The Longest Ride

he wants you back. It’s Guy 101.” She winked at her friend. “He’ll eventually accept that it’s over. As long as you don’t give in, of course.”

“I’m not giving in,” Sophia said.

“Good for you,” Marcia said. “You were always too good for him.”

“I thought you liked Brian.”

“I do like him. He’s funny and good-looking and rich – what’s not to like? We’ve been friends since freshman year, and I still talk to him. But I also get that he’s been a crappy boyfriend who cheated on my roommate. Not just once or twice, either, but three times.”

Sophia felt her shoulders sag. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“Listen, it’s my job as your friend to help you move past this. So what do I do? I come up with this amazing solution to all your problems, a night out with the girls away from campus, and you’re thinking of staying here?”

When Sophia still said nothing, Marcia leaned closer. “Please? Come with us. I need my wingman.”

Sophia sighed, knowing how persistent Marcia could be. “Okay,” she relented, “I’ll go.” And though she didn’t know it then, whenever her thoughts drifted back toward the past, she would always remember that this was how it all began.
     

     
    As midnight gradually approached, Sophia had to concede that her friend had been right. She’d needed a night out… she realized that for the first time in weeks, she was actually having fun. After all, it wasn’t every night that she got to enjoy the aromas of dirt, sweat, and manure, while watching crazy men ride even crazier animals. Marcia, she learned, thought bull riders oozed sex appeal, and more than once, her roommate had nudged her to point out a particularly handsome specimen, including the guy who’d won it all. “Now that is definitely eye candy,” she’d said, and Sophia had laughed in agreement despite herself.

The after-party was a pleasant surprise. The decaying barn, featuring dirt floors, wood plank walls, exposed beams, and gaping holes in the roof, was jammed. People stood three deep at the makeshift bars and clustered around a haphazard collection of tables and stools scattered throughout the cavernous interior. Even though she didn’t generally listen to country-western music, the band was lively and the improvised wooden dance floor was thronged. Every now and then a line dance would start, which everyone except her seemed to know how to do. It was like some secret code; a song would end and another would begin, dancers streaming off the floor while others replaced them, choosing their places in line, leaving her with the impression that the whole thing had been choreographed in advance. Marcia and the other sorority girls would also join in, executing all the dance moves perfectly and leaving Sophia to wonder where they’d all learned how to do it. In more than two years of living together, neither Marcia nor any of the others had ever once mentioned they knew how to line dance.

Though she wasn’t about to embarrass herself on the dance floor, Sophia was glad she’d come. Unlike most of the college bars near campus – or any bar she’d been to, for that matter – here the people were genuinely nice. Ridiculously nice. She’d never heard so many strangers call out, “Excuse me,” or, “Sorry ’bout that,” accompanied by friendly grins as they moved out of her path. And Marcia had been right about another thing: Cute guys were everywhere, and Marcia – along with most of the other girls from the house – was taking full advantage of the situation. Since they’d arrived, none of them had had to buy a single drink.

It all felt like the kind of Saturday night she imagined occurring in Colorado or Wyoming or Montana, not that she’d ever been to any of those places. Who knew that there were so many cowboys in North Carolina? Surveying the crowd, she realized they probably weren’t real cowboys – most were there because they liked to watch the bull riding and drink beer on Saturday nights – but she’d never seen so many cowboy hats, boots, and belt buckles in one place before. And the women? They wore boots and hats, too, but between her sorority sisters and the rest of the women here, she noticed more short-shorts and bare midriffs than she’d ever seen in the campus quad on the first warm day of spring. It might as well have been a Daisy Duke convention. Marcia and the girls had gone shopping earlier that day, leaving Sophia feeling almost dowdy