The Pioneer Woman by Ree Drummond

Author:Ree Drummond [Drummond, Ree]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2011-09-25T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

TORMENT TRAIL

I STOOD THERE in his driveway, not knowing whether to run after him or leave; the latter was certainly the easier of the two options. I’d never felt so exhausted; I felt needles in my eyes when I blinked. Never mind how Marlboro Man’s eyes must have felt after staring into a blazing prairie fire for over four hours. I heard a mama cow moo in the distance. What was she telling me? You were stooooooopid. Go in after him. I wasn’t sure what the right move was; he’d never put me in this position before. He always made the moves; he always flew in and saved the moment.

The romantic thing, the right thing, the brave thing would have been for me to follow him into his house. To grab him, to hug him, to embrace him…to say I’m sorry, whether I felt that way or not. Acknowledge that it had been a rough night for both of us. Admit that I’d overreacted. Show him that I’m here for him, no matter what life brings, and that I love him more than anything. That’s what my heart commanded me to do.

But my head took over and reminded my heart, which by now was thumping inside me, of the tone of Marlboro Man’s voice moments earlier—the cold, distant, detached “see you later” that plunged a thousand icicles into my chest. And within moments, I was quietly pulling out of Marlboro Man’s gravel driveway, trying to convince myself that the past several hours had been a bad dream…that I’d soon wake up to the familiar sound of Marlboro Man saying “Hey, you…” over the phone. It had to have been a bad dream. But all the way home, my car phone remained deafeningly silent.

An hour later, I was pulling into my parents’ driveway, the site of so many long, impassioned embraces between Marlboro Man and me. I’d lived in this house since third grade—had walked up to this same porch in everything from Sperry Top-Siders to Reebok high-tops to Birkenstocks. I’d stood on that porch, saying good night to prom dates and boyfriends and band geeks and tennis pros. But the ghosts of those dates were long gone; this porch had been forever etched with the soles of Marlboro Man’s boots. He’d taken over everything—every speck of my focus and attention since I’d laid eyes on him in that bar in my hometown. It had been a whirlwind, a tsunami—a natural disaster of my judgment and resolve and self. One week with a Wrangler-wearing cowboy, and the entire course of my life had changed.

As I walked up the same driveway where it had all begun with a kiss between us, I knew without a doubt that it was the only thing I’d ever really wanted. I fell onto my bed and buried my head in my pillow, wanting desperately to fall fast asleep. But sleep wouldn’t come, no matter how much I wanted it to rescue me from the horrible feeling in my stomach.

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