by Sawyer Belle
Mackenna: I just want to hurry through these pre-requisites and get on to the meat of what I want to study. How are things with you and Alora?
Brent: Fine here. Just spending the days fixing fences and foraging to store for the winter feed before the first snows come. Mom is good.
Mackenna: Glad to hear it. Please tell her hello for me.
Brent: Sure thing. Well, I guess I better let you go get some rest.
Mackenna: I’m not tired at all…but if you are, I can let you go.
Brent: Nope. I’m surprisingly awake.
Mackenna: So…tell me what kind of photos you’ve taken in the last month…
They carried on this way for another two hours, sleep pulling at their eyelids but neither wanting to give into it. It was Mackenna who finally ended the chat, and she only did so for Brent’s benefit. She knew that long days on the ranch were far more tiring than being stuck in the classroom. When she finally burrowed beneath the down comforter she fell asleep with a smile on her lips.
Their routine continued for the next several months. Each night, they spent hours chatting on the computer. They chatted about daily trivia, about the folks they both knew, about favorite books, movies, politics, their beliefs and doubts about God. No subject was off-limits, save any that concerned their feelings toward one another.
Mackenna often found herself browsing the internet for deals on flights to Montana. She knew she couldn’t afford it. Though she had earned a scholarship to pay her tuition, her actual living expenses were being paid by her summer earnings and she needed to stretch those funds as far as possible to avoid having to get a job on top of her seven courses. She sighed wistfully as she signed off of the computer.
A few months later, fully invested in her second semester, she sat in front of the same monitor, drifting to sleep in spite of the six cups of coffee she’d poured down her throat. A mid-term research paper on the literary and social influence of Hemingway was blurring before her eyes. She had an hour before her shift started at her new job and unless she wanted to pull another all-nighter, she needed to complete the paper before she left.
Her chin rested fitfully in her palm. Her elbow was propped up on the desk. Her eyes sank behind her eyelids and she felt her body relaxing into a fit of peaceful sleep. When the jingle of the instant messenger rang out from the computer, her chin slipped out of her palm, and her head dropped like a bowling ball, slamming her face onto the keyboard.
Brent stared at the computer screen, waiting for her to respond to his greeting. They hadn’t been able to chat in three days. In their last communication she had told him that she’d gotten a job at a coffee shop since her funds were running low. She also had midterm exams and papers to prepare for. He’d waited to find her online each night, but she was never there. He expected she was either too busy or too tired to chat. As her response popped up on the screen, he didn’t know what to think.
Mackenna: cjkljajvorn
He stared at the jumbled letters and wondered if her response had been intentional, if she was drunk or if she was studying Russian. When she didn’t add anything else, he decided to respond.
Brent: Well…I must say I’m at a complete loss for words.
Mackenna winced as she rubbed the tip of her nose and her forehead to ease the pain. She just knew that if she were to look in the mirror she would see letters imprinted across her face. Ouch! She’d never fallen asleep sitting straight up before. She was definitely in need of rest. As the pain subsided she read Brent’s messages and chuckled as she typed a response.
Mackenna: Oh man, you are not going to believe what just happened!
Brent: What happened?
Mackenna: I fell asleep sitting up and when you messaged me my face hit the keyboard!
Brent: Are you serious?
Mackenna: Dead serious. That hurt!
Brent: Hold on a sec…I’m laughing so hard I need a drink of water!
Mackenna: Me, too. Wow! I’ve never had that happen before. I don’t recommend it.
Brent: Sounds like you need some rest.
Mackenna: Won’t argue there, but unfortunately I won’t be able to get any for another six hours. I’ve got to work in a little bit.
Brent: So, how is the new job panning out? You like it?
Mackenna: It’s a job. The people seem nice. The hot chocolate is the best I’ve ever tasted. Seriously though, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I didn’t overdo it this semester. It’s really taking a toll on me – working and taking seven courses.
Brent: Any way you could drop a class or two and pick them up next semester?
