Dare (8 page)

“You told me you thought you loved me, Rachel. I don’t think you can ignore that.”

I pushed the heel of my hand into my forehead, pushing myself up from the computer and pacing around my room, not caring if the creaking floorboards woke Dad or not.

“I don’t know why I said that,” I said. “It surprised me coming out of my mouth probably just as much as it surprised you.”

“Even if it did take me surprise, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t nice to hear.”

I shook my head, trying to dislodge the right thing to say to end this conversation, to hide forever in my shame, to never see or speak to Sebastian again.

“Well, I don’t know if I even meant it,” I said. “I was surprised, too. I don’t know.”

“Don’t you want a chance to see if you really meant it?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t exactly have women lining up outside my office waiting to profess their love for me,” Sebastian said.

I laughed in disbelief. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Why? You said it yourself. I’m a jerk, an asshole.”

“But you’re also very rich and very handsome,” I argued. “A good kisser. A hell of a lover.”

“It’s settled then,” he said. “We’ll give it another try.”

“We’ll do no such thing,” I spluttered.

“You just argued in favor of me,” Sebastian said, his voice sounding like he was grinning. “Pretty good arguments, too.”

“Except for the fact that you’re an asshole,” I spat, ending the call abruptly and feeling like an idiot. I was done playing this game. I had no idea how Sebastian had actually coerced me into listing all of the things about him that were good besides the apparent fact that he was likely a master manipulator. My phone vibrated, the same number I’d just dialed popping up in the display, but I ignored it. There was no way I was going to talk to him now. He’d made a fool of me, nearly succeeding in reeling me in once more. If I couldn’t keep my head on straight when I was talking to Sebastian, then I just wouldn’t talk to him anymore. It would be as simple as that.

As simple and as awful as that.

My phone buzzed again. A text message from Sebastian. “So now you’re going to ignore me?” it read. “Very mature, Rachel.”

He called again, and I ignored it again, watching the number light up my display until it faded. It buzzed again to indicate a voicemail, but I didn’t feel like listening to it right now.

That was simple, right? I didn’t have to engage with Sebastian if I didn’t want to.

I just had to stay strong. Hopefully, he’d get the message that I didn’t want to deal with him anymore.

Hopefully, I wouldn’t cave in to what I really wanted to do—to give him another chance.

For the first week or so, I gave up on having my phone with me. Sebastian seemed to have decided to call me or text me every hour. I hardly had time to work from all the time I was spending taking my phone out of my pocket, checking it, and putting it back away. I probably looked like some kind of social diva to the rest of the workers on the farm. I could practically feel their eye rolls as I helped sort the produce, pulling aside the irregular fruits and vegetables and putting the perfect ones into cartons. We’d still eat the two-legged carrots or the strangely bulbous bell peppers, but they were less likely to sell in the organic produce stores. They asked us to keep our irregulars to a minimum. I didn’t mind. They tasted the same even if they wouldn’t win any beauty contests. It was a strange industry.

None of Sebastian’s messages were earth shattering either. It was the strangest thing. After the first day, he must’ve gotten tired of urging and cajoling me to answer him, to let him know if I was all right, to forgive him. Now, his texts were conversational, friendly, charming even—though they were all one-sided. I refused to answer him, trying to steel my resolve against the temptation he presented me.

“It’s a sunny day here in the city, but I know you need rain,” he said in one of them. “Here’s to hoping that a big fat cloud will open up and pour rain just on your farm and no one else’s.”

“The car hasn’t been driving like it used to ever since you got in my way—I’m thinking of litigation,” another one read. “Haha, just joking. I think the car fell in love with your truck after they kissed that time on the highway and it’s just missing it, is all.”

“Social media has been quite dull without you,” still another teased. “You should resurrect your accounts and we could give the web a fun show.”

Some of his text messages made me smile, but I immediately erased them, squashing it in the crook of my elbow or hiding it behind my hand. The last thing I wanted to do was acknowledge that the man whom I didn’t want to so much as think about made me smile on a regular basis.

Sebastian was so much easier not to think about when I left my phone charging up in my room so I could go about my day without any distractions, but then his texts piled up all at once. I found myself spending fifteen minutes reading the day’s collection after I retrieved my phone following dinner, and that somehow made me hone my focus on him.

I finally found a happy medium. I turned off my notifications for text messages. He could still happily text away, and I could still check the messages from time to time, but on my own time, not Sebastian’s. I wouldn’t be prodded to check my phone every single time it buzzed for one of his texts. It gave a portion of control back to me, and I felt empowered that I’d even thought of it. After I started practicing this method, I felt almost detached from him, as if he were some kind of automated message robot that sent me texts from time to time just so I could look popular in front of my friends.

