Chapter Twenty Seven
Jay
"Don't ever say that again! She does not care! She found me so that she could bring me home and make my life pure hell again! She does not care!"
Shit. I didn't even think about what was coming out of my mouth. I had just told her that her mom cared. That was a huge mistake.
Cali jumped up off the bed and began pacing around the room while mumbling things under her breath. It was so hard for me to watch this. I should have killed Mark for doing this to her. Her she was, freaking out and there was nothing we, or her, could do.
Cali just kept rambling on and spitting out random swear words. Preston looked at me with the same amount of fear and confusion in his eyes. If only there was some book that described what to do when your girlfriend's family returns but they messed up her life and now she's freaking out. Why couldn't someone write that book?
"Cali, you need to calm down. Stop," Preston grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to stop flailing all over the place.
I was trying to come up with something to do or say to make her calm down. We got her to sit down on the bed and I crouched down, placing my hands on her knees. "Cali, sweetheart, you need to relax. She's gone now," I said in a calming voice as I tried to get her to look at me.
"Nope, nope, not gonna happen. I'm in self destruct mode. You can't help. I don't even know what I'm saying. This is how I am. I will freak out until I die. It's how I am. You can't do anything to stop it. Sucks for you. I'm so sorry. You get to witness my madness. No one will ever love me. My mom doesn't love me..." She spit all that out incredibly fast.
Self destruct mode? Witness her madness? No one will ever love. Her mom doesn't love her. That was about all I got, but it was enough to break my heart even more. It wasn't breaking because of her, it was breaking because we couldn't help. And I so desperately wanted to take away everything.
If I haven't said that enough.
Cali was now whispering things while looking everywhere except at me and Preston. She was shaking and fiddling with her hands in her lap. I grabbed her hands trying to make her realize we were there with her, but nothing was snapping her out of it.
Suddenly, she stopped shaking. Her eyes that once looked glassy, were now filled with something else. She stared off in the distance and I turned to see what she was focused on.
"You! It was you!" She screamed as loud as she could. I quickly whipped my head to look at her. Her eyes met mine and I realized they were filled with rage. Rage and hate.
"What?" I asked trying not to sound terrified or scared. My tone wasn't helping.
"You! It was you! You called them because you thought I needed them! You thought this would be good to see them again! It was you!"
I gulped audibly and then in a second, she was out of the room. Me and Preston shot up and followed her out of the room. But before we could, she was on Grace and out of the barn. Without a saddle or anything. This was not going to end well. I hurried over to Jay but I was stopped when Preston grabbed my arm.
"You can't go after her, man." He looked to calm for my liking and I was suddenly pissed at him. Before I could go off on him, he butted in.
"She obviously doesn't want us to follow her. You have to let her calm down."
I was only getting angrier. I stopped getting my horse ready and turned around to face him. I suddenly felt taller and bigger then him and the way his face looked reminded me of...me.
It reminded me of how scared I had been when my dad would yell at me. And then it reminded me of when my dad had yelled at Preston when he came home for his birthday. The way my dad towered over him and Preston's eyes had been filled with nothing but fear.
I took a step back and relaxed. I wanted to be nothing my dad and just then, I had let my anger get the best of me and Preston showed me. I never wanted to see that look again.
"God, I'm sorry man." I sighed as I ran my hands through my hair. I finally looked back at him and he didn't look back at me. Dammit.
"Uh...it's fine. You just gotta calm down," he replied quietly as he ran his hands through his hair too. At that moment, I didn't really care how manly either of us were. I took a step towards him and gave him a hug. He patted me on the back a few times before I pulled away.
"Are you okay?" I asked, just wanting to make sure he knew I would never become our dad.
"Yeah." He didn't sound to sure.
"I'm sorry. Just seeing her freak out like that and knowing I couldn't do anything...ugh, god. I don't know. I'm sorry."
He made eye contact with me for the first time and now looked like he understood. He began walking back over towards the ladder and I soon followed. We walked up and back into her room in silence. I collapsed on the bed and Preston fell into the chair.
"It's okay. I get it now. We're cool." Oh thank god. Preston was just as angry at my dad as I was, but deep down, I knew Preston was scared of him too. Seeing him be scared of me, freaked me out almost as much as Cali did.
"Okay.....has she ever done that before?" I sat up on the bed and pulled out my phone. I knew she wouldn't call me or anything, but just in case.
"Yeah. Once. But I don't think she remembered." She had done this before? All I could do was shake my head back and forth, questioning why this all had to happen to her. Again. I felt like I questioned it all the time and nothing was ever getting better.
