Don't You Ever Fear I'm Always Near

Oh dress shopping. I kind of dreaded this day to be honest. I know I wouldn’t be able to decide on one. To make matters worse, Joshua Grant kept interrupting us. After I gave him a piece of my mind, I narrowed my dress choices down to two. I was just about to ask everyone’s opinion on which one when my Tanny called. I smiled once I saw that gorgeous face light up the screen of my phone.

“Hey,” I answered, smiling since I haven’t heard from my man yet today as I walked into the dressing room to have some privacy.

“Hey, baby. What are you up to?” he asked, seeming not as excited as I was.

“Dress shopping with Kirstie. What about you?” I countered, hoping he didn’t have… bad news.

“I got some news today,” he started.

“You’re still coming home tomorrow… aren’t you?” I asked, scared that he was going to tell me no.

“Well…” he started.

“Tanner,” I sighed, running my hand through my hair.

“Baby, it’ll be ok. It’s just… a few more weeks. I thought we were only doing a few episodes, but they want to squeeze a few more in,” he tried to explain quickly.

“You need to come home so you can help me plan this wedding. This long distance, trying to pick stuff, is not working! I haven’t gotten any more then before you left,” I disputed.

“I know… and I’m sorry, but I have to…”

“Because this TV show is so much more important than planning our wedding,” I replied while rolling my eyes.

“Ky, I didn’t say that,” he sighed; I’m guessing that he ran his hand through his spiky locks too.

“It’s what your actions are showing though. If you wanted this to be done, you would be here right now like you promised you would be,” I threw at him.

“Well, I’m sorry these things came up. I don’t have control over it,” he argued back.

“But you can stop it,” I groaned, trying so hard to keep my eyes from glossing over.

“Kylee, I need to do this. I’m sorry. We’ll still get married. I promise,” he tried to soothe… it wasn’t working!

“Tanner, you promised you would be home tomorrow… and you broke that promise,” I countered.

“I’m not going to break this promise though,” he tried to convince me.

“No, you won’t… because I won’t let you. We just won’t get married. Solves everything,” I told him, letting a single tear fall from my eyes.

“Baby, I don’t want that. I want to marry you. It’s just…” he tried to go on, but I didn’t want to hear his voice anymore.

Everything he said just fueled my fire. I watched his picture fade from the screen, imagining he was fading away from me as depressing as that sounds. I held my tears back as I walked out of the dressing room, being sure to keep my eyes off of everyone.

“Which one did you choose?” Kirstie asked, referring to the two dresses that I had picked out… that I’ll never wear now.

“Neither, I’m not getting married,” I replied softly, still holding everything in.

“What?” my mom and Kirstie shot back at the same time.

“He rather be playing with his little cars than be here, so…” I trailed off with a shrug.

“So are you guys…” our mom started with so much hesitation in her voice.

“I can’t be with someone who puts everything else before me. I understand that he has to be gone, but he could have at least put up a fight to come home,” I mumbled, not letting those stupid tears fall.

“Aw, Ky, it’ll be ok,” Kirstie said sympathetically while pulling me into a tight hug… that pulled everything out of me.

She let me cry on her shoulder as she gently rubbed my back. As the minutes passed, I just realized that I totally ruined her day. I quickly pulled away from her and dried my eyes.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put a damper on anything. I’ll just wait in the car. I’m happy for you though Kirstie. You got a beautiful dress,” I told her, sending her a small smile before I turned and walked away.

I think everyone was more stunned than anything. Tanner and I… just broke up… again! Why couldn’t we just be a normal couple? Little things like this make me wish I never got into racing at all so I could have a normal relationship with a guy. Tanner’s the only real boyfriend I’ve had that I’ve loved like I do. Isn’t it at statistic somewhere that like ninety-five percent of first love relationships never last? If so, Tanner and I just had to be in that majority. I guess we were a little more normal than I thought. But now all of my hopes of being… Mrs. Foust are now… gone.