Mikayla's POV
After school, I got my stuff and stormed straight home. I was still pissed from earlier today. I pushed open the white gate and walked to the front door. Cloey and Joey were play-fighting on the front porch when I reached the first step. Apparently, I was more interesting than their little game, because they stopped and began to follow me. I opened the front door and the kittens scrambled over their little paws, competing with each other to get in the house first. They bolted up the stairs fast as lightning and I shut the door. Like I said before, I was still pissed, so I kinda. . . I kinda slammed it. But by accident; if I was trying to slam the door I would've broken the hinges off again. As I ascended the stairs, I heard someone stirring in the kitchen.
"Mikayla? You're home already?" came my mother's cheery voice. "How was school, Mija?"
"Yeah, fine." I mumbled. To tell you the truth, I was only half listening. I sighed and made my way into my room. Princess, my cat, was sitting at the foot of my bed. Shoot, she probably thinks it's her bed; she spends more time in it than I do. I dropped my bookbag at the door and kicked the door shut with my heel.
"Dang it, Harper." I groaned. "Why would you even think about bringing her back into the picture?" I began to pace the floor. "I was totally fine before that Miley chick moved in next door and I was perfectly fine after-" I stopped myself; I. . . I can't even say her name anymore. I stopped pacing as something hit me. I sat down on my bed and buried my head in my hands.
"God, how did it even happen?" I sighed. "It was perfect. . . we were perfect." How did I get here? And more importantly, where did she go? My head shot up and I pushed myself off the bed.
"Damn it, I'm not going back there again!" I said, walking towards the window. I heard Princess hiss lowly. I turned around and saw her looking dead at me; I looked at Cloey and Joey briefly and then looked back at their mother.
"Sorry." I apologized. Princess has this weird thing about me and her kits; she'll hiss or growl or somethin' if I curse around 'em. I don't know why, it's not like they can understand it. . . but she's just being a good mama I guess. . .
I looked back to the window, where I saw the Stewarts' House and part of their ranch out back. I closed the curtains with a frustrated groan. Why'd they have to move into that house? Why did Miley have to get the room right across from mine? Why does she have to have such deep blue eyes? Damn it, why am I falling for her out of all people? Why does she make my heart beat faster everytime she smiles at me? When she just looks at me? Why. . . why-
"Why is this so hard?" I sighed, resting my forehead against the glass. "Miley's just like her. I can't. . . I know I can't do this again." Not after what happened last time. She left me. She just up and left, leaving a trail with every piece of my broken heart wherever she walked. And after how long?
"A lifetime." I chuckled sadly. She was always there for me. She was. I can't go through an old picture book or even walk outside without running into something that reminds me of her. But . . . she turned her back on me. On all of us, actually; all our-no, sorry, all my friends. No one's heard from her in forever, and I wanna keep it that way.
"I miss her so much." escaped from my mouth before I could register the words. My eyes grew wide; I threw my hands over my mouth and stepped back in surprise. I can't believe I just said that! After everything she's put me through. . . I dropped my arms and hung my head. I had it soooo bad for her. She was reason I got up in the morning. I did anything and everything for her. She freakin' owned me. And I loved every minute of it. . .
"But a three-and-a-half year relationship will do that to you, huh?" I muttered bitterly. I heard a knock on the door and looked back at it.
"Mikayla?" Justin called. "Are ya in there?"
"Door's open." I said. I saw the doorknob twist and my big brother began to enter. "But that doesn't mean you can come in." He sighed and stopped where he was, shoting me an annoyed "seriously?" look at me.
"I'm just joking, c'mere." I said motioning him to come in. "What's up?" Justin took three steps inside and stopped. He looked at me and paused for a moment before speaking.
"Can I ask you somethin' serious, Mikayla?" he asked, crossing his arms. I shrugged.
"Sure, whatever you want."
"And will you answer me? No matter what?"
"If I don't wanna do it, then I'm not gonna." I said. "You should know that better than anyone, Justin."
"Unfortunately, I do." he muttered, looking away for a moment. "But seriously. . . I wanted to ask you if you were you a-alright?"
"Fine," I said, turning back to the window. "Never better. Is that all you wanted?" I opened the curtains and heard my brother sigh.
