Chapter 14 Dreamcatcher #3
“Thanks, Tommy. Tyler is to thank for that. He pretty much force-fed me shorter, sleeveless dresses around the house until I got used to wearing them outside. They make me feel like a kid again sometimes.” She paused. “But I think you’re making my dress even dirtier with your filthy hands!”
They both laughed, looking at Nicki’s lace white summer dress, covered in sandy dust with a rusty tint to it.
She shook out her dress and more dust puffed off.
Tommy’s white T-shirt was also starting to display a shade of brownish gray itself.
“Ah, the country life. Isn’t it great?” Tommy offered.
He ripped a lavender twig from the row beside him and placed it above Nicki’s ear.
“It makes your green eyes pop even more.”
Nicki adjusted the twig securely and—
Wolf bolted. Galloping away through the lavender fields.
“Oh, no!” Nicki yelled.
“Shit!” Tommy shouted and hit the ground sprinting after him.
“Wolf!” Tommy yelled running after the horse.
He whistled loudly and the horse halted, reverting back to his crash-course training.
Tommy caught up to him finally and jumped onto his back from the inertia of the sprint.
“Heeyaaah!” Tommy shouted and pulled on the reins making the horse snarl and enter into a ferocious gallop back toward Nicki. A cloud of dusk remained behind the horse as he sprinted, manoeuvring in between the narrow lavender rows.
“Oh my God, two crazy wolves,” Nicki whispered.
Two ranch owners ran out of the little wooden shed further in the field, hollering and waving.
“Get the hell outta here before I call the Sherif!” one yelled.
“Shit, come on, honey,” Tommy said, reaching out his hand.
Nicki took it and he pulled her up. This time she sat behind him, tightly holding onto his torso as Tommy made the horse gallop all the way back to the road.
“Wooohoooo!” Nicki yelled out into the sky. “We made it!”
Tommy couldn’t hold in his wide grin any longer, and gleefully looked ahead, touching Nicki’s arm across his stomach with his scarred hand.
He shook his head in the wind.
“We stole the horse! Hahaha! Yeeeehaaah!” Tommy yelled, in the gallop. His cowboy hat barely held on against the wind. The horse was sweating now.
They slowed down when the ranch appeared in the distance. Ron’s old pickup truck was not parked out front.
“They must have gone into town or something,” Tommy said.
“Tyler is not here yet either,” Nicki added.
“I guess I’ll die another day then.”
Nicki pinched Tommy’s side again.
The horse wandered easily into the now familiar fence enclosure of the ranch.
Tommy got off first and caught Nicki on her descent back down to Earth.
He let the horse go. Wolf wandered to the stream.
When Tommy turned back, Nicki was almost at the house.
He ran after her. The cowboy hat flew off against the wind.
“Nicki!” he shouted, catching up to her.
He grabbed her hand, and dragged her back to the field.
“What are you doing, Tommy? We’re done with the horse, don’t you think?”
“Nicki!” Tommy shouted, facing her, and pulling his hands through his sweaty, grown-out mullet tightly. He looked broken.
“Nicki. I’m so fucking in love with you. Please help me! Please make me not love you anymore, I’m begging you!” His eyes pooled with gallon tears and his face collapsed downward in despair. He shut his eyes and his mouth trembled defeatedly.
“Oh, Tommy!” Nicki cried out and hugged him tightly.
“I thought if I left that it would go away, but it hasn’t, Nicki, it hasn’t! It’s like a fucking disease! I’m sorry, but I fucking love you and I can’t fucking take it! It’s going to kill me,” he sobbed.
Nicki’s tears flooded her eyes, absorbing his pain.
“He’s going to kill me,” Tommy whispered, with terror in his eyes.
“Oh, sweetheart!” she whispered in her cry with him. “He’s not going to kill you. I won’t let that happen!”
They held each other tightly.
“Here, let’s sit down,” Nicki offered.
She looked back at the house. The American flag blowing hard with the dreamcatcher beside it.
Tommy plopped down on the dry grass beside her, resting his arms on his knees. Boot heels dug into the dirt.
He looked away to the horse in the background.
Nicki inched closer to him and wiped the tears from his cheeks with her hands. He closed his eyes and turned his head away from her.
“Please don’t, Nicki,” he said.
She waited for a moment, wiping her own eyes.
Nicki unbuckled the straps of her caramel sandals and tossed them to the side.
Her toes curled onto the grass. The grounding felt nice but the rawness of the Earth matched Tommy’s exposed vulnerability.
“Tommy?” Nicki attempted delicately. “I love you. And maybe it’s not in the way that you love me, but…
I do. Do you know that I see so much of you in Tyler?
You two are so different and yet cut from the same cloth.
When I get Tyler alone, and chisel through all of that protective steel armour that he carries around, and I get him to smile, he almost gets dimples in his cheeks.
In the rare moments when he is that care-free and allows himself to laugh, it’s like Tommy I’m looking at.
And when I saw you so serious on that horse yesterday, it was like I was looking at a cowboy version of Tyler.
You two order the same meals at Nancy’s.
You’re both so loyal and protective of each other and yet you’re both so stubborn.
In the Bahamas, you told me that you are nothing without your brother.
Well, I can tell you that Tyler is the one that is empty without you.
You’re the other half of his heart. And he has my whole heart.
I love every single fibre of his. And, that includes that part of him that is you.
I love that part too, Tommy, and therefore I love you. But… I’m just not yours to love.”
Tommy let out a deep sigh.
“That’s gotta be the best rejection ever.” He attempted at a chuckle.
Nicki leaned onto him from the back with her arms around him, hoping to absorb more of his pain.
“It’s not a rejection, Tommy, it’s a redirection. I think that night in the Bahamas I may have accidentally gotten in the way of your search for whatever it was you were looking for. And for that I’m sorry. I’m sorry to have caused you all this pain.”
She squeezed him tighter.
“Don’t be sorry, Nicki. And don’t feel sorry for me. Just maybe… stop being so awesome, OK? Just try, at least.”
“Tommy, you’re going to find someone so awesome, and you’re going to love them and they will love you back even more. I know that because it happened to me. And no wolves or wild horses could drag me away from Tyler.”
“Oh, how fucking poetic,” Tommy quipped, rolling his eyes.
Nicki pushed him now.
“Come on, wolf!” Nicki stood up and held out her hand. “Let’s at least have a nice cold beer on the patio before they arrive, huh? We bought some beers this morning. They’re probably nice and cold by now.”
Tommy looked up at her, in front of the sun, standing barefoot in her dirty white dress with the luffing American flag behind her. She looked like the American dream that the Native charm was trying to catch.
His eyes were blinded by her light.
He hesitated, but then reached out for her hand.
“What did I just say about being so awesome?” he teased.
Tommy pulled her in on top of him forcefully.
“As if you could lift me up!” he chuckled, tickling her on the grass.
“Tommy!” she blurted out in a tickling scream.
Her laugh was the medicine he needed to swallow his pain further down.
“Alright, let’s go get that beer,” he finally said, getting up and this time pulling her up by the hand.
“OK,” she agreed.
Nicki walked ahead toward the house.
Tommy watched her walk away, keeping a slower pace behind her.
The ends of her dress and hair matched the windy flow of the flag. A Lana Del Rey Americana.
His fire eyes turned dark.
His forehead crossed.
The wolf turned.
If I’m not good enough for you, I’m going to make sure you’re good enough for my brother, he thought behind his angry eyes.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her back into him.
She gasped and looked up at him, stunned, suddenly sensing danger.