Chapter 5: Being Friends is For the Best. I Guess.
Sometimes when I didn't have anything to do, I spent time with Paint, even if I just sat down on the fence to just watch him roam around his field. I really wanted to try getting him to interact more with other horses but I knew I was going to have to do that slowly.
Paint trotted over to me, standing by the fence and just staring at me. I hopped off of the fence to stroke his neck, a thin smile on my face. I always felt calm around him. I haven't been stressed out or anything lately but I still felt some serenity just by being around Paint.
And at least Paint felt the same way. Whenever anyone else went near him, he panicked at times or ran all the way to the other end of the field so the person wouldn't be near him. But with me, Paint actually made the effort to come to where I was.
While I was just calmly stroking Paint's neck, I noticed a car pull into the driveway. I kept my eye on it to see who the car belonged to. The driver and passenger doors opened, a woman first stepping out of the driver's door. I didn't recognize who she was but once the passenger got out, it was easy to pin who the woman was.
The mayor. Also known as Kitty's mom.
Kitty was the one who got out of the passenger's door. I had no idea why she was here but all I knew was the Birch family wasn't going to react positively to it. Well, they might but that was only because the mayor was here as well and they wouldn't want to piss of the mayor by being mad at her daughter.
Even though Kitty was a jerk for what she said to Sawyer when she dumped him.
I was trying my best to ignore Kitty but it didn't help when she started making her way here while her mother went to the front door of the house. I just put my concentration on Paint so I wouldn't have to look at the wicked person approaching me.
She even had the audacity to clear her throat quite loudly before saying, "Hello? Are you going to pay attention to me?"
I looked over at her and glared. "Go away."
Kitty snorted. "You should be a bit more hospitable."
"To you of all people?" I asked. "I'll show you respect once you learn some yourself."
Kitty walked a bit closer to the fence which caused Paint to panic a bit. I had to calm him down before letting him roam on the far side of the field, away from Kitty. "I can't believe they still have that horse," Kitty said. "After all these years of having no progress with him whatsoever."
By the time Kitty said that, I noticed Sawyer had walked over so he ended up overhearing her. "Clearly there is some progress if Jamie was able to be as close to him as he was," Sawyer said, causing Kitty to turn and look at him. "What are you doing here?"
"My mom wanted to talk to your parents," Kitty said. "Something about the fair happening soon. I wanted to come with her to pop by for a visit."
"Well, you did," Sawyer said. "Now you can leave."
"Can we please just talk?" Kitty asked.
"Why?" Sawyer asked. "So you can remind me that you don't want to be with a bisexual guy?"
Kitty sighed. "Sawyer..."
Sawyer ignored her and looked at me. "I need your help with something."
"You're just going to ignore me?" Kitty asked.
"Sorry, I'm busy," Sawyer said as I hopped over the fence. "I got work to do." He gestured for me to follow him so I did as he led me to the stables.
"What do you need help with?" I asked.
"Escaping Kitty," Sawyer said. "Sorry, I don't actually need your help. I just needed a reason to let her know I was 'busy' so she wouldn't come looking for me after talking to you." Sawyer sat down on a bale of hay. "I just can't believe she thought she could waltz on our land and think everything is okay, especially after everything she has done."
"Tell me about it," I said, sitting down beside him. "I hate the stigma around bisexuals. How we're more likely to cheat just because we can like men and women."
"Her dumping me for being bi isn't the only reason I don't want to be around her," Sawyer said. "It's everything that happened after."
I wanted to ask Sawyer exactly what happened after but I didn't want him to feel pressured into telling me, especially if it was something he wasn't ready to talk about. And I think there was a lot he wasn't ready to talk about.
However, Sawyer continued talking about it anyway. "She broke up with me right before a big competition. I was getting ready to get on my horse and she walked over to me. I thought she was going to wish me good luck but she started yelling at me. And said those things I told you and then dumped me. And because it was right before the competition, I couldn't concentrate."
Sawyer didn't even have to finish telling me the events for me to know what happened. One thing you needed while riding a horse was complete and utter concentration. If Sawyer didn't have that, it was obvious what the results were, especially when it was during a competition.
