Broken Horse

Chapter 24 - Jacey

The spring rain drizzled down the window and the low clouds seemed to lull around the farm. I try not to look outside, but no matter what I do, my eyes tend to shift over just enough to see that horse standing in the back yard with his head hanging low, and the big black one standing right beside it grazing on every bit of green grass there was.

"Can I come in?" Jacki's soft voice lofted into the room and she gently nudged the door open. It was hard seeing her gush over the cute baby things she already bought, but knowing she had to return all the items with the loss, it pained me even more. One more rock of guilt on my shoulders. My sister spending her money on the baby I lost because of those two horrible animals that I wanted so bad.

"You will anyway, so why bother asking?" I peeled my eyes off the gloomy distance and my heart settled back into the now very empty pit of my soul. Shifting on the bed, I rolled onto my left side giving her ample view of my back.

"I was hoping we could hang out tonight." The fluffiness in her voice cut me deep, deeper than normal. I knew that tone, and that tone always meant she met someone. If she met someone, then she would be playing the disappearance act around the farm until the new car smell wore off.

"I don't want to. I just want to be alone." But, what did that matter? If it wasn't her, it was my mom hounding me to come down and have some pie, some roast, or some popcorn. A few times, John stopped up to ask me training questions, but it was a ploy to get me out to the barn. I didn't bite. He knew how to train, and he was good with the way he worked with the horses. There wasn't anything for me to do.

Tobey, that was a surprise when he came up and propped his tablet up on the nightstand and made me watch some stupid comedy with him. And I didn't have a choice. When I tried to leave, he followed bringing the movie right along with him. A few times, he offered to take me out on a date, but why? I wasn't good for anything anyway. Why would someone as good of a person as he was want to date me?

"I know it's been a few weeks, but I think we need to start living again."

Slamming my hands down on my mattress, I pushed myself up and craned my neck to look at her. "Are you serious?"

"What? I can't do anything knowing you are so..."

"Pathetic? disgusting? A shame? A worthless waste of a life?" Tears tried to spring to my eyes, but the devastation cut them off at the intersection, and none were able to break free. "I just want to be alone."

"Okay, but I really need to tell you something." Her eyes softened and the compassion glistened inside of the flecks of green through the hazels. "I have been kind of seeing someone, and I think I need to tell you."

"Don't care." I laid back down.

"You will when I tell you who." She cringed, and my heart dropped even lower in my stomach, which I wasn't sure it even could. "And it's kind of serious. Dad's been over and he's had dinner with us."

A thousand knives shot through my back, all the tips barely nipped my heart. It had to be someone major for her to be telling me this. And the major person would be a relation to the very person I destroyed.

"We ran into each other and, he knew it was me right away so he didn't think you were out partying..."

"I really don't care what, or who, you do." Seeing Nikolay would just reopen any wounds that tried to close. Knowing Sergei left the country to get away from me, having his brother around would be worse because I would hear how Sergei is doing, or if he's seeing someone else. How could I be okay knowing he was with someone else when I wanted to be with him more than anything.

Once he finds out that I lost the baby, there would be no way he would ever willing to talk to me again. The baby was something he wanted just as bad as I did. And I lost him. I lost the baby.

"We actually talk a lot about how you are doing. He really likes you, Jacey, and he doesn't hold anything against you. We were kind of hoping he could come over one day and see the horses." She slid onto the mattress by me, resting her head on my pillow. Brushing the dull hair away from my face, she tucked it behind my ear. "Nik feels horrible..."

"You can do what you want, Jacki. I don't want anything to do with him, or Sergei." I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath. The tears began to burn, and the waters began to fill in my eyes. But, as soon as her hand rested on my belly, the empty hole where my heart fell out of, they dried and the pain seeped in deeper.

"I don't think you mean that. I think..." she pressed her lips to the back of my head. "You need to really think about what you want. You have always been Dad's hired hand, and you've never been able to do something for yourself."

"I did, Jack, and look at what that did for me."

"Losing the baby was hard, I understand completely. I was looking forward to being an auntie. But, Jace," she released a loud breath. "It wasn't your fault. You can't keep blaming yourself."

Blame myself? No, I didn't blame myself for losing the one thing in the world that tied me to Sergei. It was that horse. That one he brought back to me.

There was a whole reason why I couldn't get anywhere with it, and there was a whole reason why my father sent him down the road. No one can fix broken.  

I tried like hell. I tried with the horse. I tried with Sergei. And what happened? Karma came and took everything I loved away. I tried so hard to show him there was more to like than drinking, and I ended up falling in love with him.

But, I never should have met him in the first place. He was Jackie's professor, and the only reason I went to that class was because I couldn't handle that stupid calculus class. Switching was wrong. I was wrong. About everything.

Every damn thing.

"You can see Nik. You can do whatever the hell you want to." Reaching down, I tangled her fingers into mine and lifted her hand off my empty pit of life. Dropping her hand over her, I pulled back every salty bit of water that was inside of me. "I don't need anything from anyone. And I certainly don't need your pity. You want to screw him, screw him. You want to screw someone else, screw someone else. I don't care. Do whatever the hell you want to."

Sitting up, I glanced out the window one last time before I walked across the room to the door. Those horses had to leave. I didn't want them. I don't want anything to do with them. And I don't ever want anything to do with any damn horse ever again.

Training was a business. Only a business. When you keep one horse, you have to sell of ten to compensate for it. There were two worthless animals out back that needed to go. This was a business. And only a business. Buy horses that needed work, and then sell them for three times as much, if not more.