Mackenna: Sure, but it wouldn’t be worth it. I mean, the semester is already halfway done. It would seem like such a waste to quit now.
Brent: True. Maybe you ought to slow it down next semester then. You don’t want to burn yourself out.
Mackenna: Too late. It’s just depressing. I thought that…well, I just thought college would be different. All I’ve ever wanted to do is work with animals, and here I am a year into it and I’ve not seen one animal. I haven’t even been able to get down to my folks’ house and help them out. It just seems like being here and laboring like this isn’t bringing me any closer to my goal. I mean, why do I need to study Hemingway and anthropology to be a vet? I can enrich my cultural side on my own. I WANT TO STUDY ANIMALS, DAMMIT!
Brent: Well…Hemingway was a jackass. Does that count?
Mackenna smiled as his words popped up on the screen. This was why she loved him, why she loved talking to him. No matter what was going on in her life, in her world away from his, he could reach into her heart and warm it. He could make her smile when she didn’t feel like it. God, she missed him.
Chapter 16
Brent clicked to submit his credit card information and when the confirmation page popped up with his flight details, he smiled and printed the page. Mackenna was going to flip out when she saw him. The poor girl was in serious need of some fun. Her first semester nearly buried her in homework so much that she spent her entire Christmas break practically catching up on sleep and her second semester was proving even more challenging with the addition of her coffee shop job.
This weekend was her eighteenth birthday and she had no plans to celebrate. Her parents were out of town, having flown to Las Vegas when her grandmother had taken a fall in her retirement home and was hospitalized. Brent booked Emma to stay with his mother for the weekend, and he’d cleared the absence with the McCraes. He was flying out in two days for Reno.
He was looking forward to seeing her again, but in the back of his mind he feared the meeting would be awkward. They had grown closer over the months of conversations. She knew some of his deepest and most private thoughts and he knew hers. Would that intimacy carry over comfortably in person?
He didn’t care if there was awkwardness. She had become his closest friend in the last ten months. Whatever clumsiness their newfound knowledge of each other caused, they would get through it quickly. He was sure of it.
She hadn’t expected snow on her birthday. True, mid-March was still plenty cold in northern Nevada, and the right set of clouds could dump flurries at any time of the year. She remembered snow in June one summer as a child. Still, she dreaded leaving the warmth of the fireplace in the coffee shop for her cold studio apartment, trading the best hot chocolate for a bowl of chicken-flavored Top Ramen.
The shop had filled with bodies, as tended to happen when the cold wind blew people indoors. It was open mic night and already someone was plucking their guitar, fine tuning the strings for their musical debut. She bundled herself into her coat and pulled her white beanie down over her ears. Gathering the school books she’d been studying before her shift, she waved to her co-workers and eased out into the night. With the shop so close to her apartment she never wasted the gas to drive the distance. The walk home usually took her fifteen minutes. She determined to make it in ten.
Flakes of snow caught on her hair and eyelashes as she stompe
d through the thin white blanket underfoot. Her breath hovered before her face like a cloud the entire time. Midterms were finally over but instead of taking the extra time to rest, she’d picked up more shifts to earn the extra cash. Every inch of her cried out for sleep. Her body yearned for the warmth of the coffee shop and her nose began to drip. She sighed. What a birthday.
Her parents had called earlier and sang to her and that had lifted her spirits briefly, but then she’d had to go to class. Now, she was heading to her cold apartment with nothing to look forward to but her late-night chat with Brent. Maybe she’d find something interesting on the television, but she doubted it. She couldn’t afford cable and the three free channels available to her never offered much by way of entertainment.
As she rounded the corner the steps down to her door glistened. One foot on the concrete was all it took to send her sliding on the slick ice that had formed there and she landed hard on her bottom, her books flying into the slushy ground. She yelped at both the pain in her rear and the damage done to her books. She gasped and grabbed them quickly using the underside of her coat to dry them, but it was too late. The pages were already warped and the words bled together. She’d have to buy new books, which she couldn’t afford.
