Dirty Cowboy

by Alycia Taylor

  When I got home I found Dad in the back yard, mowing the lawn. I poured him a glass of iced tea and took it out to him.

  “Thank you. So, how was it?” he asked.

  “It was good. Really good. Thank you for suggesting it.” I handed him the AMEX card and said, “I only bought a couple things and I had enough so I didn’t use the card. But thanks Dad, for everything.” I hugged him. He smelled like fresh-cut lawn and Dad. I thought about telling him that I’d also decided to keep seeing Ian…but I thought maybe I should talk to Ian first and he and I could decide together where we were at and where we wanted to let this thing go. That way when Dad started asking questions, I would have answers. Besides, I got the feeling it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Before I went to bed I sent Ian a text that said, “I’d like to see you. Can we talk?”

  I left it at that and went to sleep. I slept a lot better than I had the night before. The first thing I did after I once again shook off the horror that was beginning to be the morning norm for me, was reach for the phone. I was literally stunned when I saw that he’d never responded. That was strange. I didn’t let myself panic over it though, remembering my promise to stop living in the drama. I just sent him another one that said,

  “Hey! Did you get my text?”

  I got up after that and went about my morning routine. I refused to even carry the phone around with me. I trusted that he would text back. I took my shower and then I stayed busy for the next couple of hours doing laundry and cleaning up around the house. My dad had gone to visit his friend, so I had the house to myself. I turned up the music and while I cleaned I thought about what I would say when I saw Ian. I was going to tell him that we needed to just start fresh and be honest about everything. I really wanted it to work with him, and I thought that he did too. I think we have both been so afraid that the other was only in this for the short term while the grief passed that we were afraid to be completely honest about how we were feeling…at least I had. I was hoping he felt the same.

  After I finished the housework I let myself check my phone again. There were two text messages. One from my dad that said, “Hey Princess. Just checking in. You doing okay today?”

  I texted back: “I’m good, Dad. Don’t worry. Have fun.”

  The other message was from a girl from school named Heather. Heather said,

  “Just wanted to make sure you were doing okay. Haven’t heard from you. Worried.”

  Heather was a new friend, but she was a good one. I measured all my friends by Emma standards. Most of them didn’t pass. The bar was set pretty high. The odds were looking good for Heather though. She would never take Emma’s place, but she could definitely work out as a long-term close friend. I texted back.

  “Thanks for checking in. I’m hanging in there. I hope you and everyone at school are doing well. I miss you guys, but home is what I need right now. Maybe we can have dinner or drinks next week?”

  I was trying to stall. I didn’t want to have to face the fact that there was nothing from Ian. Suddenly my mind started going to dark places. What if something happened? What if there was something wrong? No one would think to call me if he was in an accident. No one except my dad even really knew that Ian and I were involved. I decided I’d call him and if he was in the hospital or something, someone else would answer if it rang, right? I pulled up his number and pressed send. I held my breath, but I didn’t have to hold it for long. It went straight to voicemail. What the hell? Maybe he was at the gym…but would that explain why he didn’t answer my texts?

  I spent the next hour worrying, pacing and trying to call him back. I even considered calling his mom, just to see if she heard from him. Then I thought about how horrible that would be if something really was wrong and decided against it. It just didn’t make sense to me why he wouldn’t text me back…or why he had his phone off. When I left his apartment, neither of us was angry…at least I didn’t think so. I just told him I needed some space, and he gave that to me. I told him I wasn’t angry and I don’t recall doing anything that should have upset him. So why was he ignoring me now? There had to be something wrong, it was the only explanation I could come up with. I grabbed my purse and keys and headed out to his apartment to find out.

  When I got there and knocked on the door, I had butterflies in my stomach. I couldn’t stop letting my mind go to those ugly places where something terrible happened to him and his parents and I would have to go through what we had with Emma, all over again. He didn’t answer on the first knock, so I knocked again, that time more urgently. A few seconds passed and he pulled the door open. First he looked surprised…and then annoyed. Was he that unhappy to see me?

  “Alexa? What are you doing here?” I guess that answered my question.

  “You’re not answering my texts or my calls. I was worried about you.” Why wasn’t he inviting me in? He had his body in the doorway like he was barring my entrance. Talk about hostile body language. What the hell?

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I was just on my way out. I have to meet with the fight promoter.” He reached over to the table next to the door and picked up his keys. Then he twisted the lock and stepped out. I didn’t want to think he had someone else in there, but it was almost like he wanted me to.

  “Ian? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I told you, I’m fine. I just have to go. I’m running late.” He turned his back on me and headed for the stairs. I was freaking out a little. I went over and stood between him and the stairwell.

  “Ian, talk to me. Are you angry with me? I just needed some time, I thought you understood that. I wasn’t mad….”

  “I’m not angry, Alexa, but I’m getting there. I need to go and you’re making me late. You need to just let me go, okay?”

