Chapter 2
Addison
Hovering over the send button, my thumb is slightly shaking with regret. I read the text I’m about to send once more.
“I’m sorry, but I have too much anxiety to come over today. I already threw up once.”
Checking to make sure I’m sending it to Brantley, I hold my breath and hit send before slipping it back into my back pocket to continue drying the last of the dishes from dinner.
One more knot twists in my stomach before relief floods my body when my mind registers that I don’t have plans later.
I can breathe a little easier, and my appetite slowly resurfaces.
I’m hungry. I barely ate any lunch, just a few bites of what I knew I could get down with the nausea.
The only worry still lingering is in wondering if he’ll be mad.
That could make or break my mood for the rest of the night…
and probably tomorrow. I really don’t want him to be mad.
For me, getting physically sick is what I classify as having a full-blown anxiety attack. It’s the breaking point. I will spend hours riding the waves of anxiety, fighting the urge to gag and dry heave over just the thought of what I have planned later in the day.
The intensity is similar to riding a roller coaster. Some waves are small, mere bumps, and some are steep rises, slow-building but intense.
When I come down from those bigger buildups, I get hit with extreme fatigue, as if my mind just went through a war. And the war isn’t over until whatever event or situation is making me anxious happens…or doesn’t.
I often do better with spontaneous things. It gives me less time to think about the what-ifs.
When I’m anxious, the walls of my throat feel like they’re almost touching, creating this desire to gag. To prevent it, I have to keep my posture and chin held at just the right angle to keep my esophagus clear for better breathing ability.
On top of that, I’m pretty sure I have emetophobia, the fear of throwing up. I’ve never been diagnosed by a doctor or anything, but if there’s anything that amps my anxiety up, it’s when I start to think about getting sick from having said anxiety.
Sometimes throwing up does actually make me feel better and I still follow through with the plans I had that were causing me to spiral. But other times…getting sick makes it worse. And I will back out. Like today.
Mom enters the kitchen from the dining room, carrying the half-eaten pan of brownies.
They look good now. When they got passed around the table earlier, the rich chocolate smell was what sent me to the bathroom.
I can only manage water and plain food when I’m anxious.
Saltines, pretzels, bread, cheerios, sometimes Goldfish crackers.
Anything with a sweet, savory, or even buttery flavor or smell is triggering.
“I’ll have some of those now,” I say and take the whole pan from her. I set it on the counter and grab a knife from the drawer.
She sighs, giving me a knowing look. “Guess you’re not going to Brantley’s tonight?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Well, he’s welcome here if you want to see him,” she offers, and I already know that but don’t think he’ll entertain it. He comes here often, but almost never on a Saturday. He doesn’t really like being with my entire family. He’d rather just be with me.
I sit down at the table with the brownie and pull my phone back out. He hasn’t responded yet but I see a new text from Wesley.
“Working on tractor again. If you’re bored…come on over.”
Wesley’s family runs the cattle farm next door—beef cattle farming. They don’t butcher the animals themselves. They then sell them as feeder calves, which then eventually would go to slaughter. I guess that might sound gruesome to some people, but that’s the circle of life around here.
It’s easy to get attached, especially when you see them as calves and get to watch them be born, but thankfully I don’t get too attached to animals.
Our dogs? Sure. But I grew up in a family of hunters; I learned early on how to separate pets from livestock and game.
That’s why God put them here after all—to feed us.
Wes also grows grains, like corn, wheat, and soybeans, to feed the animals. Winter is really the only season he has time to breathe. Same with us. It’s a slower time of year and too cold to really go out and do anything.
In the midst of chewing the last bite of brownie, my phone vibrates on the wooden table top. It’s Brantley. I can only see the first few words of it, but I already sense his annoyance and disappointment. I try to ignore it and tell myself I can’t care; I have to take care of myself too.
We’ve been dating a little over a year and a half. He knows how stuff like this is sometimes, yet he still acts as if I’m blindsiding him.
My anxiety had subsided greatly when I got to high school. I barely found myself having any episodes. Then Brantley and I met at a rodeo one summer, and he asked me to be his girlfriend the following November, then all of a sudden it was like my anxiety came out of hibernation.
