It started to rain as I walked to my truck. Not a light rain, not a shower or a sprinkle. It was as though someone had stabbed a hole in the sky, and let all the raindrops in heaven flood out at once. My sweatshirt was soaked before I had my door unlocked; it saturated my already dampened spirit. Our place wasn't far from the high school, so I was home within less than five minutes. I drove past the house and pulled up next to the barn. All four of our horses were standing in one stall, turned against the wind and rain in a huddled mass of horseflesh. The gate to the pen was still open, so I threw hay in each stall and refilled their water buckets. Cleaning stalls could wait, I didn't feel like wrestling with the wheel barrow right at the moment. The sounds of the horses munching hay and shuffling into their stalls went a long way to unwind my nerves, and soon the pressures of the day were an afterthought. I took a clean rag from our big cardboard box and started wiping down bridles. Anything to avoid going to the house and getting the lecture that would be waiting...no doubt the school had called home, they were bad about that it seemed. The slightest thing sent them scurrying to the phone to inform a parent, rarely did I get a chance to deal with things on my own before my mother was alerted to the situation. Realizing I was attempting to clean headstalls that were immaculate to begin with, I put my rag back into the box and walked back out into the rain. The smart thing to do would have been to get back into my pickup, but it seemed too easy. The mud and water pooled around my feet as I stood under the edge of the overhang, making my feet cooler in my boots. It was the first time that entire day that I'd been able to take a deep breath, to exhale without tears spilling from my eyes. My control over my emotions was iron clad most of the time, and I was thankful for that. Standing in the cool air, watching the clouds roll over the hills was almost cathartic. I wasn't sure how long I'd stood there. A trilling noise from my truck brought me out of a daydream, it was that loud. It was a habit, get to school, turn the ringer off. Walk out of school, turn the ringer back up. My day had been such a dramatic episode that I wasn't excited at the prospect of talking to another human being, no matter what the reason, but I dug through my bag until I found it anyway.
I smiled in spite of myself when I read the number that was flashing across the screen; a visit with my knight on the big gray horse was just what I wanted. The sound of the rain pounding the roof of the barn and the sound of his voice in my other ear took me back to that day we'd spent so much time together. I decided the rain might not be so bad after all.

I ducked my head as I felt the hot tears touch my cheeks. Some girls looked cute, even pretty when they cried; I was not one of them. I knew Coach Kyle would want to walk me back to class, he was still waiting on me at the bottom of the concrete steps. How could I explain that I didn't want to smash Kelsi's face in, that there wasn't going to be any trouble from me? Made it hard to believe as the tears slid freely down my face.
"Waylon, I don't know the circumstances. Don't want to get involved to be honest, but I can't avoid it when something happens in front of me."

"Thanks, but I can manage affairs just fine," I tried to brush past him and step back onto the glossy linoleum floor, but he moved to block my path. I sighed and readied myself for one of the pat lectures the other teachers and faculty had given me at different times, a few were of a "self-help" sort, others took the "time heals all wounds" approach. Coach Kyle was different. He'd been here for less than a year, he was fresh out of college working his very first teaching gig.
"This wasn't my business before, but it is now. She has no right to treat you that way, I've heard all the stories that float around about what happened between your families," he still blocked my escape route, and I began shifting around nervously, hoping he wouldn't make me late for my next class. "I'll keep this short. If she comes into my gym and acts like that again, one of two things need to happen. Either you put a stop to her crap, or I will," he said it almost as an offer, like he could right the wrongs of my world with his words. I could feel myself shaking my head before the words came to my lips, the last thing I wanted was anymore animosity between the two of us. Short of packing her and her family up and moving them to the next county, the only thing that could rectify "our" situation was taking Juice back to them. That was not going to happen.
Thoughts swam in my head, which was still shaking from side to side, and then I realized he was talking to me again. His hand on my arm snapped me from my stupor.
"Nikki, don't let her do this to you. You did nothing wrong. Her coach will be making a few stops into the locker room about this time next week, so don't hesitate to come back to study if you need to."
Words escaped me. I made no effort to reply, just stood there and waited for my chance. The second he shifted his weight to make the slightest gap, I hurried through and didn't look back. Things just continued to implode today, and with half a day of classes still to go, I couldn't help but feel a sense of dread. The longer the day went the more tangible it became, until I was physically sick. My head was pounding, I could feel the beads of sweat dampening the back of my neck. In one of my last classes of the day, the intercom squawked to life, drawing the attention of everyone but our teacher.
"Please send Nikki to the office," was all the metallic voice said. All eyes were on me as I gathered my books and slipped through the door. Most of them had heard Kelsi's heated rants by the lockers, she was not happy with me.

