BUCKED Box Set: A Bull Rider Western Romance (63 page)

At this, I wasn’t sure if I was more
outraged at her for bringing it up, or furious with Shawn for telling her that.
“My mom is fine,” I answered, far ruder than even I intended. After all, if
there was any truth to it, at least she was trying to be nice.

I had no doubt there was an ulterior
motive, but still, until I knew what it was, I couldn’t fault her for asking
about something like that; if there actually was something like that going on,
which there wasn’t.

“It’s okay,” she answered carefully, “I
completely understand. It’s really hard to have something like this happen. I
totally get it and Shawn told me that you wanted it to be kept a secret…I will
respect that. I promise.”

I narrowed my eyes and sputtered through
my growing sense of rage. “Shawn told you that?”

“Yes.” She nodded carefully, as though she
wasn’t quite sure whether she was able to get an accurate reading on my
reaction. “But in all fairness, I kind of forced it out of him. We’re not going
to focus on the details, but long story short, I saw you two meeting secretly
in the park the other day and so, obviously, I had some questions.”

I shook my head in an effort to clear it
before I glowered at her angrily. “Dalilah, I swear to you, there is nothing
wrong with my mother.”

Still, she didn’t seem to understand. She
narrowed her eyes at me and peered intently into my gaze. I decided to spell it
out. “He lied to you.”

At this, she reared her head back and
instantly grew nasty. “I was just trying to be nice. You don’t have to go on
the offensive.”

“I’m telling you the truth,” I insisted,
now too frustrated to stand here and argue with her when my blood was boiling
over Shawn’s horrendous indiscretion.

She rolled her eyes at me and hissed,
“Okay…Whatever…” before she turned quickly and stomped away from me.

However, now I didn’t care that she was
gone. In fact, I was glad. After all, the only person I wanted to talk to at
the moment was Shawn.

I quickly pulled out my phone, not wanting
to completely freak out on him in public and sent him a text message.
We need to talk. ASAP.

Before my next class, I received a text
back.
Okay. What’s wrong?

You
are a deplorable human being,
I answered.
And you have a lot of explaining to do.

After class, I received his next message.
What did Dalilah tell you?

 
Can you meet me after school?

Sure…

The rest of the day I was in a red-sighted
haze. I couldn’t believe how angry I actually was at him. There was no reason
for him to be acting like this.
She’s
your girlfriend for God’s sake. The very least you could do was make up a
better lie.

Now, I understood why he would feel the
need to lie to her. I really did understand. I saw firsthand how manipulative
and crazy she could be, so I could see telling her almost anything to get her
off of his case; but the opportune word there was
almost.

After school, I stomped to the park, where
we had met last time and thankfully, we were alone. The last thing I wanted to
do was have some neighbor overhear me and get the wrong idea about my family.
After all, the she-devil herself already had the same idea stuck in her head
and apparently refused to yank it out and therefore, I didn’t want the same
thing to start circulating between the neighbors.

The last thing I needed was for Shawn’s
stupid lie to get back to my mother. It might not bother her, what was being
said, but I knew who was saying it would probably bother her quite a bit.

Chapter
18

Shawn

I had a slight pain in my stomach all day,
wondering what could have happened. I knew that Dalilah was behind whatever it
was, because that woman would not go down without a fight and she loved to
concoct plans behind everyone else’s back, thinking that she was far smarter
than everyone.

However, I couldn’t imagine what had
gotten Valerie so upset.

Yet, when I saw her face, glowering at me
from across the park, I had a pretty good idea that my inclinations about what
Dalilah had shared with her were fairly spot on. For the entirety of the day,
ever since I had received that first text message from Valerie, I had tried to
convince myself that as rough as Dalilah was on me and as sneaky as she was,
there was no way she would betray my trust.

However, now, I knew the truth and it made
me extremely angry. I knew that I shouldn’t have trusted her, even with a lie,
but now that I had, it hurt me that she would go behind my back, stab it and
turn the knife so methodically.