"What happened?" I asked in a quiet voice. Preston sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. He bent forward in the chair and rested his elbows on his knees. This day had been too long and emotionally draining.
"Um...it was back in January. She had only been here for a few weeks and grandpa was down in Houston for the day. I stopped by to make sure she was settling in okay and suddenly she started freaking out like she did earlier."
He looked around the room, looking like he was trying to remember that day.
"She began screaming all types of things and it was then that she told me a little about her past. About her mom, brother, Mark and the baby. And when she got to the part about the baby, I put together that that day would have been the baby's due date. She just kept freaking out about how she would have been a bad mom or something."
It just got worse. Just when I thought her life story was over and I had learned everything about her, it just kept going. FML.
"She did the same thing. Something snapped, she started screaming at me that I reminded her about the due date and then she took off. She was gone for a few hours before she returned. I came back and found her packing. She told me she was calmer now, but since I had to witness her crazy, I wouldn't want her here anymore. I had to convince her to stay. She agreed and fell asleep for a really long time. When she woke up, I don't think she even remembered freaking out."
It was quiet for a few minutes and I leaned back down against the pillow. I just wanted to cry. Lock myself away and cry until I couldn't anymore, like a freakin' girl. But then I suddenly became scared because Preston said that when she came back, she had wanted to leave. What if she wanted to leave again? Oh god. I was gonna be sick.
"Can we please change the subject?" I asked, not being able to deal with the subject or the silence anymore.
"Yeah...sure. You want to know something?" Preston asked with an odd amount of enthusiasm in his voice.
"Um...sure?"
"Grandpa set you two up," He replied right after me.
Wait. What...
....The hell? I couldn't even make sense of what he just said. Grandpa set us up? Us as in me and Cali? That was impossible.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He leaned back and smiled at my confusion. That was not what I had in mind when I asked to change the subject, but whatever.
"It means that grandpa knew about Cali's heartbreak. He knew you were in some serious shit. He thought that somehow bringing you two together would help you or something. I thought he was crazy, but it obviously worked."
Now I was convinced the farm really had been through the Twilight Zone.
"That old man is crazy," I said under my breath. But then I guess I had grandpa to thank for bringing Cali into my life. I sighed and sat up, shaking my head, still trying to understand.
Preston just laughed and let me think through the whole thing. After that, we went back to talking about sports, college and the fact that now we would own the farm after grandpa passed away. That had been a huge bombshell on us both, but we couldn't have been happier. I never realized it, but that had been my dream my entire life. To someday take over and run the farm.
At around 8:30, grandpa found us in Cali's room, confused about where everyone was. Preston decided to just explain what had happened from after grandpa walked upstairs to what had just happened only hours earlier. After he was done, grandpa looked hopeful for some reason. He was silent for a few minutes before telling us that he would go and talk to her.
Me and Preston both looked at each other but grandpa said he was going. Preston nodded, letting me know grandpa was right. After he left, it was like each minute was a year. Time passed so slowly and it felt like ages before either of said anything.
"I'm gonna bring in the horses," I finally whispered. I needed to get out of the room before the silence could get to me anymore. I felt like I was being suffocated in my own thoughts. It was not pleasant and I needed to clear my mind. Preston didn't respond so I walked out of the room and the barn. About ten minutes later, I found the group of horses grazing together in the pasture. But what freaked me out was Grace was right next to Jay.
I sprinted over to them and didn't see any cuts or evidence that she was hurt. But I couldn't help but think Cali fell off and is now laying somewhere hurt. I looked around but it was too dark. I started calling out her name while running in a random direction.
"Jay?"
I stopped dead in my tracks. I was panting and trying to catch my breath while also trying to figure out who said that. It wasn't Cali's voice because it was low. But I couldn't place it.
"God...?" I asked quietly. In my messed up mental state, I just blurted out the first thing that came to mind. Whoever had said my name began laughing. Great. God was laughing at me.
"No, it's me son," grandpa said as he walked up to me and patted me on the back. He was a crazy old man, scaring me like that.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I asked, finally getting my breathing back to normal. I stood up and could just make out his face in the moonlight.
"I've looked everywhere I could think of. I could see her horse was up here so I thought maybe she had come back." He sounded nervous. He also sounded like he had been crying. He was just as worried as we were and he hadn't even seen her meltdown.
"No, she isn't here. I don't know where she went." I had to keep the lump in my throat down before I burst into tears. I don't know what I thought had happened, but if something did, I would never forgive myself. Over the past four months, Cali has become my world. She's my best friend and I don't think I could ever live without her.
