Big Sky Eyes

by Sawyer Belle

  “Oh, no you don’t, little girl,” she hissed and Mackenna rounded on her, the fire of her eyes burning into Leann’s as she spoke.

  “Get your hands off of me or I swear to God I will knock you on your ass.”

  Leann let go and looked to Brent for support. When he followed Mackenna instead, she stamped a foot and huffed off in the other direction.

  Mackenna trampled the ground underfoot as she hurried to the stables. Brent followed and shut the door behind him. Once he turned around Mackenna shoved him hard with both hands, spilling him against the wall. He looked at her in wide-eyed shock, rubbing his chest where she’d made contact.

  “You selfish bastard!” she screamed at him. He stood upright looking confusedly at her. She shoved him again and this time he stayed relaxed against the wall. “I’m not doing this anymore! I can’t take it!” Tears were streaming down her cheeks, dyed black from her makeup.

  “You can’t do what anymore?” he asked desperately. “What’s the matter?” Her behavior was worrying him.

  “What do you mean ‘what’s the matter’?!” she shouted. “How can you not know, Brent?!”

  He said nothing and she backed a few steps away and pointed toward the reception when she spoke.

  “Is that what you really want? Is that what makes you happy? You want someone who can’t even get along with your friends and family, who dresses like a Barbie, acts like a princess and bends you to her will with what she has between her thighs?! Is that really all that matters to you?!”

  “So, your problem is with Leann,” he said in understanding.

  “No, you idiot!” she shouted back. “My problem is with you!”

  “What have I done?” he said with his hands out wide.

  “Oh my God, Brent,” she laughed through her tears. “You have been so selfish. You have been using me to support you, to prop you up and make you feel better about everything, taking everything good from me and giving nothing back, using me to make your life better while you make mine unbearable.”

  “How have I done that?!” he asked, incredulous.

  “By throwing that damn woman in my face every chance you get,” she returned, wiping at her wet cheeks though more tears came. “How many hours have I spent listening to you talk her up to me? How many times have I had to hear about how good she is in bed? About how hot her body is? How many times have I called you after I’ve had a bad day only to never speak a word of it because I’ve spent the entire time listening to you?”

  “I didn’t realize that it upset you so much to hear about her,” he defended. “I won’t talk about her anymore if that’s what you want.”

  He had taken a few steps toward her and was peering into her eyes with genuine care. She turned around, knowing that she would never be able to say all that needed saying if he continued to look at her like that.

  “That’s not what I want,” she said wearily before sucking in a thin breath. “I want to know why her.” She paused and then quietly said what she really meant. “Why not me?”

  Brent stopped cold where he stood. His eyes slowly went wide as he stared at her back.

  “What did you say?” he asked lowly.

  She whirled, pain and humiliation clearly etched across her face. “I am not a kid, and I am not your sister!” Her ire deflated as more emotions took hold and her shoulders began to droop. Fresh tears of agony glistened in her eyes. “I am a woman, Brent, and I have been in love with you for two years.”

  She waited to see the impact of her words. When he said nothing, did nothing, she continued.

  “I knew you didn’t love me back, but I hoped that someday you would. I hoped that someday you would look at me and not see Natalie, but Mackenna, a flesh and blood woman who loves you with everything she has.” She shook her head woefully. “When you told me about Leann, I told myself that I could still be a friend to you even though you didn’t love me. Well, I was your friend. I listened to all you had to say even as it ripped my heart out. Yes, Brent, these past months I have been your friend. But you haven’t been mine.”

  She pinched her quivering lips together and shut her eyes.

  “And I can’t do it anymore,” she whispered painfully then looked up at his torn expression. “I won’t waste my life loving someone who doesn’t love me.”

  Brent had too many thoughts and not enough voice.

  “Mackenna…” he said in a choked whisper.

  She took a step back, her eyes once again in full flood.

  “Don’t call me,” she commanded softly. “Don’t email. Don’t chat to me if you go online and find me there.” Her frown shook with grief. “Goodbye, Brent.”

  She hurried past him and left the stables, running for the loft and its sanctuary. Brent whirled and watched her run away as he stared, dumbfounded and unable to process all that had passed. She was in love with him? For two years? The shock gave way to a tiny flicker of joy that anger quickly snuffed out.

  She pulled him in here to tell him that she loved him and that she wanted him out of her life?! What sense did that make? If she were in love with him, she sure had a damned backwards way of showing it. The one time he had kissed her, she ended up crying and refusing to talk about it. She even declared that it meant nothing to her.

  If she were in love with him, why would she not say anything? Why not give him any sign or indication of her feelings? He was the one who flew out to see her. She’d never flown out to see him, but she sure found a way to make it out here for Ty and Leslie. She never talked about her future like she had any plans involving him. How could she do everything in her power to convince him that she didn’t have feelings for him and then get angry at him for not knowing that she did?

  Was he supposed to read her mind? Was he supposed to never date anyone on the off-chance that she formed an attachment to him? If she chose to keep silent on the matter how dare she expect anything of him? She called him selfish, and said that he wasn’t a good friend. Brent’s anger rose.

