{Yours - Russell Dickerson}
...I was a worn-out set of shoes, wanderin' the city street, another face in the crowd, head looking down, lost in the sound of a lonely melody...
----
It's happening again. I can feel it creep in through my skin, that foreign yet familiar sensation that, in the dark, I can't escape.
I can hear the music, the faces all distorted, rushed and yet slowed down, fleeting as I am pulled, dragged through the crowds, while the bass drones on.
"It's too loud," I say to the hand gripping mine, but I can barely hear my shout.
"We'll go somewhere quieter," they reply.
So I follow.
The door closes, blocking out the noise. I'm stumbling towards the wall, holding myself together. He is there. Again. In the quiet. Away from the faces and the noise.
It's too quiet.
"Come here," he tells me, but his face is over mine before I can lift my drooping head.
His breath lingers, seeping into my skin. It's harsh, jagged, waiting for something I don't know if I want to give.
I've seen this all before—this moment. I've lived it before, but I can't escape seeing it again and again. I just want to wake up. I just want to run. I just want to scream out--
----
My body jolts forward, sweat staining my back as I launch my body out of bed, crying silently in the dark. It was just another nightmare, I tell myself. Nothing you haven't handled before. It doesn't matter what I tell myself; no words of encouragement take away the feeling of your skin crawling all over again.
I walk over to the window seat, the early morning light just beginning to creep over the hills as I feel the plush cushions underneath me, getting comfy.
Another sunrise.
I have seen more sunrises than most people. I know the way the sky paints itself to say hello. Yet, I can't enjoy it. I'm not awake because I want to be.
My eyes pan over to the stables, still dark in the shadows of the early morning where the sun hadn't quite touched yet, a single torch hanging on one of the pillars, guiding my eyes over to it. I have to be up in a few hours anyway to help Beau with the stables. Something I had agreed to, purely to piss him off.
A knot forms in my stomach when I think about him. How flippant he was. How angry he seemed at me. He doesn't even know me, and yet he sees me the way everyone seems to. Like I'm nothing. Like I'm a problem. Like I'm a mess that Uncle Deacon doesn't need.
I grab some clothes I'd left lying on my dresser, quietly pulling on my boots before tip-toeing down the rickety wooden stairs. I am already out the door when I see the first strong, shining light of the day.
I'll show him, I think. I'll prove that I deserve to be here.
The stables are darkened and smell strongly of hay and horses, an overpowering aroma. Still, I trudge on, watching the horses as they stare back at me curiously, wondering why I'm not a rude, ill-tempered cowboy wannabe coming to clean out their stables. Still, they'll have to make do with me.
Before I have a chance to wish I was trying to get a few more hours sleep, I open the stable door and lead one of the horses, Dusk, out into the paddock. She is a beautiful dark grey colour, with little speckles of white across her back. I notice them as she calmly clip-clops her way to the paddock and a fresh bucket of water.
I get straight down to business, mucking out the stable, remembering the way Uncle Deacon used to do it, like clockwork while I watched him in awe when I was younger. It jogs so many faded memories, forcing them back to the forefront. I both smile, and feel the ache in my chest of how things have changed. It's not an easy thing to swallow.
The rest of the stables become easier after I finish Dusk's stable, and as the morning sun brings out the blistering heat, I wipe my brow and sit for a minute, taking a breath against the door of Dusk's stable.
She whinnies, leaning down to breath on my hair, blowing it down over my face.
"Hey, I worked hard for this bed-head," I say to her.
"Certainly looks like it," I hear a voice behind me. I turn to see Beau standing, leaning against the wooden beam outside of the stables as he douses the candlelight in the lantern hanging above him.
"Morning, to you too," I sigh, rising to stand face to face.
"Well, I didn't expect you to beat me here, but I guess it's something," he gruffs, heading to the stables. "You ready to get started?"
"What are you talking about? I already cleaned out the stables," I shook my head.
"All of them?" He asks incredulously.
"All of them." I nod. "Check for yourself if you don't believe me."
His eyes look me up and down disapprovingly, contemplating on if it was possible in his expectations of me to do this task possibly. He stalks past me, peeking his head over the doors, his eyes darting from corner to corner at my hard work. I half-resent it, but part of me wants him to regret thinking less of me.
"Well... Um," he struggles for words. "Good job."
A pleased grin spreads over my face.
"What did I say about making assumptions about me?"
"Nothing memorable, miss," he throws back, a quick flash of a grin fleeting all too quick.
"Jackass," I laugh under my breath, beginning to walk towards the door. "Now, is there anything else you need?"
"Let me just check," he stops me. "Fresh water and fresh hay in all of the stables?"
"It isn't my first rodeo, Beau," I smile sarcastically.
"Evidently, Miss Ruby," he concedes.
"Just Ruby," I correct him.
