A Reason to Be Alone (The Camdyn Series Book 2)

by Christina Coryell

  “Oh, I get it,” I replied, smiling at myself now that I knew they couldn’t see my face. “So this is sort of like a redneck hazing ritual.”

  “Did that uppity city snob just call me a redneck?” I heard Sara ask, and this time when I heard giggling, I knew it was from Trina.

  “Them’s fightin’ words, sister,” Rachel added as a warning in a low, growly voice.

  “Can we hurry this along?” I wondered. “These pants are gigantic, and I’m having a hard time holding them up.” Actually, they were kind of tight, but I knew that would get Rachel riled up.

  “Did you just call me fat?!” Rachel gasped. “I think she just called me fat.”

  “She’s just grasping for a way out,” Sara told her. “Stay focused, people.”

  The beam from the flashlight was starting to attract bugs, and they were flying around me like little kamikaze pilots going up against Godzilla. I started swatting at them, and my shadow sort of looked like Godzilla against the light. I could hear Trina whispering something about how weird I was.

  “Okay, enough stalling,” Sara said, interrupting my bug massacre. “We have information from a very reliable source that before you stepped foot on our sacred soil, you indicated that you could not possibly have any fun with us locals tipping cows or making moonshine.”

  “Trina!” I hissed, turning back into the flashlight’s invasive glow. “How could you?”

  “Sorry, Camdyn, but this is just too good to resist,” she laughed.

  “So, city girl,” Sara continued, “we ain’t got none of that thar moonshine to offer y’all, so I’m afeered we’ll have to disappoint ya on that count. We do, however, have a cow.” Instantly the flashlight beam left my face, and instead rested on a Holstein minding its own business about fifteen yards away.

  “No!” I stated emphatically, chuckling in disbelief. “I am not touching that thing. Run, cow! Run for your life!”

  “Well, if that’s your decision, so be it,” Sara added. “All I’ll tell you is, we’ve got the keys to the truck, and I’m pretty sure you don’t know where we are. I suppose you could stay here until morning and try to walk back to the bed and breakfast, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “Lily, you’re not going to do this to me, are you?” When she didn’t answer, I started to feel a little deflated. “Rachel, please? Trina, I was your maid of honor. How could you let them torture me like this?”

  “Yeah, you were my maid of honor,” Trina said lovingly. “If I recall, you brought one of your weird friends along, and he proposed to you in the middle of the toasts. ‘Camdyn, you’re hot and you totally get me.’”

  “Oh my gosh!” Lily gasped. “Camdyn, that’s hilarious!”

  “Don’t encourage her, Lily!” I commanded. “You’re terrible – all of you. I would never do this to you.” I sighed as I stared at that poor cow and contemplated a way out of that debacle.

  “Oh, save your whining for later,” Sara told me. “March, sister. Your cow awaits.” Hesitantly, I glanced at those girls who were ganging up on me in the cow pasture. I could tell by the looks on their faces that the only one who might give in would be Lily, and there was no way Sara was going to let that happen.

  Ugh, me and my big mouth. If only I had said people in the middle of nowhere caught lightning bugs, or sat on their porches at night. Why did I have to mention tipping cows?

  Reluctantly, I took a step toward the cow. When nobody stopped me, I took another step, and then another.

  “I think she’s really going to do it,” Trina whispered, and then I turned to face them, falling to my knees with my hands clasped in front of me.

  “Please, Trina, help me!” I begged. “Don’t you love me anymore?”

  “No more sniveling,” Sara instructed. “To the cow, please. We’re not getting any younger.”

  When I waited a few seconds and Trina didn’t respond to my plea for help, I stood up and resigned myself to walking towards that cow. With every step I took, I expected her to turn and run, but she stood there resolutely as though resigned to her fate as much as I was to mine. About three feet from her, I turned to stare at my tormenters, hands on my hips.

  “Alright, fine,” I stated in short, succinct tones. “How the heck do I tip this cow?”

  “First of all, don’t wake her up!” Sara warned me. I turned to glance at the cow’s eye, and then turned back to Sara.

