Ready to wish my man a very good morning.
Instead, I feel like someone’s put a knife through my heart.
I’m not imagining it when I hear Mack say, practically shout, that he’s not interested in any ranch guests.
Not in the way I can assume he must’ve been talking about with old Mrs. Corbett just now.
‘Not interested in any ranch guests….’
Don’t get much clearer than that, Tina.
Mack and Mrs. Corbett notice me coming in right when he says it. And feeling as if my eyes are sink plugs that have just been yanked out, the tears start welling up in them before I can even try to stop myself.
That dream I thought I was having?
The one where the handsome, older ranch hand almost kissed me, and we still have the whole weekend to find out just how far it can go?
Well. it’s just turned into a nightmare.
I feel like I need to get out of here.
Like, right now.
But knowing I’m dependent on my mom to get home, I feel a different kind of anger and upset about to spill over inside me.
How could Mack even say that…? Let alone after what we almost did last night?
It’s too much to process, and my instinct to run is only matched by never wanting to talk to or see Mack ever again.
But that would only mean I’ll never really know what just happened.
I’ll just have this horrible aching hole where my heart used to be for the rest of my life.
Oh god…I’ll probably turn into my mother.
Plus, I don’t hate Mack. I love him.
I love him with all my heart, but hearing what he’s just said makes it feel broken.
I’m so confused, so frightened even.
The only place I really have to run to right now is back to our room.
And stumbling up the heavy wooden staircase, I heave the door closed behind me. Hurling myself back onto the double bed I tried so hard to sleep in last night.
It’s the only place that feels anywhere near safe right now.
I try to cry with my face buried in the soft pillows, but only a dry croak comes out. My body shivering and convulsing like I’m throwing up, but it’s just this horrible feeling that’s taken over.
Wanting the ground under this whole place to just open up and swallow me whole, bed and all. The last thing I want to do is talk to or see anyone.
So, when I hear heavy footsteps on the stairs, and then the door handle rattling before someone knocks, I try to tell him to go away while also trying to bawl my eyes out.
I guess there’s a big part of me that’s secretly hoping Mack followed me up here.
Maybe I did hear it wrong…and now he’s come to see if I’m alright.
But it’s not Mack.
My mom’s shrill voice from the other side of the door demanding I open it makes me groan.
Sniffing back my tears and wiping my eyes, I peel myself off the bed and unlatch the door before heading straight back for the bed.
“Why are you locked in here?” mom gasps, making a sweeping entrance and surveying the room.
“I’m sick, mom…,” I murmur. Laying on my side and turning my back to her so she can’t see me crying.
“Sick? What are you talking about?” she clips dismissively.
I can hear her swishing about the room as if she’s looking for something or gathering things up.
Totally ignoring me.
The pain in my stomach only getting worse and joining the ache in my heart takes a lot for me not to sob out loud.
“Ben and I are going on a picnic by the lake,” she chirps. Actually, humming a tune to herself as I hear her unzipping herself and changing into something else.
Stifling another groan but wondering if she even heard me, I roll over to face her.
“I don’t want to stay here, Mom…I just…I just want to go home,” I finally sob.
All the emotions I’ve been trying to hold in flooding out of me.
But nothing’s going to break my mom’s good mood. And, after giving me a frown, studying my outburst, she lets me know it.
“We just got here, Tina,” she says coldly but forces her mouth back into a smile before she goes on.
“I’m going to enjoy myself this weekend, so if you just want to lay in bed and mope that’s your business,” she says, waving the idea away with her hand before pressing her finger to her lips in thought.
“Ah! I can wear the red ones,” she thinks out loud and gets back to making herself look way overdressed for anything, let alone a picnic on a ranch.
At eight o’clock in the morning.
I turn over again so I don’t have to look at her, but mom finally finds enough time once she’s done to explain everything to me.
Like I’m five.