I had my phone in my pocket the afternoon I’d gotten back early from a delivery and was helping Dad tinker with one of the more stubborn tractors. They were like living beings, those things, cantankerous and spoiled and prone to breakdowns if you didn’t do something just right. Dad was trying to coax one into working again, and he seemed cheerful—even if it meant the tractor wasn’t out pulling a load of produce or tilling one of the fields that needed to be replanted. I felt like it had been good for Dad to vent about Sebastian. He’d seemed lighter afterward, like he wasn’t carrying the resentment of Sebastian’s arrogance around in his mind anymore.

“I wouldn’t know what to do without you around here, helping me,” Dad said happily as I handed him the wrench he’d wanted. “Have I told you that today yet?”

I laughed at him. “Not yet today. Nope.”

“Well, there it is. I wouldn’t know what to do on this farm without you.”

My phone vibrated in the pocket of my jeans, and I pulled it out to check it, knowing it was an email and not a text. Texts weren’t going to buzz for me anymore. I wouldn’t be a slave to Sebastian’s electronic musings. I wasn’t expecting any important messages, but maybe it was an advertisement for one of the many fashion brands and stores I subscribed to via email. Couldn’t a country girl dream a little bit? Even if I never had anywhere fancy to wear the kinds of clothes and shoes and makeup these places advertised, I liked to look at the glossy models and poses and outfits. There was no harm in doing it, I figured. It wasn’t as if I were pining away for a different life. Just…tasting it a little bit. Sampling it.

I choked on my own saliva, as I examined the email that had just popped up in my inbox. It was from my mother.

“You okay, Rachel?” Dad had ducked his head out from under the tractor to look at me while I choked and spluttered.

I nodded, quickly pushing my phone back into my pocket.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He stared at me a moment longer, and I was so afraid that he knew, somehow, the nature of the message I’d just received. I couldn’t help but to shout mentally at him that I’d just gotten an email from my mother. I understood that he had been the one who’d given me her contact information in the first place, back when I’d mentioned that I’d been thinking of her. Of course, that had only been a half-truth. The reason I’d been so troubled at the dinner table that particular night was because of one Sebastian Clementine, not my mother. But Dad had thought I’d been missing her and had given me what was probably outdated contact information for her.

The email address, at least, hadn’t been outdated at all. She’d received my awful message, meandering and mean and pathetic all at once, and she’d finally saw fit to respond.

“Rachel?”

I continued to cough and pant, panicked at what I now held in my pocket, the secret I knew I had to keep from Dad. He’d given me her contact information, all right, but I sincerely doubted he thought I’d actually go through with contacting her. She’d left us, and he’d raised me the best way he knew how to as a single dad and farmer. I knew that trying to get in contact with her would be a betrayal, and now I felt guilty as hell for doing it. Contacting her implied that I was like her, that I had dreams Dad didn’t share, that I was willing to abandon ship and pursue them without caring what kind of path of destruction I left in my wake. Dad could never know that I’d emailed my mother, and I would take the secret that she’d actually written me back to my grave.

“I just choked on my own spit,” I said, laughing and taking the wrench from him. “Sorry. Don’t put me in charge of anything today. I’m useless.”

“Screwdriver,” Dad said, holding his hand out and shaking his head at me. “I wonder about you sometimes, Rachel.”

“You and me both,” I murmured, more to myself than to him. My phone felt like a brick in my pocket, and I wondered how long I would last until I simply had to look at my mother’s response. I was itching to do it right here and now, while Dad was partially under the tractor, but I was afraid my reaction would be too noticeable. If possible, I was going to have to wait until the end of the workday, when I was alone in my room, to see what my mother had decided to write to me.

My imagination swelled and spun, and I started inventing ideas of what she’d wanted to say to me. I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d sent her first, but I knew it had been plaintive and rude all at once. I’d only been reaching out into the universe, trying my hand at some small possibility that the email would even still be active. I honestly hadn’t ever expected a response. My message to her had been more of an open letter, a way for me to vent my feelings.

I’d probably said awful things, and now she was probably taking the opportunity to respond in equally awful terms. I imagined her email to be something along the lines of “the whole reason I left the farm wasn’t to follow my dreams, it was to get away from my nightmare of a daughter, which is you, and I continue to be pleased with my decision.” I shuddered. What would I do if the message I’d gotten from my mother was as awful as the one I’d sent her? Would it destroy me? Was anything capable of destroying me more than I was capable of that very practice? I wasn’t sure of anything; I wasn’t sure of myself or my actions or my motivations. Wasn’t sure why I’d emailed my mother in the first place, or had such a hard time figuring out exactly what I wanted out of my relationship with Sebastian—or lack thereof. I could’ve really used a flippant text message from him right now to lighten my mood, but my phone wasn’t cooperating.

