I Just Had to Lick the Cookie, Didn't I?

Oh God, please don't tell me this has been in vain,
I need answers for what all the waiting I've done means,
You kill me, you've got some nerve but can't face your mistakes,
Hey hey, hey hey.
I know what I should do but I just, can't turn away,
Away, away

"Maelogan Boone, ma'am."

Adriaan's grandmother stuck her nose in the air and came at me slowly.

"Listen here, you; so long as you're going to be with that pathetic wench of a girl, you are not welcomed in any house of my daughter's. Got it?" she asked venomously.

"What the hell is your problem? I thought you were her grandmother," I shot back at her. She stopped coming forward and glared at me.

"I won't deny it, but if I could get rid of her, I would. She's a home-wrecker I tell you. Don't be angry with me when she turns out to be a good for nothing whore!" the woman yelled. My eyes narrowed.

"Adriaan is not a whore," I growled at her through my clenched teeth.

"Ha! Yes she is. She destroyed that poor Christians boy's reputation. We're lucky he was willing to put it all in the past. And to think she had the nerve to abandon her family in its most desperate time!"

What was she talking about? I needed to get some info, and I needed it fast.

"Look, I just came here to get her things. Tell me where they are and I won't bother you again," I told her, trying to keep my anger at a minimum. God only knows what happens when I get too angry...

"Have fun scrounging around for her crap. As if I would even come close to anything that's hers. If you leave anything behind, just keep in mind that I'll be burning it. And if it has her name on it at all, you can have it. My Gabby doesn't need to keep any memories of that worthless little bitch."

I clenched my fists and glared at Adriaan's grandmother.

"I suppose I'll start with this tape then," I sneered and spun around. The old woman scoffed from behind me as I bent down and took the DVD out of the player. I scanned through the two selves of home videos for Adriaan's name. There were a few more, so I took them and then shot up off of the ground. I left the dark room, not even glancing back at that horrid old woman.

In the hallway, I found a fairly large box and dropped the videos I had taken in it. I picked it up and found my way back to Adriaan's room. Inside was just as I remembered. Her sketch book was in the same place, so I set the box down beside it and then tossed the delicate book into the box.

I pulled out the chair to the desk and took a seat. The first thing I did was go through all of the drawers. To save time, I just put everything I found in the box. I could go through them later. Then I checked all of the shelves for things. Next I got up and did a quick scan of the room for anything I missed. The last thing I did was get down on my hands and knees to look under the bed. Nothing.

For the heck of it, I stood up and lifted the mattress off of the box spring. Surprisingly, there were three notebooks. They were all different colored spirals, the kind you usual use in school. I was puzzled, but I reached down with one hand still holding up the mattress and grabbed them. As tempted as I was to read them all right then, I decided to let Adriaan keep her privacy. And I wanted to get the hell out of there.

Once I was positive there was nothing left in Adriaan's room, I grabbed the box and slowly made my way back downstairs. I made sure to look through everything on my way so that I didn't miss anything.

"Hey boy! Feel free to take any pictures with her in them!" the old woman shouted from somewhere upstairs. I had just reached the bottom of the staircase and mentally thanked god there weren't any photos of Adriaan back upstairs.

It took quite a while to go through everything, finding whatever had Adriaan's name on it, or whatever she was in. I wasn't even paying close attention to the things I grabbed. It was like I was on autopilot. If I saw Adriaan, I picked it up and put it in the filling box.

A few times Adriaan's grandmother shouted orders down to me, like where to find some things of hers. After I was sure I had gone through everything in the house, I raced out of the front door to the car. The driver was still reading his newspaper.

"It's about time," he sighed as I pushed the heavy box into the back seat.

"Actually, I need you to wait about fifteen more minutes. Sorry," I told him quickly and then slammed the door. He had grumbled something as he picked up his paper again. I ran to the barn and nearly killed myself when I realized I had nothing to put stuff in. "Nice job, dumb ass," I mumbled to myself.