As I walked up to Valerie, I figured that
my best shot at a saving grace was telling her, “I am so sorry…”

“Yeah, you should be,” she spat without
the slightest sense of empathy. She lay into me, heavily and angrily, but I
knew that she was hurt, which made the scolding even worse. “How dare you! Why
would you tell her anything about my personal life, whether it is true or not?
You had no right to incorporate me or my mother into your lie…and to say what
you said about her…That’s awful!”

“I had to say something,” I blurted,
realizing what a lame defense that was, but not really caring all that much.

“And that was the first thing that popped
into your mind?” she demanded. “That’s terrible! Next time you have to lie and
you feel that it needs to be so absurd, tell her that your own mother is sick
and leave my mother out of it…at least then, you wouldn’t actually be too far
from telling her the truth.”

I opened my mouth to retort, but then was
struck with a sense of anger and hurt. Now, it was I who could not believe what
Valerie was saying.
 
I felt my eyes
narrow as I glared at her. My breath became slightly heavier, before I answered
in a cold, hurt fashion, reflecting all of the terrible thoughts that were
rumbling around inside of my mind at the moment, “You know what really sucks? The
fact that if I tried to be so concerned for my own mother, she wouldn’t have
believed me. I care about you and I care about your mother. I used to think
that you both cared about me far more than either of my own parents did, but
the more this…whatever this is that keeps going on between us lasts, the more I
am starting to realize that this has nothing to do with you wanting me to come
home, or even…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it, but I was sure that the look
in my eyes gave it away. I peered at her intently, willing her to see me the
way that I saw her, but the look that I received back confirmed that I was not
that person to her and I probably never would be. “But lately, she is the only
one who is there for me. Like her or not, she is the only constant in my life.”

At this, Valerie stepped back, as though I
had slapped her, and scoffed at me before saying, “You’re the one who left…and
if you remember, you’re the one who called it off the first time, so don’t try
to turn this all around on me and make me out to be this terrible person. I was
right…” She hissed, looking me up and down with a sense of disdain in her eyes.
“You are despicable.”

With that, she turned around and began to
walk away. But after a moment and a sigh, through which I released all of my
aggravation and anger, I couldn’t bear to let her walk away from me like that
again. “Valerie, wait!” I ran after her. She turned around and stared at me, as
though she was trying to pierce me with laser vision and turn me to dust.
Still, I took solace in the fact that she had stopped.

I knew then that I had a chance.

“Wait…” I exclaimed again as I caught up
with her, sighing heavily. “I’m sorry.”

“For what, exactly? It’s a pretty long
list.” She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at me, as
though to increase her concentration so that I would inevitably fall into a
pile of ash on the ground.

Since I was still standing there, however,
I figured it hadn’t worked. “For everything. I know why you are upset about
what I said…and I am sorry that I hurt you. I was angry then. I didn’t realize
that I had hurt you…”

“You didn’t care, either,” Valerie replied
earnestly, now making her eyes wide as she spoke.

I nodded and after careful contemplation,
I replied, “You’re right. I didn’t care. That’s on me. When our parents
announced they were getting married, almost to the day, I was going to ask you
to go out with me. I knew that it was strange, being that our parents were
dating, but they had dated for years, so I figured that we had a shot of it not
actually being strange. By that point, I figured they were content in their
relationship and would never take the next step into making it official. I had
never thought that their status would change. They were always just…dating. So,
when they said that they were getting married and that we were going to be
living together as brother and sister, I was angry. Everything changed and
then, to make matters worse, even my relationship with my father changed and
that screwed up the whole dynamic.”

She nodded, showing that she was listening
to me intently.

“Therefore, I never told you how I felt
and when you came to me that day with your suggestion, I was scared. Everything
was happening so fast…and I didn’t want to have to worry about losing you too. I
thought if we could stay friends, without the complications of a relationship,
especially of our relationship, given our new parental status, that I would
have a better shot of things never coming undone between the two of us.”

“But you hurt me,” she said again and as I
looked in her eyes, I saw that she was remembering the words that I had said to
her.