Angrily, she threw the books down the steps at her door and buried her face in her hands and wept. If her parents knew of her situation, they would come sweeping in to rescue her with money she hadn’t earned. She wouldn’t do that to them. Just the thought of them made her weary. She missed home. She was terribly lonely, terribly overworked and sleep-deprived, and her bottom was starting to throb.
This was the worst birthday ever.
“What’s this? Tears on your birthday?”
She heard his voice from behind her and her head snapped up. It couldn’t be. She had to be imagining things. Slowly, she turned around and saw him standing above her, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and a bouquet of daisies in his hand. He wore hiking boots, dark jeans and a black hoodie. His hair was as long as the last time she saw him and the lower half of his face darkened in that sexy way he always wore his stubble. Good Lord, she had forgotten how good looking he was. And he was there!
Her eyes went wide and her mouth fell open to speak but she could not find her voice, so she smiled.
“Isn’t your ass getting cold?” he said with a wicked grin.
She looked at the ground, as if she’d forgotten where she sat, and chuckled.
“I think it needs to be iced right now,” she returned. “That hurt.”
“I’ll bet,” he said and held out his free hand. She took it, finding it warm though it was bared to the elements. Easily, he pulled her to her feet and she threw her arms around him without thinking. He did the same and she wanted to melt into his embrace and stay there forever. All traces of the cold night vanished in his arms. There was no loneliness and no ache, only pure joy.
“What are you doing here?” she asked into his chest, where her head was pressed.
“I had a feeling you needed a friend,” he answered.
She sighed into his sweatshirt. “You were right.”
He smiled softly to himself. Her hair was damp and tumbling over his fingers in soft waves. He didn’t know that it curled when it was wet. Every time he had seen it it had either been dry, straight or bundled in a knot. The thought amused him that after months of feeling like he knew everything about this girl, he could still discover something new like that. He pulled away to look at her.
“Happy birthday,” he said, handing her the flowers. She took them and buried her face in them.
“Thank you. They’re beautiful.”
“I’m glad you like them.” He looked up into the fluorescent street lamplight and watched the white flakes drifting toward him. “Well, I had hoped to be able to take you out for a nice dinner. You up for it?”
She formed a pout. “You mean I’m not going to be able to have my ramen noodles tonight?”
“Good God is that what you’ve been eating?” he said with disgust. When she nodded, he continued, “Looks like I arrived just in the nick of time. Let’s get this stuff inside and then get some food.”
She tucked the flowers into the bend of her arm and used her other hand on the railing to steady her descent. Once they were both safely inside her apartment, she blushed clear to her eyebrows at the disheveled state of the place. Laundry, clean and dirty, was strewn about the unmade bed, the computer desk and the floor. Dishes piled in the sink and on the counter. Emptied coffee mugs adorned every space of the computer desk not covered with papers and clothes. At least the bathroom was clean, she thought. She might let everyday tidying slide, but she could not abide a dirty bathroom. She spun quickly to face him, an apologetic and horrified look plaguing her face.
“I’m really not a slob, I promise you,” she pleaded for him to believe her. “I’m usually very neat and orderly. I just…haven’t had much time or energy to clean the place lately.”
Brent braced his hands on her shoulders and looked at her earnestly.
“Mackenna, I’m not here to judge the cleanliness of your place. I’m here to make you forget crap like this.”
“Yeah, but I’m being serious….”
“Mackenna,” he interrupted gently, “just say ‘okay, Brent.’”
She looked skeptically at him, wanting to press her defense.
“Say it, Mackenna,” he demanded softly. She sighed in defeat.
“Okay, Brent.” He smiled.
"Good. Now, do you mind if I take a quick shower? I’ve got airport stink on me.”
“Sure!” she brightened.
The condition of her bathroom would prove that she wasn’t a slob. Plus, his showering would give her an opportunity to perform an emergency pick-up of the place. He stepped around her and locked himself in the bathroom. As soon as the door shut, Mackenna was fast on her feet, ignoring the thrumming pain in her bottom. Her clothes were all piled into the hamper, clean or not. She threw the sheets and comforter across the bed, straightening and smoothing out the lines. She stacked the papers on her desk neatly, filled her fingers with mugs and set to work in the kitchen, scrubbing dishes.