The one place I remembered seeing anything was that one ribbon... I turned to my right and saw it. Smiling to myself, I un-tacked it from the wooden wall and held on to it. Being thorough, I walked slowly throughout the barn, looking for anything that could be Adriaan's.

In the back of the barn, I found two good sized tack rooms. One of them had its door closed with a name plate on it: Faith. When I looked closer at the half closed one, I saw there was a similar name plate, only this one said Adriaan. It was pretty dusty inside, but I could still see. My eyes widened at the sight before me.

An entire wall was nearly covered in first place ribbons. There were plenty of trophies, all with Adriaan's name. I had never expected this, especially with the way Adriaan carried herself. She didn't come off as the confident type of person.

I smiled to myself as I took down all of the ribbons. What made me even happier was that I found a duffle bag in the small wooden wardrobe. This was one state-of-the-art tack room. There were four saddles, all broken in. In the wardrobe were six clothing bags, four pairs of boots, three pairs of gloves, and three helmets. There was even a cabinet with grooming supplies for a horse ears to hooves. I counted a total of four bridals and two halters. I even found two extra bits, and a ton of other supplies.

Figuring I would never be able to carry all of that at one time without assistance, I sought out some sort of movable resource. The Rykers had a wash stall in their barn and it just so happened to have a wheelbarrow in it. Luckily it was a clean wheelbarrow...

Carefully, I loaded as much as I could into the wheelbarrow and wheeled it out to the car. When the driver saw me, he sighed and popped the trunk. As I was loading everything I had wheeled out---which was hardly half of everything---into the trunk, he rolled down his window.

"Why don't I just drive up to the barn for you?" he asked. I smiled at him and nodded, closing the trunk. He started the car and followed after me as I ran back to the barn, pushing the wheelbarrow along.

Twenty minutes later I had everything packed into the car and we were driving along once again.

My phone rang, and I picked it up absentmindedly.

"Hello?" I asked, staring at the box with Adriaan's things in it.

"Hey, feller, I's was jus' callin' cus I know's how you's told me to keep an eye out fer real good horses 'n' such," one of my dad's business associates started babbling. I laughed at the coincidence. "I's in Elmira right now, and I jus' found you a real good investment. He's well worth ev'ry penny these folks are askin', and it ain't very much neither."

"John," I chuckled, "enlighten me."

John technically worked for my father, but he and I were friends. Sure he's pretty dense, but the man knew horses like Beethoven knew music. He and I tended to work together. For instance, he's call me before he'd call my dad if he knew I'd like the horse. I actually haven't ridden in quite some time...

"Wells, he's a beauty, all seventeen hands of 'im. One hundred percent pure Oldenburg, all muscle and no fat. He's a bit on the independent side, but I reckon that's why they're givin' me such a deal," John informed me.

"How's his coloring?" I asked him.

"Magnificent. I ain't never seen nothing like it before. He's blacker than black. Got a few markings though, but I suppose that makes 'im all the more desirable."

"Call the pilot, Brad Hitch, and give him all of the details. I'll see you as soon as I can," I told him.

"'Course. I'lls sees you soon."

I sighed and hung up my phone. The box beside me was practically screaming for me to just pull out those notebooks...

A minute later I found myself pulling the box closer to me and searching through it. I would never read through her notebooks without asking her first; doing that would bring me down to a level inhabited by the evils of the world. Those evils include Allison Richards, my aunt Mary, Leona, Paris, Vienna, London, and a general majority of other people in the world... Not to be pessimistic or anything.

On top were all of the pictures I had found throughout the house. A few I had seen before, but one stuck out. It was obviously of Adriaan, but when I really looked, I noticed that it was just the side of her face. It's sort of sad that I knew it was her even though it wasn't of her face. Well, it's a great thing really, but it's sort of creepy. Anyway, it wasn't just of her. There was this guy in it. A guy whom Adriaan was kissing on the cheek.

