Without You

Luke smiled and then pointed to Grace and me. “We can have alcohol, but don’t let Lauren or Taylor drink.”

Grace and I each rolled our eyes.

“Taylor doesn’t drink, Luke. Anyway, they are going to be seniors, and you let Colt drink.”

“Colt is different.” Luke shrugged his shoulders.

Grace placed her hands on her hips. “No, he isn’t, Luke.”

“Doesn’t matter. They’re not drinking.” Luke turned and began walking out of the barn. “Will and I will take care of everything. See y’all later.”

I giggled as I watched Luke walk out of the barn. I turned and looked up at my baby boy. “I’m going to miss you so much, Banjo.”

Banjo jerked his head up and down and whinnied a bit.

Grace laughed. “That damn horse loves you so much.”

I looked over at Grace and smiled weakly. “Grace, you’re really not going to miss all of this?”

Her smile faded. “I don’t know. I think I’ll miss it. I’ll for sure miss working with the horses.” She looked away. “Mike wants to live in downtown Austin and become a lawyer like his dad.”

I hated even hearing his name. “Well, what does Grace want?”

She snapped her head back at me and then sat down on a hay bale. “I just want to go to college and get the next four years over with. I’m thinking I can come back here and visit anytime. With all the shopping, I’ll probably love living in Austin.”

She attempted to smile, but I could see sadness in her eyes. She’d said she wanted to leave Mason, but her eyes were saying something else.

“Grace, may I ask you something?”

She pulled her knees up and rested her chin on them. “Sure you can.”

“Why are you going out with Mike? You have to know that he is not the right guy for you. Grace, you’re so beautiful. You could get any guy you wanted.”

She closed her eyes and then opened them. “You don’t understand, Alex.”

“No, I don’t, Grace. He treats you like shit. I hear him and how he talks to you. Why do you put up with it? He tells you what to wear, for Christ’s sake. He never lets you talk, and he answers for you. I can’t stand that.”

She stood up and brushed the hay from her pants. “You don’t see how he treats me when we’re alone, Alex.”

I stood up and grabbed her arm. “No, I don’t, and I can’t imagine it is any better. Grace, why are you staying with him? Why? He is cheating on you!”

The tears began rolling down her face. “I have to, Alex.”

I shook my head. “What do you mean, you have to?”

She sat down and began crying.

I sat next to her and put my arm around her. “Grace, talk to me.”

She began crying harder as she turned toward me and buried her face in my chest. I sat there and let her cry.

When she finally settled down, she pulled back and wiped her face quickly. “Mike wasn’t always a dick. At first, he was so sweet. I mean, he really knew how to talk me into things. One night, he talked me into…finally having sex with him.”

I let out a gasp. I had no idea that Grace wasn’t a virgin anymore. “Grace, did you want to do that with him?”

She nodded her head. “Yes, I thought he was the one. The whole time though, I had this feeling that I was making the biggest mistake of my life. Every time we were together, it felt…wrong. I guess it felt wrong for him, too, because that was when he started acting different. He’s never hit me or even raised his hand to me, but he…”

She attempted not to cry again. “He just treats me different, and it got worse after his parents told him how much they liked me. With my grandparents having so much pull at UT, they thought him dating me would help him there. His mom and dad love me, and so do his grandparents. He told me one night that he couldn’t break up with me now because his parents said I was his ticket to UT, so he couldn’t screw this up, like he does everything else. Plus, if we keep dating, he thinks they’ll stay off his back about shit.”

I pulled back and said, “What? Grace, my God. Why do you stay?”

She wiped a tear away. “I told him I didn’t give a shit about what he wanted. I was done. He, um…he said I would do what he wanted because he has…oh God.”

“What? What? He has what?”

She looked at me, and the sadness in her eyes about killed me. “He has a video of us having sex in his barn. He said he would show my mom and dad if I broke up with him.”