Reluctantly, my mind flashed back to that
as well and I heard my own, panicked voice ringing in my ears; “
Eww…We’re about to be step-siblings. We
can’t date now…Besides, I never felt that way about you anyway. We’re friends,
Val…That’s all we can ever be.”
I then remembered her heartbroken
expression, which was a lot like the one she was wearing right now. When my
mind came back to the present, I grasped her hand and pulled it toward me. The
familiar feel of her skin was comforting, even though in my mind, I was a
barrel of nerves. “Look…When I said what I said, I wasn’t telling you the
truth. I only said that so that you would stop making me hope for an
us
, but at the time, I did mean that I
thought all we could ever be was friends.”

“But we’re not even that now…”

I nodded solemnly. “I know and I want that
to change.” I grasped her other hand and brought it toward me. I rested her
touch against my chest and looked deeply into her eyes before I told her
honestly, “I know I have made a lot of mistakes and I probably will make a lot
more, but I still want a chance. I want to be what I told you we could never
be…Forget what everyone has to say. I want to give it a shot.” I smiled at her,
but my heart began to ache when she did not smile back.

I could tell that she was thinking about
it though, which gave me hope, until she lightly pulled her hand away and began
a justification of her own. “That explanation is great. I completely
understand,” Valerie answered finally and I was once again hopeful that I had
just read her initial reaction wrong when she paused; but then her voice
dropped in that pause. “But, unfortunately, as always, the truth and the
explanation for your actions came about two years too late.” She backed up from
me, ignoring the blatant sense of hurt that was clear on my face. “I’m sorry,
Shawn.” Then, she turned and walked away from me…again.

Chapter
19

Valerie

I didn’t know what to do. I was so distraught
and angry, now feeling even worse than I did originally, but for more internal
reasons.

Part of me wanted to know what the big
deal was.
So, he has a crazy girlfriend
and so to get her off of his back, he told her a lie. Why does that bother you so
much?
That thought was especially brought home when I thought,
after all, the alternative of him telling
her the truth was far more detrimental.
 
Especially since nothing happened.

I needed something to take my mind off
things so I called Zachary. He didn’t answer his phone though so I decided I
would walk around the mall.

It wasn’t any fun by myself and I knew
that from the start, but besides Shawn, the old Shawn and Zachary, I really
didn’t feel like being with anyone else.

Even though I couldn’t pour my heart out
to Zachary about what was going on, for obvious reasons, I still wanted to be
with him. He brought me back to reality and calmed my frantic nerves. It was
comforting to be with him. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yet, by the time I had
taken the bus to the mall, he still hadn’t called or texted back and so, I
figured
 
I wasn’t going to hear from him
today.

I had noticed lately that Zachary was
acting strange, but then again, I also wasn’t acting quite myself. So I knew
that I shouldn’t really be trying to find an explanation or accusation toward
him when he could easily turn around and say the same thing about me, with more
accuracy and proof of my odd behavior.

Therefore, I refused to let his silence
bother me. Instead, I made it a point to have a good time, even if I was
slightly lonely. That was okay. I would make do; I always did.

I grabbed a large cup of my favorite
coffee and wandered around a couple of my favorite stores, trying to convince
myself it was better to be able to window shop at my own pace, without a boy
telling me how they were done looking five minutes ago literally six minutes
after we walked into a store. I was never one to be overly girly or have many
friends that were girls. In fact, I had always preferred to hang out with the
boys; but right now, I kind of wished I had a girl that I could trust to talk
about my predicament with…and to shop, because I just wasn’t into it.

I was lonely and that only caused me to be
sadder and more depressed. I tried to sort out my situation in my head, but
every time I tried to figure out what the best course of action would be, every
suggestion or idea I came up with fell short.

However, the solution, at least to the
seemingly menial problem of having a boyfriend, but wondering if I was still pining
over Shawn, was solved for me in a way that I would have never expected.

I was walking by the bathrooms when I saw
a familiar figure leaning against the wall, as though he was waiting for
someone. I stared at him for a long moment, almost in disbelief.

Zachary was standing there, alone for the
time being, with his phone in his hand, looking as though he was about to be
busy but hadn’t quite gotten there yet.

Still, I just figured that maybe there was
a good reason for him not returning my call. I started to make my way over to
him, but stopped short when I saw another girl from our school come out of the
bathroom.

Zachary lifted his head and smiled at her
when she walked out, but to make matters worse, he left with her and easily
slid his hand into hers as they began to walk. He even laced his fingers
between hers.