Sure, Sebastian had acted like a jerk. Sure, he’d tried to yank the farm out from underneath Dad. But he’d also been thoughtful in ways I hadn’t yet understood, and our passion for each other had been undeniable. Our bodies simply seemed to know how to work together, and that was really something.

“Rachel, are you feeling all right?” Dad was out from underneath the tractor once again, and I was sure he’d asked for something and I’d simply been too lost in my own head to hear him.

I bit my lip. “You know, I am feeling a little weird.”

“Weird how?” He frowned at me, concerned, and I felt like a huge asshole for making Dad worry over me yet again.

“I’m not sure,” I said, hemming and hawing over what my symptoms should be, what would make him worry the least. “Just kind of woozy for a moment. Maybe I’d better go lie down.” Woozy was good. Woozy could mean anything—from colds to periods to stomach bugs. Woozy wasn’t terribly worrisome, but it would get me some privacy to deal with this email. I couldn’t focus on anything otherwise. I had to know what she’d written to me.

“You go and do that,” Dad said. “I’ll finish up here.”

“I can stay,” I said, but he refused to entertain that thought.

“No, Rachel, your health is more important to me than this tractor.” He smiled. “Besides, I was just being selfish. I can get my own tools. You go rest. You’ve been working hard lately.”

Everyone had been working hard lately, Dad especially, but I only gave him a weak nod and smile and headed to the house, trying hard not to break into a sprint.

Once I was inside, I didn’t hide my eagerness any longer, taking the stairs up to my room two at a time, slamming my door behind me, and leaping into bed. I couldn’t bear to wait for my computer to load, so I decided to read the email on my phone. It would be better, too, if Dad decided it would be a good idea to slip up and check on me. It was with that thought that I kicked my shoes off and yanked the covers up and over me, swiping at my phone’s screen impatiently until I brought up the email exchange.

I read my initial message first, partly to punish myself, and partly to prepare myself for what my mother could’ve retorted at me.

“This is your daughter, Rachel Dare,” the email I’d written first read, “because I’m not sure if you still remember me. It’s been ten years, and I still remember you. Dad still remembers you, still loves you, but I’m not sure about me. You left us, and it really destroyed him. I’m not sure why he still loves you. Did you find what you were looking for in Las Vegas? Did chasing your dream make your happy? Did you catch it? I don’t know why I’m writing this, what I hope to get out of it, but I want you to remember us like we remember you. Maybe I even want to hurt you.”

I gulped. I hadn’t even signed it. What had been wrong with me? I’d been doubting everything that night. It was the night when I’d barged into Sebastian’s office and made out with him instead of securing the payment I was supposed to get to repair the truck. My mother could’ve written an entire email that only contained the words “go to hell” and I would’ve completely accepted it. I’d been rude and angry, and yet somehow she had still decided to respond. I was so nervous that my hands shook as I scrolled upward, looking for the beginning of her email. I gulped. She’d written a lot. Part of me hoped it wasn’t just “go to hell” a bunch of times.

“Rachel Dare, this is your mother,” it began. “Of course I remember you. I gave birth to you, after all. You don’t just incubate a human being inside of your body and then push her out in one long, hard, horrible, but utterly rewarding push just to forget about her.”

My heart was pounding, and I pressed the palm of my hand against my chest to count its beats. It was so strange to be reading something my mother wrote. I could almost hear her voice as I read it in my head—even if I wasn’t positive what her voice sounded like exactly anymore. It was the strangest sensation.

“Ten years is a long time,” the message continued. “I would’ve thought that we would’ve spoken before this point, but when you become older, time seems to pass without care, fluttering by on wings you don’t quite understand. It seems like yesterday I was braiding your beautiful red hair before you went out to work on the farm—well, you were playing more than working at that point. I was happy watching you grow up, and I sometimes wonder if I could’ve made myself be happy there on that farm. The truth of the matter is, I would’ve regretted the rest of my life, and probably resented both you and your father, if I hadn’t tried to make my dream a reality. That wouldn’t have been fair to any of the three of us, and so I had to, however briefly, follow my heart to make sure I wasn’t wasting my life there on that farm. It was your father’s dream, not mine.”

I swallowed hard. I knew the farm was Dad’s dream and had suspected for a long time that it perhaps hadn’t been mine after all. I’d thrown all of my recent efforts into making it work here on the farm. But what was I really supposed to be doing? Was there a dream out there I wasn’t pursuing? Would I ever know if I never left? I read on.