--Authors Note--

Hey! Sorry, I've been reeeeeally busy and I've been sick and yeah. Well, I'll just get right to the chapter. Enjoy! Review! OOOH! Who else is excited for MCR's new Album? I can't fucking wait. I've been home sick all day and been listening to the radio-edit version of Welcome to the Black Parade. It's the version iTunes has at the time. God, I love the beginning! But, what did Gerard do to his hair! OMG, his hair was soooo hot before. Oh well, he's still damn sexy… ANYWAYS, moving on…

-Steph

Disclaimer: Based LOOSELY off of the Heartland series by Lauren Brooke.

Rodeo Stoner

Chapter Two— Departing Philadelphia

Ty's POV

I shouldn't have laughed. But I did. That was all I did: laugh.

I don't regret what I did. Not one bit. I don't care if it got me into more trouble. I don't care if it just further proved my parents points.

What did I owe them anyway?

Nothing.

Yeah, so who cared that all I did was laugh at them?

It was all bound to happen sooner or later and it just happened sooner rather then later.

I'd never seen them move so fast though. Calling Aunt Kara and Uncle Rick, booking a plane ticket, throwing all my stuff into boxes and shipping them off. I would have argued my way out of it, or at least packed my own stuff, but I was finally getting my wish!

I was finally leaving! Finally I would have to have nothing more to do with my parents and my brother!

It was what I had always been waiting for, yet I had always imagined it as me leaving. Not the way it was going with them kicking me out.

So, excuse me if I wasn't a little pissed.

And excuse me if I didn't feel quite so sentimental as my mother at the airport.

I sulked into the kitchen moodily that morning and all my mother could do was berate my outfit. "Those pants! No, no, no! They're much too tight! Can't you wear anything other then black?"

See? You'd hate them too. Who the hell cared what I was wearing? They shouldn't, they were the ones kicking me out! I found absolutely nothing with my outfit. Black, slim fitting jeans, a fitted, black Henley sweater type thing with a black and white striped tee under it, black and white checked Converse high-tops, dark leather bracelet and leather cuff with a chipped painted metal plate I always wore.

But, no! Her complaints went beyond my wardrobe, too! "What's wrong with your hair? Can't you brush it? You're going out into public, you know. At least brush it to the side so we can see your eyes!" I liked my hair and could find no fault with it. It went down to the back of neck, just curling a little and almost completely covered my eyes.

I didn't even grace her with an answer, fucking bitch. Like hell I was changing. Like hell I was doing anything she wanted. I turned back around and went to sit in my empty room again, ignoring her pleas for me to eat something.

When I was called, I grabbed the last thing of importance in my room, my black messenger bag, slung it over my shoulders and slammed my door behind me without a backwards glance.

Dad stood at the foot of the stairs with Lee and mom. Lee looked ready to wet his fucking pants in excitement.

"Don't forget your skateboard, Ty!" Lee chirped.

"Go fuck yourself," I advised him pointedly and shoved him out of my way.

I easily sidestepped the arm that swung out towards me and continued down the hall, ignoring dad's bellows all the way. I walked out of the penthouse that I had come to despise and took the elevator down to the lobby, glaring at the group of expensively dressed teenage girls in the elevator.

I gladly left the giggling idiots behind. I sat in a chair in the lobby and waited for my parents and Lee to join me. I taped my foot on the floor.

"Don't you ever pull something like that again, do you hear me?" Dad hissed at me and gripped my arm tightly once they were in the lobby, too.

I blinked up at him slowly a few times. "You're hurting my arm." He tossed my arm aside and ushered mom and Lee out of the building, I followed behind them at a leisurely pace.

I taunted my fathers back the whole while. Fucking bastard.

I climbed into the back of the black Escalade and dad slammed the door behind me. It wasn't a terribly long ride to the Philadelphia International Airport. The traffic got worse as we neared though. Figures, my escape out comes from one of the worst airports in the country. Classic.

Dad pulled up to the US Airways departing area and I jumped out immediately. I stood on the curb with my black bag over my shoulder waiting for my parents and Lee to get out. I would have been long, believe that fact if nothing else I say, if it were not for the fact that my mom had insisted on holding the boarding pass dad had printed online the night before. Oh, and the ridiculous fact that I was a minor and traveling alone and, therefore, had to wait for some airport security guy to escort me to my gate.

My mother conversed briefly with a guy in uniform at the baggage check-in. I glared, arms folded over my chest. Dad stood by the Escalade and Lee looked higher then I had ever seen someone. And, to think, they're sending me away? Have they seen their younger son? Fucking mini clone of my bastard father. It would be the kind thing to do to get the kid help, if it wasn't too late for it by that point—which I'm pretty sure it was.

"Ty, honey," mom came back to where I was standing. I fixed my glare on her. Honey? Did she actually think she could call me that? She kept her calm exterior though. "This is Jayne," the blonde woman standing next to mom smiled warmly at me. I nearly choked in disgust. Had this woman never heard of a perfume limit? She looked a bit disturbed by my appearance and lack of emotion. "She's going to make sure you get onto the plane safely, alright?"

The sad part is she actually expected an answer.

She looked near tears. Wonderful.

"Tyler," dad spoke up. He still didn't seem particularly happy with me but that was basically his routine by then. "We're not doing this to be mean, it's for your own good. You understand that, right?"

Like hell I do. "Whatever." Fuck you.

I turned my back on him and Lee, turning to face my mom and the woman in the standard flight attendants navy skirt suit, 'Jayne'. Mom stepped forwards and opened her arms to give me a hug but I quickly sidestepped her.

