Cowgirls Don't Cry

Ch 3

Chapter 3

Kip

            Im sitting in my truck outside the airport waiting for Lynn’s flight to land. Mr. Feller was pissed when he found out I told her. He yelled so loud the nurse had to come in and sedate him. Last night, after I talked to Lynn and her professor, I went back to the farm. I had to feed the horses and check on everything. I also wanted to see if Lynn’s room was fit for her. Mr. Feller had taken to storing stuff in her room as opposed to the shed in the back since it was easier. I was moving dusty boxes out back when Lynn called me I sat on her bed talking to her for over an hour. At first it was about her dad, her flight information, and what she had to do with all her stuff. Then we started talking about her. Her classes, the internship she had to turn down, her love life. I knew she just needed to talk, and I was happy to listen. I had missed talking to her. Living on the far with her all those years, she had become my best friend.

            While she talked I absent mindedly looked through one of the boxes. It was full of old pictures. I looked at them, watching Lynn grow up with each one I grabbed. i smiled when I grabbed the one from the day Lynn left for school. Mr. Feller had made me get in the picture with her, claiming I was part of the family. Looking at myself I looked so much younger. I was slimmer, longer hair, no age on my face at all. I’m almost 25 now. I’m still young, but my age shows a little more. Working on a farm has put lines on my face, and has turned my lean mussels into large bulky mussels. I didn’t have the body of a teen ager any more. I couldn’t help thinking about how Lynn had changed. Talking on the phone, her accents gone. Living in Oklahoma had washed the Montana out of her, I wonder what else it changed.

            Lynn had ended up falling asleep on the phone. I understood, sometimes you don’t want to be alone. It’s harder to sleep alone. I hung up as soon as her breathing became slow. Now I sat here tapping the steering wheel along to the music. I hadn’t realized how much I missed having my little buddy around until now. Sure, there had been times over the last few years where something happened that I wanted to tell her, but it never registered I missed her until now. My phone starts ringing on the bench seat next to me.

“Hello?” I say flipping it open.

“You couldn’t even wash your truck for me?” Lynn’s voice says on the other end.

I smile sitting up looking around for her, “Now, why would I do that? College turn you into a Yippy who can’t get dirty?”

She burst out laughing and I spot her about fifty yards away. I hang up, throw on my hazards, and hop out of the truck.  Lynn walks a little faster, meeting me half way. I throw my arms out, wrapping her in a massive hug. I felt bad being so happy in this sad situation, but lynn laughs again returning my hug making me feel better. I let her go grabbing her bags, gesturing for her to fallow me. Her strides easily match mine, and she has a sad smile on her face.

“I missed you, Kip” she says as we get to the truck. I smile at her throwing her bags into the bed as she climbs in the cab.

“I missed you too,” I said softly, once she had closed the door.

Lynn

 

            I can’t help staring out the window as we drive to the hospital. It’s weird, nothing has changed, but at the same time, everything has. The sights are all the same, but it doesn’t feel the same.

“So, catch me up,” I say trying not to think of my dad, “What’s changed, who died, who got married, who turned into a crack head?”

Kip laughs loudly, the smile reaching his eyes. His smile hadn’t changed, it still had this way of making me feel better.

“Well,” Kip says, laughter in his voice. “Ben and marry got married and she’s pregnant now, six months with a little girl. Ben’s thrilled. Umm, Jarret been trying to get at your little friend Alice but she’s been giving him the cold shoulder”

“Oh she told me about that!” I laugh thinking of the night Alice called hysterically laughing cause Kips best friend Jarret drunkly hit on her.

“Oh, the Barnett’s next door moved.”

“What!” I turned and looked at him, shocked. The Barnett’s had owned the far next to us for as long as I can remember.

“Yea, they moved up north. Mr. Barnett fell off a ladder last Christmas and he hasn’t really been able to keep things up so he sold it. It’s a young guy who bought it too so it’s weird.”

“How young?” I asked. People don’t really move from here.

“He’s like my age” kip says with a laugh. I want to ask more but I want to ask more. But we pulled into the hospital. I look out the window at the big stone building in front of me.

“Hey,” touches my arm. “It’s going to be ok” he smiles at me.

I smile back, even though my heart was currently sitting in my stomach.