  “Why are you treating me like this? I didn’t do anything wrong?” He pushed past me, not literally, he didn’t touch me, but he brushed by and went down the stairs. Again, I followed him. Maybe I needed to learn when to give up. “Ian, please talk to me!” He just ignored me and kept walking. I’m not sure what I thought I was going to accomplish, but I kept following him. I was hurt and angry and really, really pissed that I was practically begging him to talk to me and he wouldn’t.

  “Ian!” I said one more time as he got into his car. Then I stood there and watched him leave, not even glancing at me as he did. My chest was aching and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Why would he do this to me? If he didn’t want to be with me, didn’t I at least deserve to know why? Why was he acting like such a jerk?

  I went back home and stayed in my room the rest of the day and night. When Dad got home, I pretended like I was asleep. I didn’t want to talk to him about Ian. I didn’t want to talk about anything. I was too busy obsessing over what I did to warrant Ian’s attitude earlier. I kept going over our recent conversations in my head and I couldn’t come up with an explanation for his behavior. Just before his ex-girlfriend got there, we had been having a great time. What the hell happened between then and now? I knew it was going to drive me crazy if I didn’t at least find out why. When the reminder went off on my phone for his fight the next night, I decided that I was going to go and afterwards, he was going to talk to me whether he liked it or not.

  Chapter Six

  Ian

  I went to the meeting with my promoter, sick to my stomach about how I’d treated Alexa. I know that it hurt her, I could see it all over her face and I had to wonder if this was any better than continuing to see her would have been. I’d made a promise to her father though and I felt like since he knew his daughter a lot better than I did, he had to know what he was talking about. While I was in my meeting, my phone buzzed twice. I checked it on my way out of the office and saw that one was from my mother and the other from Kristie. Fuck! That woman just couldn’t take no for an answer. I ignored the one from Kristie and checked the one from Mom. It just said,

  “Ian, I’m sorry to bother you honey but if you have a minute, could you stop by today?”
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  My head was already pounding, but what choice did I really have? I texted her back and told her I was on my way. When I got there, I found her and my dad both sitting out on the back patio. I stopped and looked out the glass doors at them for a few minutes before they knew that I was there. They both looked so old. They weren’t even looking at each other, both just staring off into space as if the other one wasn’t even there. I couldn’t help but wonder how long their relationship was going to be able to survive this. They had been married almost thirty years and there was a time when I would have sworn nothing could have torn them apart. But nobody could have ever anticipated losing Emma. I know they love me and losing me would have been hard…but losing Emma was like someone just flipped the light switch in their world off and they had no idea how to turn it back on.

  I forced myself to go out there and put on a happy face.

  “Hi guys!” I said as I slid open the door.

  “Hi Ian,” Mom said. I kissed her cheek.

  “Hey buddy,” my dad said, getting up to give me a hug. I sat down at the table with them and said, “So what’s up?”

  Mom and Dad looked at each other and something passed between them. Finally they both looked at me and Mom said, “We’re going to sell the house.”

  “What? Why?”

  Dad looked at me with sad eyes and said, “Because neither of us can stand to be here any longer, Ian. There are too many memories…it’s too painful. Your mother thinks this is the solution.”

  I could tell by the way he’d said that, he wasn’t too sure. “So you’re going to sell it? You’re just going to get rid of the memories of my sister’s childhood…and I know this doesn’t matter to anyone, but mine too?”

  “Oh Ian, honey please don’t say that. Of course yours matter too.” Mom was getting tears in her eyes and Dad looked like someone was shoving needles in his body over and over. I felt bad for them both, but I was pissed. Mom went on.

  “It just hurts so much to be surrounded by the memories day in and day out. Everything here reminds us of her. It’s not that we want to forget her honey…it’s just that neither of us seems to be able to get past this grief. We can’t move on. We’re just stuck. We were hoping if we sold the house and started over, we could take her memories with us, but we wouldn’t be surrounded by them. I know this has been your home your whole life too. Of course we thought about you. We haven’t even talked to a realtor yet. We wanted to talk to you first.”

  “So you’d sell it, and then what? Where would you go and start over?”

  “We were thinking maybe an apartment in the city. Dad’s work is there anyways and I could find lots to do to keep me busy…Please don’t be angry, Ian,” Mom’s voice cracked.

  “I’m not angry. I’m just…confused, I guess. I know that you need to be able to move on …and I want that, for both of you. But…”

  “It feels like we’re running away.”

  Dad hit the nail on the head. It felt like they were running away. As stupid as it sounded, it felt like they were abandoning me. “I guess it feels that way because we are,” he said. He gave my mother another sideways glance and said, “We went to a grief support group last week and when we mentioned that we’d thought about doing this, the response was overwhelmingly negative.” I suddenly knew this was entirely Mom’s decision, not his. He was going along with it for her peace of mind, I guess. I was just afraid they’d go through with it and not find the peace they were looking for.

  “Why was the response negative?” I asked. I’d never lost a child, but the people at this group my parents went to have. It would stand to reason that they’d know a lot more about it.

