Working With It

By Cass Alexander

Morgan Pottinger is counting the days until graduation. Her plans are to leave small town Kentucky and never look back. As she starts her senior year at Persimmon College, she finds herself the object of Nate Stevenson’s affections. Despite her spaz-like tendencies, Nate makes it clear he wants her. Morgan cannot resist the sexy, intelligent guy that keeps her on her toes and ties her up in knots.

There’s just one problem. Morgan needs to break up with her hometown boyfriend before pursuing anything with Nate. A series of catastrophes back home continuously interfere with her attempts to end the relationship. At this rate, she’ll be married to the loser by March and Nate will be just another casualty in the disaster that is her life. Lucky for Morgan, Nate’s much smarter than she is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cass Alexander
• Release date: Jun 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370213795

Cass Alexander

Cass Alexander is the pen name of a Southern born and bred public school teacher. Her brother, who insists she address him as, The Prince of Darkness, gave her the nom de plume after warning her that her book’s content may scar her sons for life. She’s a connoisseur of fine humor, hilarious insults, and all things chocolate, preferably dark (like her humor). Oh, and wine. Let’s not forget the wine. Cass also enjoys running. It’s become crucial to her survival, due to her consumption of wine and chocolate. Cass’s mission in life is to spread the love and the laughter, goodness knows it’s needed. It’s why she wrote The Persimmon Series. She and her family now reside in the Midwest, where hardly anyone other than Cass says the words, y’all and holler. That is all. For now.

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Chapter 2

Morgan

Morgan! Get your ass in the water! Alex shouts.

He and a group of his friends have been taking turns on the rope swing. It’s attached to a huge tree and swings out over the water. I tried it once and ended up face-planting in the grass around the edge of the lake.

I’m a total klutz, so no one was surprised. I was bloody, but nothing was broken and I didn’t need stitches. I usually count walking away with minor abrasions as a victory. Alex still likes to make fun of me for it.

I lower the pencil and my sketch pad so I can look at him in the water. He’s by far the biggest guy out there, so he’s easy to spot. 6’5" and lean muscle.

He’s nice to look at. I just wish his personality matched his looks. He tends to ruin everything the second he opens his mouth.

I’ve been dating Alex off and on since I was sixteen. He’s not the sweet boy he was in high school. But what guy truly is?

Alex has a basketball scholarship at a Division II school on the East Coast. He’s a P.E. major and intends to coach basketball for most of his life.

I admire his love and dedication to the sport. But he wants to coach basketball here, in Planters Grove, which is totally unfathomable to me.

I have zero intentions of living here after graduation. People around here who go off to college don’t typically come back—because they’re smart. I feel like they have it all figured out and I don’t, other than the never returning part.

I look down at my sketch and sigh. At least I have one thing that makes me happy. I love art. It’s one of the reasons I want to visit Florence.

I want to see priceless paintings and sculptures, to be a breath away from centuries-old creative genius. I want to walk the same cobblestone streets as Da Vinci and Michelangelo.

I’m decent at sketching, but I’m not good enough to make a living at it. It’s more of a hobby, really. I don’t yet know what I want to do with my life, but I know I won’t figure it out here.

Alex’s parents raise horses, and he intends to inherit the family business someday. It’s honest work and pays well, but it’s extremely difficult. Exhausting, in fact. I’m not sure how much longer his father can physically manage it.

I haven’t told Alex that I don’t intend to stay. He’s got it in his head that I’ll come home in the summer and be ready to settle down. I don’t know how he was able to build this narrative that I’m hankering to be his little equestrian partner for life.

I haven’t much liked horses since the day Alex’s horse, Blue, stepped on my foot and shattered my toe when I was seventeen.

I’m going to have to figure out what to say to him. And soon. I go back to Persimmon in a week.

Maybe, right before I drive away, I’ll shout, Goodbye, forever! from the car window. No, that’s a chicken shit approach. I’m better than that.

Morgan! he yells again.

No, thanks! I have to head home soon and I don’t want to get wet, I holler back.

Really, I don’t want to get mauled by him when I enter the water. He gets a little too frisky with me when he’s been drinking, and they’ve been drinking all day. The thought of him touching me right now kind of gives me the willies.

We haven’t had sex in months. Being apart for so long, then coming back together in the summers is getting old.

We take breaks whenever Alex feels like it. It’s not really breaking up, we’ve convinced ourselves, it’s just a break and we’ll get back together when we see each other.