"Yeah, pretty much." he replied, obviously disapointed. He probably expected me to say more. "Oh, and-" I saw him look over my shoulder briefly. "Dad uh, needs your help out back in the stables." I gave him a nod and he left my room. I spotted my black cowboy hat on my pillow and put it on. I made my way downstairs and out the back door.
"Dad?" I called out. Silence. I walked off the back porch and shuffled around the yard. "Hey, Dad? Are you out here?" Nothin' still. Oh, well. I shrugged and walked over to our horse stable. Gosh, we really need to give it another paint job. . . I opened the doors and heard one only neigh in response. Lazy horses. . . and from me, that's sayin' something! It's almost 5 o'clock and they're not up yet? I told Dad he should've let 'em stay outside today; it's not gonna rain like he said it was. But you know, you can't win against his "cowboy intuition" or whatever. And he calls me stubborn.
"Holly? Kidd? Jack? Russell? Robin?" I called out. I shuffled in and heard a snort.
"Holly?" I said. No answer; it wasn't her. If it was, she would've answered immediately. "Kidd?" Still no answer. After a pause, I heard the sound of a shuffling hoof and another snort followed.
"Jack, is that you?" Jack was Max's horse, Max's small, energetic little horse. My little brother almost never rides the poor stag, so I look after him. Well, I look after all the horses, really. I made my way over to Jack's stall and he neighed happily when he saw me. I smiled and reached out to touch him. He lowered his head and I stroked his black mane. He was a jet black horse, like Holly, but he was smaller than he should've been. People misguess his age because of it; they think he's Holly's foal. I mean, he's not that little, but he's still small, and he hangs around her alot. I think he's kinda scared of the other horses. . . actually, he's scared of everyone. Everyone new to him, that is. It took him about 3 weeks after he was born to warm up to me, 7 and a half months to warm up to Justin, 10 months not to be scared of Mom and Dad, and about 2 years to let Max even pet him.
"Come on, Buddy." I said. "We're goin' outside." I opened the stall gate and Jack pranced off with his head held high. I chuckled at his eagerness and looked back. Holly was beginning to stir in her stall, which right next to Jack's.
"You wanna come, Holly?" I asked, opening her gate. She took a step forward and slowly trotted out. I walked beside her until we reached the field. Jack was running around in circles and Holly let out a thoughtful huff, which I think was equivalent to "Oh gosh, what is that buck doing now?" in english. She padded over to him and I went to get their brushes, which were on the fence by the Stewart place.
"Dammit! Blue Jeans, give that back right now!" Miley yelled. I heard a neigh, more like laughter than anything else, followed by the thunder of horse hooves. I looked over the fence and saw Miley chasing after a white horse; he had something long, green and sparkly in his mouth.
"Blue Jeans, come on! That's my favorite scarf!" Miley whined. I chuckled at her and watched as Blue Jeans practically ran circles around her. Miley groaned and stopped in her tracks. Blue Jeans kept going, though. He stopped running, but started walking until he was standing right beside the brunette. Miley made a desperate last attempt to grab the scarf and Blue Jeans charged away from her. He ran straight ahead and jumped over the fence into my yard.
"Blue Jeans!" Miley gasped. "What are you doing? Come back here!" The horse paid her no mind. He galloped towards Holly and Jack; Jack reared up on his hind legs and let out a frightened neigh. The small black horse ran away, in my direction, but steered off even further when Blue Jeans began to follow.
"Blue Jeans!" Miley called again. She was running towards the horse, trying to get her scarf back, but the white horse had other plans. He dodged her yet again, and ran over to me. I took a step back as he approached; he slowed his pace down to a walk and stopped beside me.
"Hi, Fella." I greeted him. He lowered his head, flicking his left ear, and I brought my hand up to pet him. He dropped the scarf in my palm and looked up. But why did he look-
"Blue Jeans!" Miley groaned. Oh, that's why. I looked up and saw an angry brunette coming towards us. Her cheeks had adopted a shade of red, probably because of all that running, and she was trying to catch her breath. Her eyes met mine and the anger disappeared. It was immediately replaced by nervousness. She still looked like she was having trouble breathing.