"Boarding pass," I ordered and held out my hand expectantly.

She looked closer to tears as she fumbled in her purse. She pulled out my boarding pass and tried to hand it over to Jayne. I snatched it out of her hands before Jayne's manicured fingers could touch it. It was my ticket out and I'd be damned if I was going to let some lady wearing too much perfume touch it.

"See ya," was my final farewell—I mandatory 'fuck you' farewell in my head— before I strode through the revolving doors and into the terminal. I heard my name being called but I didn't look back.

I quickly got onto the escalator to go to the security check. There was a rushed clicking of high heels behind me. Come to think of it, I could have some fun with this woman Jayne.

I grinned as I read my boarding pass.

Depart: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania/11:05 a.m.

Goodbye city of fucking brotherly love.

&

That ticket stub stayed in my wallet for the next four years. It was the only reminder I had that my fucked up life could be a whole hell of a lot worse.

Cody, Wyoming was a small, small, small town. The only attractions were the Cody Stampede Rodeo and Yellowstone National Park. Neither of which I had any interest in—at the time.

I hated everything about it.

I hated fucking New Hopes Ranch.

I hated the horses.

I hated the work.

I hated the guests that stayed there.

I hated having to do what the guests asked me.

I hated the other hands.

I hated that damned farm house and my fucking room.

I hated Uncle Rick and Aunt Kara.

I hated the fucking school my 'parents' had enrolled me in.

I hated the prissy idiots that went there.

I hated the town.

I hated the people.

I hated EVERYTHING about fucking Cody, Wyoming.

It was dead in the winters and 'alive' in the summers. I hated the summers most. That was when the God damned guests all came. And that meant having to tack up their stupid horses for them and wait on them hand and foot. Just kill me.

I could have run them through with the fucking pitchfork when they called me a 'cowboy'. I was NOT a cowboy. Fuck cowboys. Fuck the damn rodeo.

There wasn't anything to do. Which I guess is something that my 'parents' took into consideration before they sent me here. The less there was to do then the less trouble I'd get into. That was their philosophy at least.

What? Did they think that I was going to be a perfect clone of Lee? I'm not a fucking goody-two shoe. Did they honestly think that they could keep me out of trouble just by sending me to the middle of nowhere, USA? Maybe it wasn't Philly but there was trouble to be found everywhere. And I was quite good at finding trouble wherever I went.

Cody Prep finally just expelled me when I was sixteen. The second best day of my fucking life up to that point. Uncle Rick signed the drop-out papers for the public school and I never went back.

I had been saving every bit of the money I had earned working on New Hopes and planned to buy my own car. Uncle Rick gave me his old pick-up before I got the chance. That pissed me off. Why wouldn't they fucking let me do anything for myself? They even gave me this little casita thing behind the stables. I have no idea what I ever did to make them trust me with my own place. God knows I did everything in my power to make them miserable.

So, in retaliation to them all, I went out and befriended the kids that, as my mother would say, were the "kids with no futures." But, hell, I was a kid with no future, too. I fit right in.

Speaking of my 'parents', asides from cards sent on birthdays and holidays that were burned sacredly they never visited. Sure, mom tried to call. But it's not like I was about to waste my already wasted time even more by talking to her. They sent me money of course. I hated that damned money with every fiber of my being and was tempted to just burn it along with the unread cards but better judgment won out on that one matter.

That cursed money bought me the two things that were the only things I cared about in the world. I planned to pay my father and mother back every last penny of what they sent me.

There was nothing to do in fucking Cody, Wyoming. It is the single most boring and annoying place in the United States. If there had ever been even the tiniest wonder as to why only tourists really every came then there sure as hell wasn't now. No place has ever lacked so much… excitement.

And that, and no other reason, is why I started to ride.

There was just nothing else to do.

So I taught myself how to ride. Uncle Rick offered to teach me. Like hell I was going to take up that offer. The day that Ty Baldwin asks for help is the day he's six feet under.

So maybe I did take a few unnecessary and clearly avoidable falls. And maybe I did have a fair number of scratches and a broken wrist at one point.

I still didn't ask for help.

No, I just got on the most spirited horse at the joint and went for it. Always a good approach. Do it fast, just like pulling off a band-aide. Except, I suppose this was fairly different and perhaps the 'band-aide' approach was not my best nor my brightest idea but I still learned, didn't I?

Which would lead to another thing I hate:

I hate taking the guests on trail rides.

I hate answering their stupid ass questions on the town, the state, Yellowstone, New Hopes Ranch, the horses, the mountains, EVERYTHING and myself.

I hated them asking about me the most. But, I always got a kick out of their reactions when I told them my parents had kicked me out for 'reasons'. I let their little imaginations do the thinking from then on.

It was always a much dreaded experience when I saw a car driving up the dusty driveway. All the cars looked exactly the same. Just like the dusty gray Jeep.

I was just starting my mornings work mucking out the round pen when the telltale sound of crunching gravel alerted me to the arrival of another visitor. I looked up as a dusty gray Jeep rolled by; a little girl had her face pressed to the window. The Jeep parked at the bottom of the narrow and steep hill that led to the farm house.

Fuck it.

Someone else could deal with the new arrivals.

Welcome to another day in hell.

a/n: short, I know but it was just wrapping up Ty's character. Oh, and if you think TP Ty gave Amy a hard time then just wait until the next chapter. Oh-ho! He-he. Man, TP Ty's gonna look like a Saint compared to RS Ty. Ah, reviews will equal in a faster update… and I will update soon. No long wait. Sorry about that… review! -Steph