I think that a break means Alex wants to screw other girls. I’m not interested in having sex with someone who’s not taking monogamy seriously, so I’ve said no all summer, and I keep catching hell for it.

His terrible attitude is turning me into a practitioner of passive-aggressive jibes. Or maybe it’s the sexual frustration I’m feeling. I feel like I haven’t had an orgasm in a million years.

I caved on spring break when I went to visit him out east. I was horny and he was willing. Afterwards, I felt weird about it, and was mature enough to recognize that it wasn’t healthy behavior.

I also realized that if I was going to get talked into sex, I deserved to climax. The act was mediocre, at best, and I’ve had enough of mediocre from Alex to last a lifetime.

I thought, after years of not making me come during intercourse, Alex would try harder. Or practice. Or, at the very least, acknowledge it and try a different tactic. I thought wrong.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t mature enough to break up with him. I selfishly didn’t want to spend my summer alone. I do know how truly self-centered that sounds, but desperate girls do desperate things.

None of my high school girlfriends come back in the summers. They know what life is like here and avoid it like the plague it is. I’m envious.

A drop of water hits my sketch and I look up to see Alex standing next to me. His eyes are bloodshot. Great, he’s wasted and I’m within arm’s reach.

Come, on, Morgan. Don’t be such a downer. Just for a little while?

Alex—

Please? Let’s do the rope swing. I’ll go first.

He cannot be serious. Did he forget what happened the last time I climbed on that thing? It’s a death trap.

Why don’t you go ahead and I’ll sit here and watch?

Alright. Don’t look away from all that is Alex! he swivels his hips, trying to be sexy, but in his drunken state, he looks more like a toddler. I laugh at his antics.

This is the side of him I was first attracted to, the playful side I never see anymore. Now I usually only see the part of him that likes to mock and belittle. Last night he tried to convince me that giving him blow-jobs was my responsibility if I wasn’t going to let him hit it.

He’s lucky he didn’t get kneed in the balls. But since I’m going back soon, I decided to let it go and took comfort in the fact that he would not be getting any sexual favors from me, ever again. I do hope blue balls is a legitimate condition.

Alex jogs over to the rope swing and climbs up the embankment, like he’s done a thousand times before. He gets situated with the rope between his legs. He bounces his feet, readying to launch, then jumps out and crosses his legs around the rope.

His big body goes flying through the air and his friends cheer from the water. Then, almost in slow motion, I watch in horror as the rope snaps and Alex crashes into the grass with his arms out to break his fall.

My body tenses and my eyes close as I register the sickening crunch of bones snapping followed by Alex’s screams. When I open them, I almost throw-up on myself.

He has an obvious compound fracture in his right forearm. His shooting arm. The bone is protruding and Alex’s eyes are glued to it in terror. Oh. Shit.

I run over to him and try to get him to stop rolling. Alex! Alex! Stop moving, you’re making it worse.

Alex ends up on his back, clutching his arm to his chest. Not one of his worthless friends has come out of the water. I look up and the three of them are staring with their mouths hanging open.

Don’t just stand there! Help me! He needs to get to the hospital.

Darryl, my least favorite of the group, scratches his head and says, Uh, but we’ve been drinking. We can’t drive to a hospital.

I’ll drive him, dumbass! Just help me get him to the car for crissakes.

If these are the only types of people that will live out their lives here in Planters Grove, the town is doomed. I cannot wait to get the hell out of Dodge.

The three of them lumber out of the water and help Alex to his feet while I pack up my bag. I give Alex my towel to cover the wound so he won’t look at it. We should probably apply pressure, but I don’t think we should touch the bone.

The thought of it makes my stomach roll. I hope I don’t pass out on the drive. I need to stay focused. I repeat that in my head over and over until we pull up to the ER.

***

Two days later, I’m going back to the hospital to check on Alex. I visited yesterday, but he was asleep the whole time so it wasn’t much of a visit. I promised his parents I’d come back each day, so here I am.

I left shortly after Alex was out of surgery the evening I brought him in. They had to put pins in his arm to hold it together. The surgeon told Alex’s father that he probably wouldn’t be playing basketball this season. I feel terrible for Alex.

When I enter his room, it’s empty, aside from the patient in the bed. I’m sure his parents are off dealing with their horses.

It’s a never-ending job and the reason they never leave this shit-hole town. I don’t know how they do it.

Hey, Alex croaks.

Hey, yourself. How are you feeling? I ask as I take the seat next to his bed.

Groggy. I just ate and took another pain killer. I’m sure I’ll be sleepy soon.