  What kind of friend was she who would hold him accountable for what he didn’t know? She didn’t even ask him what his feelings were for her! All that mattered to her was her own feelings. If that was the kind of friend she was to him then good riddance! If she didn’t even care enough to ask his thoughts and feelings on the matter, then she didn’t deserve his affection. It’s not his fault that she fell in love with him and suffered over it on her own.

  He stormed out of the stables, his anger mounting with every step, fed by the defenses he put forth. He was so lost in his own anger that he nearly didn’t see his mother wheeling herself toward him. Her eyes were bright with worry but when she saw the state of his anger, her face darkened in kind.

  “I just saw Mackenna,” she said accusingly. “What happened?”

  “Mom, I’m not going to talk about it right now,” he bit.

  “Too bad. I want to know what you did to upset her.”

  “What I did?” his eyes were so wide that the moon was reflected in them.

  “Yes, what you did. You’re not the one in tears.”

  “Thanks for your confidence, Mother, but I didn’t do anything except date Leann. Mackenna has somehow imagined that she’s in love with me and she can’t handle my selfish friendship anymore. She’s cut herself out of my life for good.”

  Alora studied her son before a stunned look crossed her face. “And you’re going to let her?”

  “What do you mean let her? It’s not like I can stop her.”

  “Of course you can. Go after her!”

  “Mom, leave it alone.”

  “Brent, don’t you…”

  “Mom!” he shouted, effectively cutting her off. “Butt out!”

  He stomped past her, leaving her no opportunity to finish her sentence.

  Chapter 27

  She had given up on mascara a week ago when she realized that it would be quite some time before she could get through a day without tears. Two weeks into her summer economics course, she took h
er usual seat in the back of the auditorium so she could weep and half-heartedly listen to the droning lecture in peace. She was doing just that when a pocket-sized pack of blue tissues was thrust beneath her bowed head.

  “Here,” a male voice said and she looked up with a start. His short hair was blacker than an empty night, his eyes light brown. He looked her age, given the smoothness of his jaw and facial features, maybe a year or two older. His lips were full until they widened in a smile that made them appear thin.

  “Do I know you?” Mackenna asked softly, taking the tissues and using one to wipe her eyes.

  “Not yet,” he said. “I’m Rick, and you are killing me.” She stared at him, not amused. “I mean, I know that six hours of economics a day, five days a week is painful, but it’s seriously not worth crying over every single day. I can’t bear to watch it anymore.”

  Mackenna was instantly annoyed.

  “Well,” she returned. “Feel free not to watch it anymore then.”

  He chuckled.

  “It’s too late for that,” he said. “It’s kind of like when you notice someone has a lazy eye. You can’t stop looking once you know it’s there, and you keep wondering if it’s ever going to finally focus on you.”

  “Look,” Mackenna said with an exasperated shake of her head. “I’m sorry if I’ve irritated you with my crying. I’ll move to a different seat tomorrow.”

  “Now, see, that’s not what I had in mind.” She looked confused. “I’d just as soon we get you cheered up. That way, you don’t have to move and I don’t have to dread coming to class every day knowing I won’t be able to take my eyes off of the crying woman.”

  She coughed a sardonic laugh. “There won’t be any cheering me up. So, I suggest you find some other way to ignore me.”

  He drew his hands together beneath his chin, fingertips to fingertips, and squinted at her. “That sounds like a challenge to me,” he said.

  “Believe me, it’s not,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. “Thank you for the Kleenex, but can you please just leave me alone?”

  “Oh, no,” he said with a quiet laugh. “You’re stuck now. I’m making it my personal goal to have you smiling by the end of the day.”

  “I don’t want to smile,” she said, her voice a loud whisper. “I want to be left alone.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “YES, I DO!” she yelled and then shrunk back down in her chair as the entire class turned to look at them. She held her notebook up in front of her face as she blushed all the way to her ears. Rick laughed under his breath beside her. The professor, whose arm was still outstretched before the dry erase board poised in mid-scribble stared up at them. The thick silence suspended so long that Mackenna was sure she would shrivel on the spot.

  “Well, now that you’ve got all of our attention,” the professor said, “care to fill us in?”

  Mackenna cringed but said nothing.

  “I’m talking to the notebook in the back,” the professor said.

  Rick leaned in toward her.

  “You know you’ve got to say something,” he said. She pinched her lips shut and shook her head. “Fine. I’ll just tell them that you agreed to marry me.” Mackenna’s eyes flew wide.

  “No, you wouldn’t,” she whispered. His eyes smiled merrily as he turned to address the class.

  “Sorry, Professor Hill,” Rick said as he stood. “She just agreed to…”

  “To tutor him in economics!” she shouted over him, coming to her feet and dropping her notebook. Everyone stared, wondering why such an agreement would cause her to shout. She scanned the room until she could think of more to say. “I…I…I’m just so excited about the subject that when he offered, I jumped at the chance. Sorry for disrupting your class.”

  Professor Hill looked oddly at the pair. “Well, we are thrilled that you are so enthusiastic about economics. From now on, I expect high marks from both of you…and silence during lectures.”

  “Yes, sir,” they both said and then sat as Professor Hill carried on about supply and demand. They stared straight ahead for a few minutes before Rick finally broke the silence with a whisper.