I didn’t mean to keep watching them and in
fact, I wished that I wasn’t, but my eyes were glued to the telltale scene
unfolding before my very eyes. I tried my best to fight back tears, but they
insisted on filling up my eyes. I blinked, but was unable to relieve myself of
them. They just started to roll down my cheeks as I looked at the two of them
together.

Then, when they reached a corner, Zachary
turned, pulled the girl into his arms and kissed her passionately.

My jaw dropped and all I wanted to do was
scream. I blinked as more tears rolled down my cheeks, but to my horror, when I
opened my eyes, they were still standing there, making out as though there was
nothing wrong with it. And from the looks of it this wasn’t the awkward
encounter of a first kiss. It was abundantly clear that they had done this all
before, and that likely wasn’t the only thing they had done.

As soon as I was able, I turned around and
ran the other way. I couldn’t get out of that mall fast enough. Looking back, I
probably looked like a crazy person. I was sure my makeup was running, in
addition to the gush of tears that were falling from my eyes and the hysterical
nature of my bolt toward the doors, but none of that mattered.

All I wanted was to get to a place where I
could be left in peace. I wanted my own space, to freak out, scream, cry or
mourn the relationship before severing the bonds that had tied us, for two long
years, completely and forever.

While I sat on the bus and sobbed,
thankful that no one cared to notice me, I thought about how this seemed to be
happening to me lately and I had no idea why.

What
did I do, that my whole life got turned upside-down like this?
I thought angrily, before I shrugged my shoulders and continued to cry.

When I finally returned home after what
was probably the longest and most grueling, painful bus ride of my life, I ran
up to my room, thankful that no one else was home and collapsed on my bed. I
screamed and yelled ferociously into my pillow, before I took everything that
reminded me of Zachary and threw it into a garbage bag. I was finished with
having anything of his anywhere near me. I didn’t want to even look at the
garbage bag by the time I was done, because it reminded me of the malice that I
held for him.

I couldn’t believe he did this to me.
Even though I had thought about being with
Shawn on more than one occasion throughout our dating, I certainly hadn’t done
anything with him!
I realized that a part of the reason why I was so upset
was because he had found someone else.

I had always thought that I would be the
one to move on. I was shocked to realize that the reason behind our breakup was
that he cheated on me. It wasn’t that I had expected to cheat on him, but I did
think, naively, apparently, that if we were to break up, the reason would be
because I had moved on. I had never thought that he would ever have…

Maybe
that was exactly the problem…
I thought to myself as I
gazed at the bag through the fuzzy vision brought on by my massive rush of
tears. I was hurt, above all, but right now, I also thought that perhaps I had
brought this on myself.

After all, I wasn’t spending near enough
time with Zachary.
Perhaps he felt
neglected?

Still, that didn’t give him an excuse to
do what he did. I knew that for sure, but I still felt the need to allow my
mind to wander, simply because I was shocked.

Even with all of the craziness going on
around me and even though I did note that Zachary was acting strangely,
apathetic even, I was still flabbergasted by the low blow that he was cheating
on me.

I stayed in my room for quite a while,
trying to calm myself down. Yet, every time I felt as though I was making
progress, something would snap me back into anger and I would feel an intense
sense of pain rocket through my heart, which would jumpstart the flow of tears
all over again.

For a few hours, this was a very vicious
cycle, until finally, the inevitable happened.

However, it certainly didn’t come as I was
expecting. I thought I would receive a phone call, in which case I could yell
at him, tell him it was over and then hang up, subsequently moving on with my
life.

Instead, I heard the doorbell ring.

I was still the only one home and so, when
it rang a second time, I figured that I should at least go downstairs and see
who it was. I looked in the mirror, wiped my eyes as well as I could, took a
deep, calming breath and made my way downstairs.

When I opened the door, however, I was met
with the man that I now considered my enemy.

Zachary was smiling at me, as though he
hadn’t done anything wrong, as though the dynamic of our relationship was not
just spun on its head, as though absolutely nothing had changed. The degree to
which I knew he was wrong caused me to feel exceptionally ill.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded,
trying hard to scrub the disdain from my voice, but quickly realized that I was
failing miserably.

