Gracie-Lou in Broken Mirrors Shattered Dreams

Part 2

Chapter One

June, 2011, Clearwater, KS

I cannot stop dwelling on our age difference. I am nineteen, twenty in five months while my boyfriend Alex is twenty-two. He has broad shoulders, a great tan, with farm boy muscles to shame Mr. Universe. There is nothing fake about his physique and he is easy on the eye. Hard work and three square meals every day make Alex a tower of strength that ordinarily, I enjoy the warmth of his strong embrace, but not this time. When his hand moves into the small of my back to hold me close, there is something animalistic in the way his lips claim mine, devouring my mouth without giving me the chance to say stop. I place my hands to his chest, scrunching up his shirt in my hands, trying to push him away.

“Alex!” I say in between his kisses. “Stop!” He stares down at me with an unforgiving crazed expression in his dark eyes. They scare me.

Have I gone too far to back out?

“Just go with it,” he growls before his lips are pressing firmly against the side of my neck. Trying to push him away with my hands is futile and the hay in the loft is scratching at the bare patch of skin behind my thighs where his hands have raised my denim dress. I try slapping his hands away, but he reaches for them and pins them above my head. Crouching above me, he is breathing as fast as I am but I don’t trust the way he licks his lips.

“Let me up, Alex!” I almost scream at him and try sitting up.

He shakes his head. “You’ll be great. Don’t worry about it,” his voice is hoarse as he reaches for the buttons on my dress and tears them open.

Alex has been pressuring me for months to sleep with him. I am not ready to go there–not with him. That fear quickly gets me into trouble. He is moving things way too fast for me and is not listening to my pleas. He is like a man possessed–with a one-track mind. I find myself searching for a way out.

In my mind, I run through the wheat fields of the place I have called home for the past fourteen years. While I was born in the Bronx, I was raised on a large farm about four miles outside of a small town called Clearwater, south-west of Wichita, Kansas. I am trying to think about anything that will help me as I struggle to gain control over my present situation.

My sister’s husband used to work for the New York City Police Department before trading that life to become a farmer after he was shot in the back. He once showed me how to defend myself. If I can remember what he taught me, I might stand a chance–a slim one. I channel my strength as I struggle against Alex’s hands. I grit my teeth, bringing my knee up sharply. It makes direct contact with Alex’s groin and he winces, releasing my hands. I take the opportunity to strike Alex in the face. My fingernails drag across the side of Alex’s face and I literally claw my way out from under his weight.

While he is distracted, writhing in pain, clutching his balls, I crawl over to the ladder and misjudge the rail space. I fall, landing on my ass. The abrupt stop of the hard cement floor in the barn and the pain that shudders through me is enough to make my vision a little blurry. I hear Alex groaning and cursing under his breath. Chaff falls between the wooden boards in the loft and I know he is walking around. There is not much time between us as I race from the barn, my bare feet kicking up dust, each pounding footstep echoing the beat of my heart. I ignore the pain under the soles of my feet as I run across the small sharp stones that divide the barn from the nearest wheat field.

The only hope I have is to cross paths with my father and Oliver before Alex catches up with me. They are meant to be out here somewhere, checking the crop for harvest. The family has been worried about an early harvest. The storm season is upon us and if a Tornado touches down in a field that is ripe for harvest, we stand to lose a load of money.