Page 31 of The Cowboy and His Beauty
"He was never good enough for you, so we persuaded him to make the right choice. Join the military, get to school taken care of that way, and leave you alone," her dad says.
Sky looks at me dumbstruck. "Is that what happened?" Her voice is soft in a way I don't deserve.
"I was young and easily manipulated, but yes. He made it seem like I had no other choice. At the end of his talk, I was convinced you wouldn't wait for me. But in the end, it was the choice I made that broke us, so that's on me." I tell her honestly.
I've had so long to think about this and about us. It took a few years before I realized I was manipulated, but it was my decision. Maybe I wasn't strong enough to disobey her parents. Maybe it was that I thought Sky was too good for me. Whatever the reason, it wasn't hard for her father to get in my head and convince me I was a lost cause.
"That's bullshit. I would have waited for you. I know that now and I knew it then. You had other options." She turns to face her father. "You knew he had other options. You did what was in your best interests because I wasn't following the path you wanted. You didn't give a damn about what I wanted." Her voice rises with each word.
"He can't leave this town because of that ranch. He was born on that ranch, and he will die on that ranch. It doesn't matter that he got out of town for a little while. You, on the other hand, can have a life far beyond this little town," her mom says.
"But the same town is good enough for the two of you?" Sky demands.
"We have our reasons for being here, and they are none of your concern," her father says.
"Newsflash! I hated my life in Dallas. I hated the seventy-hour work weeks. I hated how loud it was. I hated how busy it was. I hated how I was a stranger, even in my apartment building. I love it here. I love walking into the diner and knowing the people there. I love that the waitress knows my order. I love how quiet and slow-paced it is. You don't get to choose my life!"
I'm proud of Sky for sticking up for herself. I know she's always wanted to make her parents proud, but she wanted to do it on her terms.
"As for you"—she spins to face me—"I get to decide my life. You had no right to make that choice for me. I would like to go home now."
She turns and stomps to the front door without another word. I look at the two people I've been dreading facing for years, really look at them. The stress they live their lives under has aged them.. They were so scary to me as a teenager. Now, I could not care less.
I turn and follow the Sky without a word.
Chapter 19
Sky
"Will you tell me what's going on in that pretty little head of yours?" Dash asks after we've left town without a single word between us.
"I don't know who to be madder at. My parents for convincing you to go, or for you for listening to them."
"I don't know what you want me to say. Nothing I say now is going to change the choices I made back then," he says, his voice is calm and almost emotionless. I wonder if that's something the military drilled into him.
"I think we should cool things down between us," I tell him as we pull into the ranch.
"Listen, you can be mad all you want. Is what your parents did wrong? Absolutely. But we can't change that now, and I'm not giving up on us."
I shake my head and get out of the car, heading up the stairs to my apartment.
"Your parents were right about one thing. I did join to go to school. I also joined to travel. I needed to see something outside this town," Dash says from the bottom of the steps.
I turn to face him. "That's fine, but I would have waited for you."
"I didn't want you to wait for years, not knowing when we could be together with you going to school and me constantly being deployed. Your parents wouldn’t have let you put your whole life on hold like that."
"So you let my parents play on both our insecurities. Once I found out you joined, they were in my ear about how horrible life as a military wife was, yet I wanted it so badly with you."
When Dash doesn't say anything, I turn and head inside, closing the door behind me. I stand there for a few minutes, waiting to see if he goes inside. I don't hear anything, but when I peek out the window, he's gone.
I go straight to my room and lie on the bed, trying to make sense of what happened tonight. But my mind keeps straying to Dash. What is he doing? What is he thinking about?
He said he wasn't going to give up on us. My mind focuses on that, and it just goes around and around in my head.
I pull out my phone and call Sarah.
"Hey, girl. How are things going?" She greets me with her sunny personality that I love so much.