"How long were you in the hospital for?" I asked in a quiet voice.
"To be honest... I have no idea," Sawyer said. "I was out cold for a few days. Stayed for a while after I woke up. When I did get released, it took my a long time to heal properly. I didn't even get back on a horse until a few weeks ago. Months after the accident and long after my doctor told me it was okay to ride again."
"Now I see your reluctance to be near Kitty," I said. "Breaking up with you before the competition? It couldn't wait until after?"
"Apparently not," Sawyer said. "Can you promise me something? Promise you won't pressure me to compete? My friends and family has been sympathetic towards me after the accident but once I got on my horse again, they've been so anxious to get me to compete again. You know, because I was a champion and I shouldn't let what happened hold me back. I just... I need one person not telling me to get back into competing."
"Of course I won't pressure you to compete," I said. "You're the one who knows better than everyone if you're ready or not, and if you say you aren't ready, then you're not ready. It will be like... me having an allergic reaction to bananas and then people telling me to eat bananas because I love it."
"Jamie, that's... that's not a good analogy," Sawyer said. "It makes no sense. But thanks. For understanding." Sawyer smiled at me and I smiled back.
"Sawyer, Jamie," I heard Vincent say so we looked over to see him standing at the entrance. "Mayor Ward wants our families' help setting up the fair next Friday. All of our help."
"Seriously?" Sawyer asked. "She defended Kitty after everything that happened and she wants me to help them?"
"Trust me, I'm not happy about it either," Vincent said. "But, you know, can't turn down the mayor. Unless you already have plans. It won't be fair for you to cancel your plans."
"Then it's a good thing I do have plans," Sawyer said. "At least, you can tell her I do."
"I will but you might want to create fake plans anyway," Vincent said. "You know how persistent she can be. She'll ask what the plans are to make sure you actually have them."
"If she does ask, just tell her... That I'm going to be taking Jamie out," Sawyer said.
I gasped dramatically. "Sawyer, you never asked me out. You can't assume I'll go on a date with you."
Sawyer rolled her eyes, though a smile was on his face. "I might take you out into the town. To show you around because you keep getting lost."
"Still sounds like a date to me."
Sawyer chuckled and looked at his older brother. "Can you go tell Mayor Ward I'll be showing Jamie around the town?"
"Sure," Vincent said. "And if she's still persistent, saying how you can do it another day, I'll say it's actually a date and it's not cool to cancel a date. She'll probably get mad once she finds out her daughter's ex-boyfriend is going on a date."
"I like the way you think," I said.
"Please don't say that, Vince," Sawyer said. "Jamie doesn't need the encouragement."
"In other words, he'll never go out with me so my heart is broken," I said.
"Yeah, whatever," Sawyer said. "Vince, if she does tell us to cancel, say Jamie and I are also going to be running some errands because we have some pick ups scheduled that day and can't change it."
"Got it," Vincent said before walking off.
"You know," I said. "You can pick me up any time."
"Shut up," Sawyer said, gently nudging my side. "You really don't stop with the innuendos, do you?"
"I think you need to learn what an innuendo is," I said. "That clearly wasn't one. That was just me trying to flirt. Did it work?"
"Not really."
Dang, I would have to step up my game then. Not really. I didn't like Sawyer or anything. I just enjoyed flirting with him and making innuendos to annoy him. We were just friends. The last thing I needed was a relationship and I was sure that was the last thing he needed as well.
Being friends was the best option.
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sure jamie sure. he just friendzoned himself lol.
and yay we got some of vincent. i really want to write more of the birch family. there will be a fair soon so maybe we'll get to see of the whole family, plus jamie's mom and dorothy. we need them more too, especially dorothy, that precious little bean.
i'm going to have to write a script for my screenwriting class soon and i like using my characters from my books on wattpad because i've already connected with them so it's easy to write about and i'm so tempted to use jamie and sawyer, mainly for jamie's sexual comments lol.
i want to use grant and ollie or jerome and nolan but i did last semester :(