  “I have a confession to make,” he said. Mackenna looked at him. “I really do need help with economics. I’m horrible at it.”

  Mackenna rolled her eyes. This was just what she needed, a pest to tutor. Rick smiled on one side of his mouth.

  “I have another confession to make,” he whispered. She waited. When he didn’t continue she looked at him again. “I think you are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

  “Ha,” she said with a mocking smile. “Now I know you’re full of shit.”

  “I’m being honest,” he said, his smile still in place.

  “Well, then, you need to get out more.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “Care to help me out with that?”

  “Not really.” She shook her head. “You really are a pain in the ass, you know?”

  “That may be true,” he answered.

  “It is true,” she said with a huff.

  “But you know what else is true?”

  She turned to him with raised eyebrows.

  “You’re smiling.”

  She blinked as she realized that she was.

  Brent grabbed another nail from the cluster he had clenched between his teeth and used his hammer to pound it into the wooden fence post. He continued pounding long after the head was flush with the wood. He hadn’t realized he was also biting down hard on the nails in his mouth until Ty’s cool voice invaded his hammering.

  “I think it’s in, Brent.”

  Brent held the hammer aloft for a second before striking it against the wood one last time. Then, he spit the nails onto the ground and sighed as he sat down to lean against the new fence post. Ty sat beside him and took a swig from a water jug, offering it to Brent next. He drank and then wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm.

  Ty remained quiet and Brent knew why. He was never nosy and never asked about what wasn’t his business. He was perfect that way, allowing Brent to vent only what he wanted. He just wasn’t sure what exactly was tying him in knots these days.

  His relationship with Leann had been going well in the past four months since the wedding, and by well he meant that he had stopped caring enough to fight with her, had stopped trying to mold her into the woman who was no longer in his life. All Leann wanted was to have sex and he was perfectly fine with that, even if the act had lost some of its luster. They never went out, as their interests outside of the bedroom were not the same. They never spent the night at each other’s places. They each carried on their own lives, coming together every other evening to eat, drink and basically screw.

  So many times, Brent had been on the verge of breaking up with her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. A part of him was determined to prove Mackenna wrong about her, determined to prove that she was a woman worth holding onto, that their relationship was deeper than the latest Kama Sutra pose. But he had started asking himself lately where their relationship was going. They had been dating for almost a year and neither spoke of love or marriage or anything lasting. Was that normal?

  “When did you know that you were in love with Leslie, Ty?” Brent asked.

  “Oh, man,” Ty sighed. “I’m not sure exactly when I would have called it love, but after that summer on the S that you helped out, when she went back to school in Missoula and I stayed with the cattle, that’s when I knew. I couldn’t stand being away from her, couldn’t stomach the idea of some other guy stealing her away when I wasn’t there. Course, I didn’t tell her that I loved her for a while after that. I think I wanted to hear her say it first,” he said with a chuckle.

  “How long were you guys together before you finally said it?”

  “Let’s see, that would have been eight months, near enough.”

  Brent nodd
ed. He and Leann were at ten months.

  “We got an email the other day from Mackenna,” Ty said, cutting through Brent’s thoughts. “Looks like she’ll be done with her undergrad in June.”

  Brent’s features softened instantly into surprise and pride. She had crammed four years of study into three, just as she was determined to do. The news made him smile.

  “Good for her,” Brent said honestly.

  He was happy to hear of her success. Truth was, he was happy to hear anything about her. He heaved a hot breath. He missed her. Without her to talk to and laugh with he was beginning to realize how hollow his relationship with Leann really was. Mackenna’s friendship had filled in the gaps of what was missing between him and Leann, but he was still mad at her. He was mad at her for leaving him. That’s how he saw it. She had him tried and convicted before he ever knew the charge.

  He could stoke his anger into a solid rage over it, and he did often. Then, he would replay their last moments together and the ire would cool into a deep, aching regret. He could see her standing before him as clearly as he had that day, her wavy hair streaming over her bare shoulders, her beautiful body hugging that dress, her sapphire eyes full of sadness and hurt as she confessed her love. And he just stood there, numb and silent.

  “Well, we’d best get back to it,” Ty said, rising from their resting place. “So, are you going to tell her you love her?”

  Brent looked up at Ty with his eyes wide. “What?”

  “Leann,” Ty answered with a confused look. “That’s whose on your mind, right?”

  Brent looked at the ground and swallowed.

  “Yeah,” he answered. “That’s who I was thinking about.”

  Chapter 28

  Mackenna sighed with an irritated groan when she heard the phone ring. She stared at the unfinished midterm paper on her computer screen and cursed under her breath at the endless interruptions that kept the project dragging on. She muttered the name aloud of the person responsible for all of them.

  Rick.

  Some days she really regretted ever giving him her phone number. When she’d been tutoring him through their summer class it had been necessary, but after they had both passed the course with high scores, Rick was done with his undergraduate studies and moving on to study dentistry. She’d learned through their endless sessions in the library that he had walked in the spring’s graduation ceremonies, but that he still needed to pass economics to get his diploma. Apparently, he’d failed the class two times.