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“I thought you’d try to make me stay!” she shrieked. “I thought that if I told you, that you wouldn’t support me or approve, and you’d ask me to stay with you!”
I felt my entire world ripped from underneath my feet.
“You left me in the middle of the night after graduation. After I laid with you and told you I loved you and that you were the one for me because you thought I wouldn’t support you?”
I could hear my voice rumbling threateningly throughout the house, and I knew my anger was raging out of control. My mind was spinning, and my body felt numb, and for the first time since that morning that I woke up without her, I felt like picking something up and throwing it against the wall.
“Who was the one who encouraged you to pursue fashion?” I asked.
“You,” she whispered.
“Who was the one who fielded your parents when you switched your major from education to fashion?” I asked.
“You,” she choked out.
“Who was the one who encouraged you to send your damn portfolio off to Paris in the first place while you sat there, night after night, crying because you didn’t think you weren’t good enough!?”
“You,” Chelsea sobbed.
“Then why the hell did you think I suddenly wouldn’t have supported you!?” I raged.
“Because I knew if you asked, I would’ve stayed!” she yelled.
Her statement stopped me in my tracks.
“I knew if you asked, or gave me a look, or asked me to postpone it, or even asked to go with me, that I’d do it! I’d do whatever you asked! And I couldn’t risk any of that happening! So, I just fucking left, alright!?”
I felt my chest panting for air, and the room suddenly felt like it was devoid of oxygen. My mind had come to a complete and total halt, and I stood there while I watched Chelsea sob in my kitchen.
But, one statement she made kept ringing inside my head. Like a little mosquito that wouldn’t stop buzzing in my ear.
“What the hell would’ve been so wrong with me goin’ with you?” I asked lowly.
“What the hell kinda rodeo farm life is in Paris, Flynn?” she groaned.
I closed my eyes and shook my head before I turned my back on her. My heart felt like it had been shattered and thrown into a fire to burn, and I knew I had to get out of the house before I said something I was gonna regret.
“I never would’ve made you stay,” I said. “I never would’ve made you toss your dreams out for me. Not after all the support you showed me with the rodeo.”
“Flynn, I’m so sorry,” she breathed.
“But you don’t believe that, do you?”
I whipped around and caught her stare, and the way she seemed to buck up just a bit told me exactly what I needed to know.
“You still think I would’ve asked you to stay. After everything, I did to encourage your fashion in college.”
“Yeah,” she nodded, “I do.”
I gritted my teeth and turned down the hallway, and I blocked out her voice yelling after me as I slammed through the front door. My hands were trembling, and my throat was wanting me to yell out all sorts of nasty and disgusting things, but all I did was rip my phone from my pocket and dial the number of my vet.
“Yeah, need ya to come look at one of my heifer’s,” I said. “Yeah. I’m good. Just swamped with work. See ya soon.”
I shut my phone and threw it across the yard before I made my way to the heifer’s barn. I didn’t give a shit that it was about to rain and I didn’t give a shit that I’d left a mess that Chelsea would probably feel obligated to clean up. I couldn’t believe that woman. After all the fighting I did with her parents to try and convince them that she could make a living out of fashion, how the hell did she somehow think I’d then try to stop her from pursuing that passion? I was the one in fucking college who consoled her self-conscious ass after she cried for weeks about not being good enough to submit her portfolio to them in the first fucking place.
What kind of twilight zone was I in!?
I knew I should’ve gone back and cleaned up that kitchen. I knew I shouldn’t leave it to her to take care of. After all, she was still technically recuperating, and I was still technically taking care of her, but I was too worked up, and the animals I had around my farm always seemed to calm me down.