The bane of having a small apartment was also the benefit. There was too little room to make too big a mess. By the time the last dish was placed on the drying rack, she heard the bathroom door open behind her. She turned and saw Brent emerging from a cloud of steam. He wore the same dark jeans, but had upgraded his shoes to a pair of black Merrils. His hoodie was replaced with a nice thick, dark blue wool sweater. His hair was dripping tiny drops onto his shoulders but had been combed through and tucked behind his ears. A faint scent of cologne drifted out toward her with the steam and she inhaled a lungful of it, storing it in her memory along with the view of him standing in there with her, looking so fine.
“And just like that, the cowboy’s gone,” she said of his transformation.
“Cowboy?” he grimaced. “I’m not a cowboy. Do you think I dress like a cowboy?”
She laughed at his worried expression. “Of course you’re a cowboy. If you’re not then I don’t know who is.”
He frowned and she laughed again.
“What’s wrong with being a cowboy?” she asked.
“Well, I guess that depends on what kind of cowboy you’re talking about,” he returned. “If we’re talking Frederick Burnham, then that’s fine, but if we’re talking someone like…Garth Brooks or something, then no thanks.”
She giggled. “Definitely Burnham.”
“Yeah?” He sounded so hopeful that Mackenna couldn’t help but stroke his ego.
“Oooh yeah.”
“Good deal,” he said with an approving nod before he eyed the newly cleaned apartment. “Either you’re a fast cleaner or I took way too long in the shower.”
“It wasn’t that messy, was it?”
“No. I’m just giving you a hard time. You ready?”
She laughed. “Uh, no. I need to change.”
“What’s wrong with what you’ve got on?” he asked sincerely.
“It’s nowhere near as nice as what you have on, that’s what.” She removed her thigh-length black coat to reveal that she wore a pair of thick black ski pants and a long-sleeved gray Wolfpack shirt. Winter boots and a white beanie completed her outfit. She felt like the frump of all frumps, but it was warm and comfortable and she wore a full-length apron at the coffee shop to cover it up anyway.
“You look fine,” Brent said, amused at how cute she looked being swallowed up by her clothes.
“Ha!” she retorted. “Well, either way, I’m changing. Don’t worry. I won’t be long. Make yourself comfortable.”
She went into the closet and retrieved a few items and then disappeared into the bathroom. Brent looked around the tiny apartment and then sat down on the edge of the bed. She had a dozen photos pinned to the wall beside her computer desk. Some were of the two of them together in Montana that made him smile. There were others of her and Kelly, her and two other adults that he assumed were her parents, her with horses and dogs and even one with her and a llama. That one made him laugh.
“What’s so funny?” she called through the bathroom door.
“I’m just laughing at the picture of you and the llama.”
“Aww, my Chick,” she said sadly. “He died last year.”
“Sorry to hear it,” he said. “Do you see much of Kelly these days?” He studied the photo of her and Mackenna at their high school graduation. Both were grinning from ear to ear. The thought struck him that Mackenna looked far younger in that photo than she did presently, and not even a full year had passed.
“Not really,” she answered. “She moved to the Bay Area and is going to school in San Francisco. I saw her around Christmas, but she doesn’t really make it back here during the school year. We chat on the Internet though from time to time.”
Mackenna applied the final coat of mascara to her lashes and gave herself a once-over in the mirror. She had wet the top half of her hair to match the waves of the strands that hadn’t been covered by the beanie. A few scrunches of mousse and it would dry in the same manner. She had lined her lower lids with black liner and the blue of her eyes popped with the effects. A thin layer of nude-colored gloss painted her lips. She had traded her outfit for a pair of dark jeans to hug her redefined curves and shrunken form and a black turtleneck sweater. Black dress boots gave her another two inches of height. She was ready.