Today was one of those days that I wanted to hit the "pause" button on. It didn't seem like anything was going right, and that nothing I did was going to make it better. My dad's roan gelding had almost knocked my front teeth out that morning. All 4 horses got turned out at once, and he had decided to cut up and kick as the gate swung by him. He connected to it with both hind feet, and sent me sprawling backwards after it hit me. I suppose I deserved it, hadn't been paying attention and it cost me. The back of my head was the first thing to hit the ground, heat filled my mouth as my busted lips started to bleed. I grabbed an ice pack out of the mini fridge before heading back to the house, threw a rock at Roany for good measure, then walked back to the house. School hadn't turned out any better, my first hour class proved problematic as well. A quiz that I should have studied for caught me off guard, and left me cranky for the rest of the morning. Lunch was spent in the gym, studying everything I managed to not study over the weekend. 10 minutes after I walked in, I regretted the decision. I was a junior, and precious few of the senior girls cared much for me. After quitting the basketball team my sophomore year, many of them had made it clear they didn't appreciate my choice. One of those girls happened to come in after I'd already taken a seat in the bleachers. Her name was Kelsi, she happened to be Dalton's sister as well. She'd never liked me, and was never bashful to let me know how she felt. She had never been into rodeo like her brother had, but she wanted everyone we went to school with to think she had. She wore her cute jeans and her clean boots to school a few days a week. She never missed a chance to run her mouth either it seemed, and as of late she'd been particularly venomous. When there was a crowd it was worse; this time with just the two of us I wondered if she'd even notice me. Her eyes ran across the bleachers as I tried to absorb myself deeper into my history notes. I braced myself for what I knew was coming, and sure as anything, she didn't disappoint. "Stolen any horses lately?" I ignored her. She threw a basketball at my face. "Didn't your mama teach you to speak to your betters? You're just like the trashy brother of yours, no manners what so ever." I threw the ball back down on the court and continued to ignore her as I gathered my books. A million words flew through my head, just as hateful and black as what was coming out of her mouth. I bit my bottom lip out of habit, which brought a fresh wash of tears to my eyes as well as the taste of blood back to my mouth. I knew things were either going to fizzle out or completely explode, so I hoped for the best and prepared for the worst. She stood between me and the only way down from the bleachers. I shrugged my bag onto my shoulder and made my way down the steps. "Go away Kelsi. I don't have the ability to ignore you anymore, please just leave me be," I tried to make myself clear, but my swollen mouth made it hard to sound forceful and concise. My words were met with a wicked giggle, followed by her french manicured hand splaying across my chest. "My brother wants that horse back, and until he's standing in our barn, I'm not going to leave you alone, ever!" She was pushing me backwards, my feet shuffled under me to keep from tripping on the steps behind me. My day was quickly growing worse, almost as quickly as my temper was flaring. She'd used the horse stealing comment before, but calling Jace trashy was more than I could stomach. My bag dropped off my shoulder as I started forward, only to hear the sound of an ear piercing whistle. The wrestling coach stood at the door to the boys locker room, watching us intently. I hadn't been aware of our audience, and apparently Kelsi hadn't been either. She stepped backwards quickly, nervously looking from me to Coach Kyle. How long had he been there? Had he heard the whole thing, seen it all? It was embarrassing enough that she singled me out, but to have the head wrestling coach witness my humiliation was almost more than I could take. "Waylon, looks like you dropped something. Gather it up and head back to class. Bell's about to ring. Kelsi, I believe Mr. Bates is expecting you shortly, don't dissapoint him." As I pushed past her, she managed to snarl under her breath, "If you think this changes things, you're sadly mistaken," and with that last subtle threat she turned and stalked out of the gym. Walking down the remaining steps, I realized Coach Kyle was waiting for me at the door.