder—but never lonely.
“I think I’d better get ready for the rodeo,” I said, standing up and brushing off the wood chips from my jeans. A fire had flared up inside of me. It felt like determination. “I’ve still got a crown to take from under Sarah’s nose. You girls in?”
“Oh yeah, baby.” Lexi rubbed her hands together. “I’ve been waiting for the day that Sarah gets what’s coming to her. I can’t wait to see you rub her perky little nose in the dirt.”
Beth draped her arm over my shoulder as we exited the pen. “Personally, I’m just ready to see Ms. Gentry’s face when you take that crown. We had to beg her to let you in and now, you’re gunning for top spot. She might have a stroke.”
I smiled to myself. Ms. Gentry had been surprising. She probably wasn’t as disapproving as we thought. The contest was her daughter’s legacy. She had a right to try and protect it. I only hoped that I would make her proud today.
“Come on, I’ve got to make sure my horse is ready,” I said, looping my arms through theirs. “And I guarantee, there will be some hot cowboys around for you two to drool over.”
They both squealed with happiness as we made our way over to the arena. I kept my eyes peeled for my ex-best friend, but he was nowhere in sight. And as the time drew near for the Junior Rodeo Queen contestants to open for the rodeo, the slight tingle of nerves began in my stomach. There would be no avoiding Hunter once everything started. The cowboys and the contestants were supposed to sit in the same area of the bleachers.
One way or another, Hunter was going to have to face me.
And I was going to have to learn how to let him go.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was a hard act to follow the clowns.
Especially when it came to rodeo clowns. My thighs twitched nervously against the worn leather of Carolina’s saddle as I waited in a line near the arena gate with the rest of the contestants. After an opening act by the clowns, we were supposed to enter for our grand moment of trotting around the arena in two figure eights and then pull into a line in the middle, smiling and waving the entire time. As if that were as simple as walking down the street.