"Where would she go? I might not have checked there," grandpa said with a more stable voice. I almost told him that I would go find her but then I remembered how pissed she had been at me. How could she possibly think that I called her family? I didn't want them here just as much as she did. Hopefully she gave me the chance to explain.
"Um..." I was having trouble thinking. But then one place came into mind.
"The old oak tree by the lake tree. She's either sitting under it or she climbed it." Over the past few months, when her mom would call or she had to get away, she went to the tree. Either there or she went on the roof, but I knew she wasn't there.
Grandpa nodded his head before turning around and walking in the direction of which I assumed was the lake. My eyes still hadn't fully adjusted to the darkness so I wasn't exactly sure where anything was.
I stood outside for a few minutes before I was finally to see more then a few feet in front of me. I brought in the horses and took Grace and Jay in last. Those two horses were always together. If horses could get married, they would. I'm sure of it.
I walked back to Cali's room to see Preston sitting in the exact same position in the old wooden chair that I had slept in for almost a month straight. I began telling him that grandpa went to check the oak tree but I could tell he was off thinking about something. Suddenly his phone beeped and he took it out. His face perked up into a small smile before it fell after a second. That meant it wasn't Cali. But whoever it was had his attention.
"That Sam?" I asked after he put his phone away. Me and Cali had finally gotten out of him that he had a girlfriend named Samantha in town. He said that they had been dating for a few weeks but we would meet her soon. I was happy for Preston. He deserved to be happy.
"Yeah..." He replied with a sigh as he leaned back in the chair. The smile on his face was unmistakeable. He liked her a lot.
It fell silent for a few minutes before he completely changed the subject and started talking about future plans for the farm. He was smart because he knew that if he didn't change the subject, I would have asked more questions about Sam. She obviously had Preston wrapped around her finger. He was talking to her all the time and he went into town almost every night.
"Well, there is that land to the north. I think the neighbors might be selling it soon." He was talking about more room for the horses. He knew more then I did, but I would think that seventy acres was more then enough land for only fifteen horses.
"Sure. Grandpa know about it?" I asked after a few seconds. I could already tell that Preston would take over the more business side of running this place and I would deal more with the animals and stuff like that.
"Yeah. He went to check it out the other day. I didn't get a-"
He stopped and his eyes tore away from me and towards the front of the room. I followed his gaze to see a very tired looking Cali standing in the door way. She was wearing my sweatshirt that looked really sexy on her.
Really? I was checking her out at a time like this. Before I could stand up to talk or go to her, she put her hand up and shook her head.
"I'm going to explain. Don't cut me off."
She took a small step into the room and stared at the floor. I knew she would freak out if either of us did anything so we sat and stared at her in silence.
"No one, and I mean no one will ever understand the emotional and mental torture that woman has put me through. It took a lot to move on from and forget about her. I shoved her and all the other shit from my past into the back corners of my mind. And for awhile, that's were it stayed. But seeing those three people and hearing their voices, brought all of those buried thoughts back. I don't know why I freaked out; it's probably some psychological thing or shit," she said, quietly and with more emotion then I have ever heard.
She took a deep breath and looked up at us. The look on her face shocked me. For the first time since I met her, there was no pain in her eyes. They were clear and had a certain look to them. It wasn't like when she was happy, but at least she wasn't hurting anymore.
"It feels like a weight has been lifted now though. I think seeing them forced me to bring up the things I had been hiding from and face them. And now that I have, I can move on."
I looked at Preston who was nodding his head with a small smile on his face. I think neither of us knew what to do or say in that moment exactly. I stood up to give her a hug but she put up her hand and I froze.
Dammit. I thought she would forgive or at least forget what she thought I did. And now she probably wasn't going to let me explain.
"No. Just because I moved on doesn't mean I was happy them coming. You asshole," she crossed her arms her chest and had the blankest expression on her face.
"Will you let me explain?" I asked, taking a cautious step towards her. I felt like I was trying to talk to someone who had just lost their memory. Even though Cali remembered perfectly well why she was and at me.
"Nope. Now will you both get out of my room so I can sleep?"
I glanced over my shoulder at Preston who walked by me and patted me on the back. He gave Cali a reluctant hug before leaving and closing the door behind him. That didn't help at all. Cali huffed and then opened the door, swinging her arm out, motioning for me to leave.
"I didn't fucking call them! They saw the picture of you in front of Preston's egged out truck on Facebook!" I screamed as I threw my hands up in the hair. The silence had been beginning to suffocate me again. I looked over at Cali who had her head in her hands and she sounded like she was crying.