  “They say that a lot of people do it, thinking it’s going to help, and it doesn’t,” Mom said. Then she looked at me with those sad blue eyes and said, “But Ian, we’ve tried everything else.” She glanced back at my father again. He wasn’t looking at either one of us but he started talking again,

  “They also talked about the siblings,” he said, looking at me finally. “They talked about how your own grief overwhelms you so much that a grieving parent tends to forget that their children are grieving too. I think we’ve done this to you and we feel so badly about it. I’m worried that you’re going to look at this as another way we’re leaving you behind.”

  “That’s not it!” Mom said, crying again, “I just can’t stand another day sitting in this house thinking that it’s always going to be this way.” I pulled my chair over closer and hugged her. I could see my father out of the corner of my eye. He looked so broken. God, I hate this.

  I held my mom and let this all run through my head and then I said, “I’m going to say this and then you two can do whatever it is you think is right. I love you both too, and I know you love me. I know that being around Emma was like breathing life itself in, and it’s hard to breathe without her around. She wasn’t my child, so maybe what I’m feeling is different…but the way that I’ve been able to cope and get out of bed each day since this happened was by hanging on to the memories. I need to say her name out loud and tell stories about her. Alexa and I have spent a lot of time together talking about her. It makes losing her feel less final. I know the two of you remember her every second…but you don’t talk about her. Like I said, she wasn’t my child so I could be wrong…but I don’t see that getting rid of the memories…the very things that are keeping her alive is going to help.”

  “I feel the same,” my father said. Mom started crying again and I spent a really long time just holding her and letting her cry. By the time I left, over an hour later, they were at least talking to each other about exploring some other options before they made such a huge decision.

  I hate this shit and every time I feel this way the only thing I want besides my sister back is to talk to Alexa. Now I’ve screwed that up and I didn’t know what to do with all of the emotions. I got in the car and just sat there for a while. Then, I looked at the phone and as badly as it worked out the last time, I actually read Kristie’s message.

  “Ian. I’m sorry I showed up without calling the other night. I understand we’re not together, but can’t we still be friends?”

  On impulse, like I seemed to be doing everything lately I texted her back, “Yes. We can be friends. I could use one today.”

  Almost immediately she responded, “Are you at home?”

  “Heading there now.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Damn it! What the hell is wrong with me? I glanced up at my parents’ house and I made a mental list: My sister is dead. The girl I thought I might be falling for is out of my life. My parents are selling the only real home I’ve ever known and all of my sister’s memories…Kristie is willing to be there for me. I can’t stand the thought of being alone right now.

  I put the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway. I gave the house one more glance. I saw the image of my sister, playing soccer in the front yard when she was seven and she decided she wanted to be Mia Hamm. As crazy as it sounds, I waved at her. She waved back with that big, classic, Emma smile. I let the tears overwhelm me and I cried all the way back to my apartment.

  I saw Kristie’s car as I got close to the parking lot so I circled the block once and cleaned up my face. When I finally pulled into the lot, she got out of her car and came over to meet me.

  “How are you doing?” she said. She sounded sincere, or I wanted to believe that she was.

  “Up and down,” I told her. She hugged me and my first thought was how much better it would feel to hug Alexa.

  “You want to go get a drink or something?” she said.

  “No. I have a fight tomorrow. I don’t drink before a fight. It gets me all bloated.”

  “Okay. Maybe I could just hang out with you for a while then?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Why I didn’t just say no? Why had I texted her back in the first place…I had no idea. I put myself into these situations. I guess the drama distracted me maybe from the
grief. She followed me up to the apartment and we went inside. I got us both a bottle of water and we sat down on the couch. It was uncomfortable. I had no idea what to say to her.

  “Ian?” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I know things have been bad between us lately, but I am really sorry about what you’re going through. I wish you would let me help.”

  “I appreciate that,” I told her, “but I’m not sure how you can.”

  “You need a friend…”

  Reality washed over me and I said, “We never really were friends, Kristie. We were lovers…at best.” She looked hurt and I felt bad, but it was the truth. That was the big difference between her and Alexa. I really felt like Alexa was my friend, not just because she was Emma’s friend, but because she and I legitimately had a lot in common.

  “I don’t remember it that way,” she said. “We did a lot of other things besides sex. The sex was fantastic.” She looked at me as if looking for confirmation. I kept my face neutral. Once again I was thinking, “Not like it is with Alexa.”

  “But we did other things.”

  I finally nodded. If that’s how she wanted to remember it, I guess it didn’t really hurt anything and it made her feel better. It was at that moment it dawned on me that as crazy as I accused her of being…maybe a lot of it was my fault. How many times have I texted her lately because I was desperate for company, only to end up telling her to get lost?

  “Hey Kristie,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I think I owe you a really big apology.”

  “For what?”

  “All of this back and forth stuff. It’s not fair. I tell you we’re over and I tell you to leave me alone and then I call you and tell you to come over. It has to be confusing. I’m sorry.”

  She looked surprised and it made me feel even worse to think my apology would shock her.

  “It is confusing,” she said. “But it’s okay. I know you’ve been through so much and I understand that you’re confused yourself. You’re spending time with that…the redhead. She was a friend of Emma’s right?”