Page 14 of For Cowgirls and Kings

I got what I needed.

“Thank you.”

She turns around without acknowledging me a second longer, and I head back to wait in the chairs for Dale.

How can I help them? An assault? And Stetson—she lost everything. How will she get that ranch out of its hole now?

I pull out my phone and dial the lawyer I keep on retainer for my own personal uses. At one point I distrusted Gus, but I now know him for what he is.A man possessed by love.

And I’ll do what I can, with the vast power I have, to help. It may be the only good thing that comes from my position in life.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get my happy ending. But I’ll make sure Gus and Stetson do. For them, as much as for Dale.

SIX

ADALENE

September 1st, 2024

Birthdays are meantto be a time for celebrating staying alive another year on this miserable planet. To commemorate the accomplishment, people typically get drunk and forget about their existence, if only as a small reprieve from the crippling anxiety and depression that comes with facing another year still top side with nothing to look forward to besides being closer to the grave. Alcohol is the only gift worth giving because it’s one of the only things that can deliver what people really want—oblivion.

As I turn twenty-nine, I find myself in the same boat as“people”, and the thought of getting out of bed to face others full of smiles and celebrations when all I’d rather be doing is asking god about the why’s of my life while standing at the pearly gates, is exhausting. I feel like a corpse—decrepit and hollow—and the day hasn’t even begun.

I haven’t always hated birthdays.

But once you’ve become someone you hate, while seeing no escape beyond the grave, they’re simply a marker for how far you’ve failed.

My phone dings, and I groan, rolling over to see what’sundoubtedly another birthday wish meaninglessly flash across the screen. I sit up as the single chime becomes a familiar ring—the one reserved for my parents. I pat the hair down on the sides of my head, and take two long, deep breaths in an attempt to calm my instantly racing heart. It rings a fourth time and I answer without hesitation, knowing I’ll already get berated for waiting this long to answer.

“Mija, you’re surely not just waking up.” My mother’s stern voice fills the line.

I take another breath, hoping the thick clog of sleep leaves my throat on the exhale. “No, of course not.” It doesn’t work, and my mother’s pointed silence tells me she noticed it too. But she’s too focused to dwell on it.

“Don’t make me wait so long to answer the phone. It’s rude.” I nod, not that she can see me. She already knows I’ve agreed, and continues, “how’re you spending this birthday? I wish you were closer to your family so that it could be spent with those who actually care about you.”

I think she means well, but her words are callus, rubbing against wounds I’ve worked twenty-nine years to heal. The wounds caused by never being enough—a disappointment simply because I was born into sin. A disappointment because I choose me sometimes, instead of everyone else. A disappointment because I try to love myself for who I am and what I’ve accomplished, instead of how I present myself to society and god.

God knows who I am at my core, regardless of what face I put on.

And I like to think he approves, if only because he hasn’t completely smited me yet.Or maybe that’s delusion.

“Adalene Maria, are you listening to me?”

No. “Yes, Mama. The students here really love my teaching, and their parents appreciate my influence in theirlives. I feel like I’m accomplishing something really positive here. Something godly, that brings me a sense of fulfillment.” It’s a rehearsed speech I’ve given many times.

It always leads to the same irritated sigh. “Adalene, we know you’re doing good. We raised you to do as much. But you’d do more here, with your family.”

“I know, Mama, I understand, but?—”

“And then you could start fulfilling your greatest purpose. Having children to carry on the Mendes legacy.”

And there it is.

The reason I’ve yet to move to Merida to be with my family. Or at least one of them. I refuse to become a baby machine—a machine to serve others and nothing more. I like children, don’t get me wrong, but I like having my own life more. I like having my own feelings and desires and dreams.

I miss my family.

But I’d die a slow painful death if I moved there, and began fulfilling my‘greatest purpose’.Of that I have no doubt.