  “She’s not asleep,” I commented, twisting my mouth into a smirk.

  “Um, yeah, city girl,” Sara replied. “Everybody knows that cows sleep with their eyes open.”

  “No they don’t,” I adamantly argued.

  “It’s true, Camdyn,” Rachel agreed.

  At that point, I wasn’t entirely certain that I was incorrect, but I wasn’t convinced that I was right, either, so I just stopped talking.

  “Just walk up to her slowly, put your hands above her stomach, and knock her over,” Sara coached.

  “Just walk up and tip the cow?” I repeated skeptically.

  “Yes, Camdyn,” Rachel groaned. “Hurry up already, will you? I’m getting tired.”

  Feeling slightly ridiculous, I rotated myself back to that cow, placed both my hands on that bristly hair, and shoved. I was met with a solid wall of beef and a very loud bellow.

  “See?” I complained. “I told you she was awake.”

  “You’ve lost the element of surprise!” Sara barked at me. “Hurry and try again!”

  Twisting back to the cow, I pressed my hands against her again and shoved. When she didn’t budge, I shoved a little harder, feeling the ground slip beneath my feet. As my legs started distancing themselves from each other, I realized I was headed toward a split in the pants, so I regained my position and tried once more. This time, when I pushed, she swung her head towards me and bawled as though I was trying to kill her. I stared directly into that large eye, and I felt nothing but pity for that poor animal.

  “I can’t do it,” I moaned, gently placing my hand on her back. “I guess I’ll just have to walk back to Rosalie’s.” I could have thought of dozens of reactions, but the one I didn’t expect was immediate, raucous laughter. As it slowly began to dawn on me that this was all an elaborate prank, I drew myself up and stomped my foot.

  “You bunch of bullies!” I hissed, which only caused them to laugh even harder.

  “Oh, Camdyn, you should have seen yourself trying to push over that humongous cow!” Trina cackled. “I only wish I had my camera!”

  “I took a video,” Rachel added then, to which the other girls cheered.

  “I’m never talking to any of you again,” I sulked, folding my arms sullenly across my chest.

  “Oh, yes you will, silly,” Sara insisted. “Besides, you should probably prepare yourself for the pie throwing contest.”

  “Pie throwing…” I started to ask, but I didn’t even get the words out before a dry slab of cow manure was hurled toward me, ultimately missing me and hitting that poor bovine, who snorted and stepped to the right.

  “Ew, that’s disgusting!” Trina exclaimed with shock. “I’m not doing that.”

  “Listen to the city girls, refusing to play along!” Sara proclaimed. “It’s us against you, then. Prepare yourselves for war.”

  “Camdyn, what do I do?” Trina wanted to know, suddenly becoming my friend again.

  “Oh, I don’t think so, sis!” I shouted. “You asked for it, and you’re alone on this one.” As soon as the statement left my lips, I took a direct shot to the abdomen, the dry cow pie crumbling as it hit my shirt. I leaned down and grabbed a chunk of it, flinging it back toward Sara.

  “Run!” Trina yelled, grabbing my arm and dragging me out across the field. Even I knew better than to be running haphazardly through a dark field, but Trina seemed frantic and she wasn’t letting go of my arm.

  “Wait, Trina, you’re going to knock us down, and I’m going to break an arm, and Cole’s going to have your head!” I scolded. She slowed down then, and looked
behind us with wild eyes.

  “They’re going to attack me!” she remarked, and I fought the urge to leave her there alone in the dark.

  “You deserve it, the way you were laughing at me!” I told her. “Just grab a cow pie and fight back, you coward!”

  “Grab a cow pie?” she groaned, close to tears. “Who are you and what have you done with my Cammie?”

  “Your Cammie is lost somewhere back there trying to get the knife out of her back,” I hissed. “Get the cow pie.”

  “Oh, this is so mind-bogglingly gross,” she moaned, as she bent down and started looking for some ammunition. I located a fairly large chunk of a dried mound to my left, and I lifted it and flung it like a discus through the air toward Rachel, barely missing.

  “At least they’re not very good aims,” Trina stated.