The first date Brantley took me on was to a corn maze and I almost threw up on the trail.
I had no idea what was really even going on.
The anxiety I’d experienced in the past was so mild.
It only ever really flared up a few times a year—first day of school, vacations, sleepovers, going back to school after Christmas break—it was sort of a rare occurrence.
I didn’t tell Brantley how I was feeling, I just spit my gum out and kept walking. Thankfully, I had a water bottle with me to sip on. That always helps.
Eventually it went away and didn’t come back the entire night.
Ever since then, the fear of it coming back has made being in a relationship so hard. I struggle to go anywhere with him, even his house. We’ve never even been out to dinner. That would absolutely be a disaster. The unknown smells of food, the fact that I have to sit there and eat?! Absolutely not.
* * *
“Leaving now.”
I text Wesley and walk over to the living room where my dad, Jesse, Ella, and Cody are sitting watching The Dukes of Hazzard.
“I’m going to the farm. Wesley’s fixing something,” I announce.
“If he needs a hand, let me know,” Jesse says over his shoulder.
Ella scoffs. “What about my feet?” She’s stretched out with her legs over Jesse’s lap, getting them massaged.
“Never mind,” Jesse tells me, rubbing harder.
“I don’t have feet to rub; you can call me,” Cody adds.
“Right,” I say and spin on my heels.
As I head towards the door, I pass Mason coming out of the bathroom. He’s in his police uniform, heading into work soon.
“You leaving?” he asks.
“Yeah, Wesley’s working on stuff.”
“Oh, okay. Well, don’t distract him.”
“I’m not. I’m a great helper, good moral support.” I get my boots on before I grab the keys to the side-by-side and leave.
Since Wesley’s family farm backs up to our property, it makes sense to take the shortest possible route, which isn’t the road.
We own a little over 1000 acres, and we all live on it.
All my brothers have their own cabins and there’s the Big House my parents and I live in.
My cabin is last on the list to build, given I’m the youngest and all, but it is currently underway.
I’m not in a rush; I like living at home.
But I think by the time it’s done I’ll be excited to move out and have my own space.
We also have a guest lodge, which is where the clients stay when they come out for a hunt.
Fall is our busiest time of year here at Dakota Flight.
I’m not a guide—just Dad, Jesse, and Cody do that.
My job is hospitality management. My mom and I are the ones to feed everyone and clean the guest lodge in between each group of hunters.
The lodge sleeps up to fifteen people but we rarely have that many at one time.
Still, it’s a lot of work to feed everyone.
We do a lot of meal prep in the offseason to help us out.
We also tend a pretty big garden over the summer to save on buying food. We can and preserve a lot, and we have chickens for eggs and meat.
The ten-minute ride over to Wesley’s is a path I know by heart. I could travel it with my eyes closed and not hit a single rut. We’ve been friends since we were kids, making this trip to each other’s houses since we were in elementary school.
Once you get to the tree line, you find the creek and follow it for about two miles.
Then, you’ll get to a bridge that his dad built for us to cross over the water in a safer fashion.
After that, you reach a field. From there, follow the tree line all the way down, and take the beaten path until you get to their cattle barn.
Across from that is their stone farmhouse.
Now, if you’re looking for Wesley, nine times out of ten you’ll find him in the green pole barn beside the houses, fixing some piece of farm equipment.
“The cavalry is here,” I announce, walking through the side door of the barn. It smells like grease and sweat.
Wesley pokes his head out from behind the tractor and smiles before stepping out.
His boots are covered in mud, along with his jeans. He grabs the rag from his back pocket to wipe the grease off his hands.
“It’s about time.” He laughs and tosses the rag up on the work bench. “I’ve been waiting for my lighting assistant.”
“Where’s Blake?” I ask, looking around the barn.
“Sierra was having a rough week with the baby. I told him I was good.”
Blake and Sierra moved up here from Georgia to work on the farm. They have a one-year-old boy named Caden. I babysit him often. They’re related to a country singer…well, used to be. Kayce Warren is Blake’s brother-in-law, having married Blake’s sister.
Before Blake, it was just Wesley and his dad, Rob, working the farm. They were long overdue for an extra set of hands.
“Aww, look at you being all generous,” I tease.