Chapter 2, Advice and Anger
I walked into the lunch room and saw Cheyenne with Derek.
I clutched my fists and clenched my jaw. I turned around and left. I walked to Cheyenne's locker and opened it. I ripped out a piece of paper and wrote:
Cheyenne,
Don't expect that you're still coming over to the ranch after school today.
I put the note in her locker and slammed the door closed. Then I stalked to my Mom's room.
I walked into her room and shut the door. Mom looked up from the papers on her desk when I came in.
"Am I really that bad and get myself in everyone else's business? I asked pacing.
"This about you and Cheyenne?"
"Yea."
"For this argument I'm siding with Cheyenne."
"What?" I asked stopping my pacing.
"You had a good reason for talking to Derek, but it is Cheyenne's life." I just looked at my Mom. "If Cheyenne is making a mistake, you should let her make it and learn the lesson."
"Why does it sound like you know what your talking about?" I asked sitting on the top of a desk.
"I went through the same thing as Cheyenne's about to go through, including the nosy friend."
"What? I thought you were always with Dad?"
When my Mom was growing up one of her best friends, Jake, lived on the neighboring ranch, Three Ponies. They were friends for most of their lives. They finally started dating when my Mom was a senior, even though it was pretty hard, seeing Dad is three years older than Mom and he was in college. Three years later Mom and Dad got engaged. Both of my grandmothers have told me that they knew that my parents were going to get together.
"Was it Jen or Dad who was the nosy friend?"
"Jen."
Jennifer Kensworthy has been my Mom's best friend since 7th grade.
The bell rang ending lunch.
"You better get to class."
"Thanks Mom."
"No problem. See you later."
"Bye."
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It was finally the end of the school day. I was walking out to the truck that I share with Dustin since Chad can't drive yet. Cheyenne was waiting for me. She saw me coming and started walking toward me.
"I don't need a ride anymore/ and I totally forgot about going to the ranch after school." She said walking by grinning smugly.
I clenched my jaw and fists, taking Moms advise and letting Cheyenne make her mistake.
"maybe I should drive." Dustin said finding me shaking in anger.
He unlocked the truck and we climbed in. We had to wait for Chad, he's always late with getting to the truck. He has to say goodbye to his friends. Chad doesn't really like the ranch life. So, he tries to spend as much time in town as he can.
He finally came and I scooted over so I was in the middle. He opened the door and climbed in.
"Hey, what's up?" he looked at me. "Wow, you look like you are going to blow a gasket."
"I glared at him. "Don't start."
"Ready to go?" Dustin asked, changing the subject.
The ride home was not quiet. Chad got the notion that we wanted to her about his grand life and his grand day.
We live on Riverbend Ranch. The ranch Mom grew up on. Grandpa Wyatt handed it over as a wedding gift when Mom and Dad got married. Since, our Uncle Cody is in the rodeo circuit, it didn't cause any problems.
When I got home I couldn't get out of the truck fast enough. I ran up the stairs to my room. I changed my clothes to work/riding clothes. That made up of holy, old and wore jeans and a plain dark brown t-shirt. I pulled on my worn black cowboy boots and stormed downstairs and outside to do my chores.
I walked to the back of the barn to grab a shovel to clean out the stalls. Then something snapped and all my anger came back.
I kicked the barn wall and strangled a scream. I did some deep breathing when I heard footsteps coming my way.
"What was the loud bang noise?" I turned to my father's voice.
If you looked at my Dad, you could talk he was a honest to God working cowboy.
"My foot kicking the wall." I said crossing my arms across my chest.
"Mom called me at lunch. I would listen to her advice."
"I am. It's just…I don't know. It just makes me mad. Derek asked her out again and she thinks it's so great! When I walked out to the truck after school she told me she didn't need a ride and the look she gave me was so smug. It just aaaarrrrrrr."
"Just don't hit the wall with your fist. Nate broke his fist when he did that." He said turning around and walking out of the barn.
My Dad is one of six brothers. Nate is his second oldest brother. Uncle Kit is living in Hawaii, and still a bachelor. Nate is married to Amy. They have two kids and one on the way. They have two kids and one on the way. Kyle is 20 and joined the Navy. His parents were real happy about that. Kaylie is seven, and a very wild child. And they just found out last week that they were expecting another child, sometime in November or December. Adam moved out of state. He's a foreman on a ranch in Montana. He visited about a month ago bringing home his girlfriend, Carrie. Grandma Maxine told me last weekend that he said he was thinking about asking her to marry him. Bryan moved south more and owns his own ranch with his wife, Sarah, and my cousins Anna and Denny. Anna is 16 and Denny is four soon to be five. Quinn is married to his wife of two years, Jessica. They don't have any kids yet, still figuring things out.
I picked up the shovel and put it in the wheel barrel and rolled over to the first stall needing to be cleaned. Just the thing to take my mind off Cheyenne, mucking out stalls.
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After I finished all my chores I walked out to the 10 Acre pasture and whistled for my horse Baily. [a/n: if you want to see a picture of Baily I have a link on my profile. I'm just going to be adding pics of things through out the story. She instantly trotted toward the fence and nickered a hello.
"Hey there pretty girl." I said patting her on the neck. "How are you doing?" she nodded her head like she knew what I was talking about. "Do you want to get brushed?"
I opened the gate and let her out. She walked pass the gate then waited for me to shut and lock it and then walked beside me to the barn. She stopped out side the barn and I walked in and grabbed my grooming box. I grabbed the curry comb and started brushing her. After the first couple brushes she lowered her head, with her ears swerved to me, closed her eyes and cocker her rear hoof.
After about a half hour Baily's coat shined. I put my stuff away and walked toward the house to grab some carrots. I walked back out and Baily was watching for me. I walked back in the barn, grabbed her halter and lead rope and walked back out to her.
I put on her halter and walked toward the back of the house. I feed her the carrots and let her graze while I laid down looking at the sky.
After a while she came over and laid down on her side next to me. I rearrange my position to where I was using her neck as a pillow.
I just started up in the sky, watching the clouds roll by. Pretty soon my eye lids felt heavy and I fell asleep.