  What occurred next will go down in history, and will no doubt be repeated for generations by every one of us who happened to be there that evening. Well, at least it will be repeated by those of us who happen not to be named Trina or Camdyn. I straightened up and turned to check on Trina, who was more helpless than I anticipated, and I was surprised that she was actually getting ready to take part in Sara’s insane game. There she was, bending over and preparing to select her cow pie, and I stared at her in slight disbelief.

  At that moment, the unthinkable happened. Apparently not understanding the rules of the game, Trina retrieved her haul and prepared to throw it at Sara. Then, with the precision of a Cy Young award-winning pitcher, Trina launched a fresh, steaming pile of muck directly toward me. Even though I knew what was about to happen, I was too shocked to move.

  That is how, on the night before my wedding, I ended up with the privilege of receiving a cow pie facial. It was centered along the lower left side of my face. I felt it in my nose, and in the corner of my mouth, and I started spitting furiously and desperately trying to get that horrible smell away from me. I soon realized it was impossible until I found a way to clear it from my skin, so that t-shirt was pulled over my head, swiping at my face like I was on fire and trying to extinguish the flame. No matter how hard I rubbed that shirt across my face, I couldn’t seem to find myself free of that mess.

  About that time, I think Trina fully realized what she had done. She fell to her knees in the grass, wiping her hand against the ground like a person determined to rub the skin off her fingers. About then, I started gagging. I can only imagine what a sight we were, Trina frantically pawing at the ground and me dry-heaving as the cow calmly stared at us from about twenty yards away.

  “Yeah, I think we can go home now,” Sara quietly suggested.

  The ride back to Rosalie’s in the truck wasn’t nearly as fun for those girls as the one to the cow pasture had been. First of all, they had to deal with the horrible smell that Trina and I were now sporting. In addition, they had to listen to the soft sound of Trina sniffling every time she thought about the mess on her hand. Sitting there in my bra and Rachel’s slightly tight jeans, all I could think was that I felt completely and utterly disgusting.

  “You know,” I suddenly stated, interrupting the silence, “this would be one of those obvious occasions where it would have been nice to have a toothbrush in the glove box.” Almost in unison, the other girls went into uncontrollable laughter.

  -§-

  The next morning, I woke up a little later than normal. After we got home from the bachelorette hazing, I had to take a shower to get the cow feces out of my hair and off my face. I also brushed my teeth four or five times, feeling completely awful. By the time I was fully convinced that the smell was gone, it was really late, and I was exhausted.

  Before I even had a chance to step out of my bedroom to try to join the land of the living, there was a knock at the door.

  “Who’s there?” I asked hesitantly, expecting it to be Rosalie asking if I was going to get up, or Trina apologizing for pelting me with cow dung.

  “It’s me,” Cole’s voice stated quietly.

  “You’re not supposed to be in here!” I hissed at him, stepping over to the door and holding it shut.

  “It’s okay, I’m not coming in,” he assured me. “I just wanted to make sure you were still in one piece. After what those guys did to me last night, I was a little afraid for you.”

  “Oh, no,” I moaned. “Please tell me they didn’t shave your head or anything like that.”

  “No, nothing that couldn’t be fixed,” he admitted. “Let’s just say, I’m sure you had a better night than me.”

  “I would be willing to refute that,” I said to the door, still holding the handle tightly.

  “I ended my evening tied to a tree,” he stated quietly, and I brought my fist to my mouth so I wouldn’t laugh.

  “Mine was definitely worse,” I countered.

  “They wrote lewd messages on my back with a marker for you to read on our wedding night,” he continued.

  “Yeah, I think I still have you beat.”

  “I couldn’t get them off, so I had to pay a visit to my mother this morning,” he sighed. “As she’s trying to scrub them off, all I kept hearing was ‘Oh my heavens’ over and over.”

  Okay, that one made me giggle a little, but I had a reply ready.

  “My evening ended with me not wearing a shirt, and I had fresh cow poop in my mouth,” I told him.

  “Wow, that’s just sick,” he replied. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to look at you now.”

  “Cole Parker!”

  “I’m teasing,” he laughed. “Aunt Rosalie just walked in, and she’s threatening to beat me if I don’t go home.”