Jealousy flowed through me again, just as it had when I saw the picture of Adriaan and that Matthew kid. Only this time, it was worse. After the time that had passed between seeing that picture of her smiling, I had realized I could do the same thing. Now I had the ability to put a smile on her face, to make her laugh. That was something I was proud of.

However, I wondered if I could ever have what this guy had. Adriaan was willingly showing him affection. What she and I had, it was all pretend. There were always witnesses; otherwise there wouldn't have been any affection.

I angrily set the picture down and continued to go through the box. Nothing stuck out to me like that had and I eventually got bored. For awhile I just leaned back in the cool seat and hummed a melody I had been working on for quite some time. It wasn't perfected yet, but it would be as soon as I could get some proper time alone with a piano.

My phone rang again. Sighing, I picked it up and answered.

"Hello?"

"Hey!" Gary exclaimed. "Why so blue?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, confused.

"You gave me the depressing greeting, not the cheery one. What's on your mind?" he explained. One of the greatest things about Gary was that he knew me better than anyone. For a time. I knew him pretty well too. The scariest part of that was that I knew what type of guys he was in to...

"Oh, it's nothing. I just...found this photo," I informed him sourly. Gary chuckled.

"You sound jealous, Milo. Are you jealous?"

"Yes," I spat. That caused Gary to laugh.

"I always knew that there would be something. There had to be, otherwise you'd be too perfect. So, what's got my Milo so jealous he's cranky?" Gary inquired.

"This guy...he... I found a photo of this...guy and Adriaan and... It's not fair," I complained. Gary laughed again.

"I highly doubt you have any worthy competitors. If you two love each other like I think you do, there's no need to be jealous."

If it hadn't been for the sake of keeping the whole arranged marriage thing secret, I'd have laughed. The bottom line was that Adriaan and I didn't love each other like he thought we did and Gary had no idea.

"I suppose you're right," I sighed.

"Exactly. Now, are you on your way home? This girl sleeps like a rock, but it might be best if you're home when she wakes up. I have a feeling she can be rather hostile," Gary told me frantically. There was a yelp. "Help me," he whispered. I laughed.

"What's wrong?"

"You've seen her while she sleeps! It's like, a horror film gone wrong. I'm afraid to turn my back in case she decides to start sleep walking and kill me."

"You have got to be kidding. She's never done that while I'm there. It could just be because she's sick. I'll be back in a few more hours. John wants me to come look at a horse out in Elmira."

"Ew," Gary shuddered. "Those things are so dirty. I still can't believe they tossed my proposition back in school..." he said bitterly.

Back at F.J.D when we were still students, Gary had proposed they remove the horses from the premises. Considering there were quite a few equine sports, his proposition was declined and forgotten. He was rather disappointed. Gary hated big, smelly things. He'd been more of the fresh air kind of person; no manure for him.

"It's alright. I'll try not to get too smelly," I promised. Gary laughed.

"Fine. Just get back here before I die. Bye." Still laughing, I hung up my phone.

John had arranged plans for me to be flown to Elmira and for a car to pick me up. It hadn't taken an excessive amount of time, but it was still time consuming.

He was leading me down the rubber brick path to the stable entrances. This place was very nice.

A tall, blonde woman in full riding uniform was waiting at the smallest of the entrances. Her hair was back in a severe bun and a velvet helmet was tucked under her right arm.

"Right this way," she said, turning on her boots heel and walking quickly away. John and I followed. The inside of the stable was immaculate in many ways, far nicer than the Rykers' barn. Horses were being tacked and groomed on both our right and left.

"This is Adonis," she informed me quickly, stopping and gesturing to the stall before her. I stepped forward and looked into the box stall.

John had been right. This horse was beautiful.

"I'll take him," I told her, turning around and smiling. She nodded and walked off to go get the papers. I had a fool-proof plan for this lovely animal. I might get beat up for it, but I was sure I'd be able to hold my own.