"Oh! Uh, M-Mikayla. . ." she said. Her cheeks grew a little redder. "I-I'm sorry about Blue Jeans. He got away from me and I-I didn't expect him to jump the fence and scare that little horse and h-he's really a good boy, I don't know what came over him. . . h-he usually listens to me but for some reason today, I-"
"Think this belongs to you." I cut her off, holding up her scarf. I think it's adorable when she rambles like that.
"Thanks." she mumbled, coyly slipping her hand into mine and taking her belonging from me. My heartbeat quickened. "Sorry again about Blue Jeans."
"No problem." I assured her. I looked towards Holly. Blue Jeans had somehow snuck his way over to her. "So that's the horse you were talking about?"
"Huh?"
"A couple days ago, when you and your dad had dinner here. That's your horse? Blue Jeans?" I said. Miley nodded and chuckled at herself.
"Oh. Yeah, that's him." she replied. I heard a worried neigh come from behind and tuned around. Jack timidly approached me; I draped my arm around his neck and he relaxed.
"Aww, did Blue Jeans scare him that bad?" Miley frowned. She reached out to touch him.
"Probably shouldn't do that." I advised. "He's real skiddish around new people." Despite my warnings, she placed three fingers on the bridge of his nose. It surprised me when Jack relaxed even more at her touch than he did with mine. I moved my arm and Jack took a step closer to Miley.
"Little guy looks fine." she smiled. Jack shook his mane a bit and lifted his nose, making Miley's full palm rest against him.
"He's never done that before. To anyone." I murmured.
"First time for everything, right?" Miley smiled. She looked to the black horse. "Maybe he just likes me." Jack made a small whinny and trotted back to Holly.
"So. . ." Miley started.
"Yeah?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. Miley put a smirk on her face and crossed her arms.
"You still up for that race, Russo?" she challenged.
"Haha. . .sure, why not, Stewart?" I said. "Blue Jeans looks just fast enough to keep up with Holly." This, apparently, made her angry. She's so cute when she's arguing.
"Keep up? She's gonna be kissing his tail." Miley declared. She smiled even harder. "And you're gonna be lookin' at mine."
"Oh, am I now?"
"Tell me where and when and we'll be there." I heard a rumble of thunder and looked up.
"Aww. I'd say today, but we all know how ya'll city girls are afraid of gettin' your hair wet." I said smugly, looking back down to meet Miley's gaze.
"I'm sure I'll live." she said. "But I mean, if you're too scared, then-"
"Me? Scared of you?" I laughed. "As if! I got stuff to do today." I got zip to do today. I mean, I'm supposed to clean my room, but psssh! We all know that's not gonna happen. I just wanna wait awhile; I don't feel like taking Holly out in the rain today.
"If you say so." Miley sighed. "Another time, then." She called Blue Jeans and began walking back to her side of the fence.
"What? No goodbye, Big City?" I said jokingly, folding my arms over my chest. "Don't they have manners where you're from?" Miley turned around just as the rain started to fall and smiled at me. I felt my heartbeat speed up again and struggled to show no emotion on my face.
"Later, Cowgirl." she purred, pointing to the top of her head. I reached up and fingered the brim of my black cowboy-er cowgirl hat. She turned around just as a smile accidently slipped onto my face.
"Bye, Miley." I said softly. I doubt she heard me. Jack trotted back inside the stables and Holly padded over to me. She stared.
"What?" I asked. The horse snorted in amusement, casting me an almost knowing look.
"I just said goodbye to her, Holly." I replied. "Simple bye. It was nothing, really." Holly flicked her right ear and lowered her neck. She used her head to give me a gentle push in the direction Miley had just gone in. I looked back at her, pretty confused, but she turned around and went into the stable. . .
"What was that?" I asked myself. Does Holly know something I don't know?
So here's the next chpt! =3 It feels too short to me, but I didn't know what else to add to it. Does Holly REALLY know something Mikayla doesn't know? Who will win the girls' race? Will Holly and Blue Jeans play a part in the Mikiley relationship? And where in the WORLD do Harper, Max and Justin fit into this? HAPPY 2011 EVERYONE! I'll update as soon as I can. . . but I kinda forgot where I'm going with this story lol so it may take a minute. . . possibly. But I don't know. I never know haha ;) Review, plz! It makes me happy. :3