  “Yes, I will thump you!” she scolded him. “You know better than to be in here.”

  I listened as she scurried him away from my door, and the next time I heard a knock, Rosalie poked her head in the door with a smile.

  “It’s okay, he’s gone now,” she assured me. “Trina thought you might want a bite to eat, so you can get that taste out of your mouth.” Not able to hold it any longer, she started laughing and held her side.

  “Oh, keep laughing!” I stated. “Of all the bridal mishaps that could happen to a person, why do I have to be the one who winds up with a cow dung debacle? And don’t answer that!”

  I needn’t have worried – she couldn’t have answered. She was too busy laughing at my expense.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Joining Charlie and Trina for breakfast was a special treat. Trina would barely look at me, and Charlie kept glancing over as though he had done something wrong. I ate an apple and downed a glass of orange juice before either of them had spoken to me, and it was leaving me quite frustrated. This was supposed to be my special day, after all. They weren’t allowed to be moody.

  “Would you two snap out of it?” I asked. “Honestly, can’t we just be normal? Trina, so we had an incident. It wasn’t the end of the world, and quite frankly, I would like to stop thinking about it. And you, Charlie, what’s your problem?”

  “I don’t have a problem, per se,” he insisted. “We just haven’t really had a chance to talk since yesterday when you-know-who showed up, and I’m wondering how upset you are.”

  “Honestly, not at all,” I grinned, peeling a banana. “Actually, I’m thrilled that she showed up, because now I know.”

  “Know what?” Trina questioned, bringing Cooper up to her shoulder to burp him.

  “That I’m past it,” I remarked with nonchalance. “My errant mother, who I have been incensed with for years, showed up at my wedding rehearsal. I should be a basket case, right? I mean, I should at least be pondering her appearance, or drudging up old memories, or something. Honestly, though, I don’t care. I really don’t care. It’s glorious!”

  “You’re serious?” Charlie wanted to know, relief washing over his face.

  “Very,” I stated as I stood up. “Now I order you to stop being so gloomy. There’s cake in our future, and dancing. Also, some other things of varying degrees of awesomeness, a few of which you won�
�t be privy to.” I winked for good measure, and Trina giggled.

  “Spare us the details,” Charlie groaned.

  “The details?” I chuckled. “I know about how you defaced my fiancé. He had to have his mom help him get that off.”

  “His mom?” he asked, laughing pretty hard.

  “Yep,” I replied. “I dare you to try to look her in the face today.”

  -§-

  Wedding prep somehow managed to take an eternity yet be over in a flash. Trina and I watched Jeff and Ted work on getting the chairs just right around the gazebo. A little while later, we checked in on the florist as she strung the rainbow-colored flowers across the arbor. When she finished, they were hanging down like a waterfall of blooms above us, just like I imagined.

  Inside, Rosalie was putting the finishing touches on the cake, and it looked amazing. The same rainbow colors that graced the arbor flowed down the side of the cake, and it honestly looked way too pretty to eat.

  By the time Rachel and Charlotte arrived, I was a bundle of nervous jitters. Trina had tried to get me to eat lunch, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I did drink a glass of water, but even that seemed unnecessary. After I put on my makeup and got my hair exactly the way I wanted it, I sat on the bed and took a deep breath.

  “Nervous?” Rachel asked, sitting gingerly next to me so she wouldn’t wrinkle her purple chiffon.

  “No, just excited,” I admitted, smiling at her.

  “Me, too!” Charlotte piped in. Trina pulled my dress from the closet and held it towards me in her arms, grinning.

  “Are we ready?” she asked. Her eggplant chiffon fit her almost perfectly. It was just a tad too big, but she told me she was glad she had a little extra breathing room.

  Charlotte hid behind her mother as I changed into the dress, having Trina button me up and help me with the belt. Using Rosalie’s sewing kit, I had stitched the whistle and the handkerchief into one of the seams a couple of days before, so I was covered with my something borrowed and something blue. Something old was Rosalie’s ring, and it was currently with Charlie. Something new was fastened securely around my neck.