Page 3 of Untamed
It’s a familiar sight down this long dirt road leading away from the house. I know every pothole just like I know every freckle on my body. Behind me sits the house I was born in—modest white with visibly cracked paint—a home that’s certainly seen better days.
A quarter mile up the road sits a red barn hit by harsh winter wind storms, but somehow it’s still standing. This place, it’s not much, it’s not fancy, but it’s still home, a place that when I do leave, I will always remember. This dusty ranch, it holds nothing for me. At least nothing I want. I want more than to get away from it, as far away as any four wheels can take me. I want freedom and a chance to be anything but a rancher’s daughter or worse, a rancher’s wife.
“Just a few more days,” I whisper to myself when we hit E Vantage Highway. Just like most teenagers, my life is defined by how many days left on the calendar until my eighteenth birthday. The day I’m finally able to decide for myself where I want to be and what I want when I get there. I can officially walk away on that day, but in truth, I decided long ago I wanted out of this town.
My reasoning? Guys like Joel who always seem to find me, prey on my weaknesses, and make their way between my legs. If I don’t leave now, I’ll forever be stuck in this cycle and before I know it, I won’t even know who I am anymore. I refuse to let that happen.
“Have you talked to him? Do you think he’ll bring it up?” Haylee asks, lighting the cigarette she’s holding between two fingers, steering the truck with her knees. When she has it lit, she tosses the lighter on the floor at my feet.
I laugh. “Girl, stop throwing shit at me.”
Haylee shoots me the bird and takes a few drags from her cigarette then hands it to me. “I won’t be surprised if he says something. Though I don’t see how you fucking Joel is any of D’s business.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ll kick his ass if he does.” I take a drag from the cigarette, and then another. Smoke rolls over me and I inhale, exhaling even slower.
“Maesyn. . . .” Light green eyes the color of spring grass find mine. “You know Danny isn’t keeping any secrets for you. If he thinks it’ll get him in good with your daddy, he’d tell on you.”
She’s right. Danny’s had a crush on me since the second grade and our dads frequently do business together.
Danny means well; he just can’t keep his mouth shut. I know this, but I still hope maybe he will do me this one favor. Just this once.
Danny and I—the way he wants me—it’s never gonna happen. He’s good-hearted and nice. I’m not and I’m not about to destroy another innocent heart in this town. Now, if he can just keep his mouth shut until I leave town.
Haylee leans forward and turns down the Pistol Annies blaring through the cab of her truck. “Have you heard from Joel since then?”
“Yeah.” Spreading my legs, I gesture to the bruise on my inner thigh. “He came over this morning and gave me this lovely reminder and his twenty-minute presence. I told him I couldn’t see him anymore.”
With a new cigarette dangling from her cherry red lips, Haylee stares at me. “Really?” She snorts, adding the aggravated edge to her gesture. “What’d he say?” Haylee hates Joel for what he’s doing to me. I could say the same for her “arrangement” with Tucker.
“He said whatever and left.”
“Figures.”
Haylee’s dating a married man. I haven’t said anything to her because she knows. She doesn’t need me reminding her. I don’t even know how the two of us got wrapped up with guys like Joel and Tucker, but we did and it’s just another reason as to why we’re leaving. When Haylee got involved with Tucker Dean, she didn’t know he was married. Just like in the beginning I didn’t know Joel slept with other girls. For a while, I mistakenly thought I was the only one. He’s pretty damn secretive. That news came later and by accident for both of us. But still, even knowing Tucker’s married, Haylee hasn’t stopped it because she’s in love, and choosing your heart over reality isn’t exactly easy at our age.
We pass by a section of E Vantage Highway before it meets Highway 90. It turns my stomach and brings my heart pain so intense my breath is stolen from me. I’m instantly caught in the past as we pass the white cross surrounded by flowers his mama plants each year. It’s been years, but that stretch of road will never get easier.
Haylee’s cell phone rings on the dash, drawing me from the memories I can’t shake. “It’s probably Mom.”
“She working tonight?”
“Yeah.” Haylee’s nose scrunches. “And that’s probably her calling to tell me she’s staying with Kevin tonight.”
I laugh at the idea of her mother dating a college kid. I guess we all have problems, don’t we?
Heading east on Highway 90, before you hit Vantage next to the Columbia River, there’s a field where most of us locals go to party. A secret spot, passed on from generation to generation. On it sits an abandoned barn and a field filled with overgrown wild rye and sagebrush.
Parked next to Joel’s lifted Chevy, my hands shake when I reach for the door handle. Remembering I’m barefoot, I slip on my boots. Haylee does the same. Though I prefer to run around barefoot, this dusty field isn’t the place for it. One encounter with a rattlesnake will cure you of that. I have the scar on my ankle to prove it.
My boots slide over the gray clay spread over Haylee’s floor mats when I twist to open the door. I hop out and close my door, the sound carrying through the field, rust shaking loose on the bed of her Ford that’s older than she is.
Stepping over bunches of sagebrush and praying there’s not a rattler coiled up next to one, wind whips at my face, giving me a rush of what smells like dirt and cow shit carrying through the air.
Haylee makes a dramatic gagging gesture at the smell, flicking her cigarette in a nearby mud puddle. “I hate this place and that God-forsaken shit smell.” She rounds the front of the truck and wraps her arm around my shoulder.
I know the feeling. Haylee didn’t have much choice in coming to Ellensburg. After her dad died, her mom literally pointed to a map and that’s where they moved to. Annie, her mom, thought it sounded like a cool town for a fresh start. I love Annie, but apparently since her husband died, she’s batshit crazy. So Haylee says, but in many ways, both Haylee and I have respect for Annie.
She left it all behind for a fresh start. Sure, she’s fucking a college kid now, but you know what, I’ve never seen Annie without a smile on her face. Probably because this dude she’s “seeing”—a term that should be used loosely in this case—is the running back for the Central Washington Wildcats. As Haylee refers to it, her mother has become a cougar.
Hooking her arm in mine, Haylee slides her hand down my forearm to hold my hand. We step over sagebrush, wild grass nipping at our bare legs, my skirt rustling with the wind. Laying her head on my shoulder, she sighs. “Only a few more weeks and we can leave.”
Our motto for leaving? It’s better to look back on life and say, “I can’t believe I did that,” than to look back and say, “I wish I’d done that.”
Though Haylee turned eighteen in May, she’s stuck around waiting on me. But as she likes to put it, friends like me don’t come around often. It’s not the ones you’ve known the longest; it’s the ones who refuse to leave your side.