He squinted, as though trying to act
innocent. “Oh…I got your message a little while ago and I was in the area, so I
thought that instead of calling you back, I would just stop over.” He smiled in
his goofy way, which used to make my heart flutter.

Now, though, it just made me want to bash
his head into the door and throw him down the stairs.

I didn’t respond due to the shock that I
experienced in light of his complete obliviousness.

When he realized that I hadn’t even
cracked a smile, but rather, was fighting back tears, he turned his head
curiously. “Are you okay?”

I wasn’t sure if it was obvious that all
of the blood drained from my face and that my jaw might as well have been
touching the ground;, but even though I had plenty to say, I had yet to be able
to think of a response.

Eventually, I realized that my expression
must have been fairly obvious, because he quickly stumbled back a little,
before he asked, slightly agitated, “What is wrong? You’re acting so weird.”

I swallowed hard, even though my throat
had gone dry. “Come inside, Zachary…” I didn’t want to blast him right here in
the open. The neighbors already thought we were crazy. I didn’t want to give
them any ammunition.

Zachary looked at me strangely, but still
followed me inside.

As I closed the door behind us, I took a
deep breath and tried to ignore the pang of hurt that encased my heart.
“Zachary, after I called you, I didn’t have anything else to do…So do you know
where I went?”

It took until a few seconds after I had
spoken, when my words and implication set in, before he finally got what I was
getting at. At this, his face fell, finally, into that of shock. “Oh God...” he
muttered. “I can explain, Valerie!” He moved to grasp my arm, but I roughly
pulled it away.

Gaining strength from his admittance, I
found that I was currently more angry than hurt and so, I spat, “I’m sure you
can, but I have no interest in hearing it. If you no longer wanted to date me,
you should have told me.”

“But…That’s not it…”

I put my hands up in the air, proud of
myself for not caving to his charm. “I don’t care, Zachary. I saw you kiss her
and that was all the explanation I needed.”

 
“But…” he began, while I opened the door.

“Goodbye, Zachary,” I spoke with an eerie
sense of calm.

“Valerie…” he groaned, as though I was
being completely unfair.

“Get out!” I screamed, ensuring that every
inch of me gave the same impression of what I wanted from him, so that there
would be no mistaking it.

The second I felt my voice raise, I knew
that I only had a matter of moments before I broke down and cried. I didn’t
want to do that in front of him and therefore, I needed him to leave before the
inevitable happened.

Desperately fighting back tears, I
glowered at him until finally, his shoulders fell and he began to walk out. He
looked at me one last time before going through the door, but could tell by my
expression that he had better not dare say a word.

Thankfully, he got the message and as soon
as he had made it through the door enough for me to slam it shut behind him, I
did. Then, I did the only thing that I could think of doing, even with all of
the strain that was surrounding us at the moment; I called Shawn.

Chapter
20

Shawn

From the moment that Valerie had called,
she was crying and now, she sat across from me on my bed at my mom’s house,
balling her eyes out. I was never good at consoling, but it certainly was easy
enough for me to agree that he was a total loser and that she could do better;
so that’s what I did.

“You don’t need him,” I told her, meaning
every single word of it. I put my arm around her shoulders and hugged her into
me. “I never liked him anyway. He always had that stupid dick-smile splattered
across his face. Never trust a man who spends more time getting ready in the
morning than you do.”

She looked up at me with glistening, yet
still incredibly watery eyes and giggled. Finally, I was able to make her
laugh. Even though it was a small gesture, it still made me happy. I had always
liked to make her laugh, but right now, even through the tears, she couldn’t
have been more beautiful to me.

I sighed as my eyes settled on her
luscious, plump and inviting lips, but I quickly blinked so that I did not
overstep my bounds.

However, when I gazed back into her eyes,
I realized that she was also staring back at me intently. I smiled kindly at
her, trying not to think about the fact that she was the first girl I ever
liked and for a long time, the last woman I thought I would ever kiss. I tried
to ignore the fact that the side of her breast was squished up against my
chest, just as I also tried to think of everything else, other than the sparkle
in her eye that made me want her now, more than ever.

“Thank you,” she answered softly.

“For what?” I asked playfully.