I smile. That’s probably for the best.

Alex looks at his arm and frowns. Yeah, I guess.

Did the doctor say how long it would take to heal?

I have to stay in a soft cast until I heal from the surgery. After that, they’re not sure. He said I’d need physical therapy, probably months of it.

Alex shakes his head, like he can’t believe what he’s saying. Basketball is over. I won’t be able to play.

His eyes glass over. And that’s really hard for me to say out loud, Morgan.

I put my hand over his and squeeze. I know how much that sport means to him. My heart hurts for Alex.

Basketball is his passion. But I don’t know how to comfort him. Which is odd, because I’ve been his girlfriend for five years.

There’s no point in going back.

I think my eyebrows about hit my hairline. What do you mean? To school? Of course, you’re going back, Alex. Don’t be dense.

Why? I can’t play.

You weren’t in college to play. You were going to get your degree and become a teacher so you could coach.

Alex snorts. Yeah, just until I inherit the horse farm. Teacher pay sucks. But the only reason I was there was to play basketball. And now that’s over. So, I think I’m not going to go back.

I think that’s a mistake, Alex.

So was climbing a rope swing while drunk.

I would have to agree with that assessment, I offer, trying to lighten the mood. It doesn’t work.

Alex lowers his eyes to where our hands are touching. You could stay, too, you know.

What? No. Why would I do that? That’s crazy.

I spurt out the words in rapid-fire succession, like it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. It might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, but I need to work on my emotional intelligence skills and knee-jerk reactions to idiotic statements.

Alex looks up, eyes full of tears. Ah, hell. This mother trucker’s gonna pull the guilt trip. Has my mother been in to visit him? Lucy Pottinger is the Queen of Guilt-trips.

I’m sorry. I know it’s selfish. But you’re going to go off and have this amazing senior year and leave me behind. Lying here in this bed, I keep thinking about what I really want in my life. And the only things on the list are the horses and you.

I remove my hand from his and put it in my lap, digging my fingernails into my palms so that I don’t laugh. The horses and me? In that order? How romantic. I sure hope that’s the drugs talking and not Alex.

You have a senior year waiting for you, too, Alex. The horses will still be here in May. I’m not stopping you from experiencing anything. You are.

It doesn’t change what I want. I want you to come home. We’ll get married. We’ll run the farm together.

I shoot out of that chair so fast that Alex flinches. Which, of course, hurts his arm. And now I feel guilty, but the man-child brought it on himself, talking such nonsense.

I open my mouth to speak, but no sound comes out. I feel numb all over, like I’m having an out-of-body experience.

Now is the time to tell him. I need to tell him. I need to end it. Why am I not ending it? Right this second?

Oh, I know, because he’s lying in a hospital bed, all doped up, telling me we’re going to get married while the tear stains are still fresh on his face. I can’t hurt him when he’s vulnerable. I can’t. I’ll try again another day.

Alex, I think your meds are kicking in, I say as I start to back away, towards the door. I’ll come back tomorrow when you’re feeling better.

I turn and step at the same time and walk right into the door frame. Shitballs! Why do I have to be so freakishly uncoordinated? I bounce off the frame, but don’t halt my escape. I have to get out of this room.

Jesus, Morgan! Alex laughs. You’re sooo smooth.

I keep walking, hearing his laughs echo down the hall. I’m so sick of him laughing at me. Even drugged and in a hospital bed, he finds ways to piss me off.

I’m for sure breaking up with him tomorrow. A hunk of guilt decides to take residence my body at the realization that I’m going to kick a man while he’s down.

Chapter 3

Morgan

I zip up my suitcase and take one last look around the room looking for anything I may have forgotten. Everything else is already in my car. I can’t wait to get back to campus.

I carry the suitcase down the stairs and my father takes the handle from my hand. He hates move-in day because it means I’m gone again. And this is my last one. After graduation, I’ll no longer be living in this house.

I’ve already said my goodbyes to Gram and to Alex. I chickened out for, like, the hundredth time on having a frank conversation with him about the future. But it wasn’t my fault, really.

Alex ended up getting an infection and had a high fever for two days. How could I break up with him when he was so sick?

I should totally write him a note. No, Cruella, we’re not in middle school anymore. I guess I’ll do it next time I’m home.

My mom has been in the kitchen on the phone for the past twenty minutes. I hang out by the door waiting for her so I can say goodbye.

I’m sure to stay within her line of sight so she can see that I’m ready to go. Finally, she hangs up and comes into the foyer.

"Morgan, is there something you need to