"Okay, Just Ruby," he nods, chuckling to himself. "Well, thank you for your hard work."
"Can I help with anything else?"
"You want to help?" He raises his eyebrows.
"I don't want to be a burden on anyone, sitting doing nothing," I state clearly. "If I'm here for good, I want to do what's needed to make life a little easier."
His words from last night are present in ghostly echoes, and I see a sense of regret in his face before he brushes it off.
"I have a fence to fix if you want to help me," he sighs, picking up a toolbox and some thick metal wire.
I say nothing, only nod and follow in his footsteps off into the fields.
----
"No, not like that!" Beau berates me, for what feels like the millionth time.
"I know how to hammer a nail," I shoot back. "It's not rocket science!"
"Be that as it may, Just Ruby, if you hammer that nail, you'll break your thumb," he smirks, moving a little to the right as his stance blocks the sun out of my eyes so I can finally see that he's right.
Damn it.
"Don't give me that look," I huff. "I was about to move my thumb."
It's about mid-afternoon by this point, both of us sweaty and warm under the heat of the sun, beating down over us as we worked along the wires of the fence, mending it piece by piece. Beau doesn't talk much, I've noticed, unless it's to tell me I'm doing something wrong.
So he's had a lot to say.
"Come on, we've got more wire to hammer," he sighs, walking a little further down the line.
I batter the nail into its home in the wooden post, clearing my thumb out of harm's way, as I follow Beau a few metres down the field, along the fence. I toss a glance back at the work we've done, feeling accomplished in my blood, toil and sweat.
A breeze billows up the hill and knocks me off-kilter, the tiredness and lack of sleep starting to kick in. It was only a matter of time, and under this harsh sun, I'm not shocked.
"Are we almost done?" I ask him, feeling a little less steady than I was a second ago.
Maybe it's the heat. Or the tiredness. Or hunger. Maybe a little bit of each, but either way, I can feel my knees giving way.
"Why? Can't take much more?" He turns, his smirk dropping as he looks at me. "Are you okay?"
"Probably just a little hungry," I laugh, leaning against the fence post.
"Well, let's head back and get some food," he nods quietly. "Ain't much use to anyone if you're faintin' on us."
"I'm not that dramatic," I laugh weakly. "I could do with some lunch, though."
"You and me both, Just Ruby," he laughs quietly as he takes the hammer from my weak hand, both of us happy to be heading back.
I take in the breeze, trying to focus on getting into the shade, a tall glass of water and a sandwich waiting for me. Back home I'd probably still be asleep by now, but I bat the thought away, focusing on right now.
Beau says nothing, only walks alongside. His eyes stay focused on the fields, and the horizon against the line of the hills far in the distance. It's like he wishes he were far away, not here on this ranch, fixing fence posts.
Maybe that's just me.
"Ruby!" I hear Uncle Deacon call out from the house. Beau and I turn to see him, tired and hungover but dressed in his usual flannel get up. "Scarlett's here to take you to lunch, darlin'."
Scarlett peeks around from behind him, waving wildly at me. I'm tired, hungry, and need a shower but I wave back, speeding up away from Beau. Scarlett always had that effect on people; she makes them happy.
"Thanks, Uncle Deacon," I nod, passing him, to hug Scarlett.
"Be back by nine," he says soberly. "No later."
Scarlett looks at us as I nod at him, deflating a little. Again, with all the rules. I see Scarlett getting ready to say something about his curfew, her forwardness ever-present, but I squeeze her arm gently, and she stops herself.
"I'll see you later," I nod to Beau, who has just caught up to me, Scarlett and Uncle Deacon.
"I have no doubt," he nods, turning to Scarlett. "Miss."
"Beau," she smiles. "Hope you're well."
Scarlett begins to lead me away, taking my head as she heads through the house and out towards her car that's parked in the drive.
"We're going to the hills, I've got something I wanna show you," she whispers to me, making sure Uncle Deacon can't hear.
"I have to be back by nine,"
"I'll have you back in time, but we get to have some fun until then," she winks.
"Thought about it?" Beau speaks quietly to my Uncle, his voice catching me off guard. I stop at the door, watching Scarlett head down the porch steps towards her jeep. I can't help but turn my head back.
"Beau, we'll find the money somehow," Uncle Deacon pats his shoulder, his face sullen and sad.
"But--" Beau tries to start again, almost pleading.
"I can't ask that of you, not after last time."
I don't hear anything else, Uncle Deacon catching my gaze as he closes the porch door over.
"Hurry up, Ruby! The sun's a'shinin'!" Scarlett hollers to me, her window rolled down, as her engine revs, waiting.
I catch up, smiling and ready to get out of here for a while. The tires kick up the dirt on the road as we head out of the ranch, with the hole in my stomach now feeling worse, and not because of hunger.
----