So Devyn didn't win, his second and third rides were as short lived as his first, though he did improve slightly with each ride. That didn't mean I wasn't cheering as loudly as I possibly could, I even think I might have blown my vocal chords in his first competition, but I at least had a good time doing it!

"Hey Devyn! Those were great rides!" Came the millionth sort of congratulation since the bareback bronco ride. Devyn, as he usually did just tilted his head and smiled, we were making our way through the crowds and stopping whenever I saw something interesting or when Devyn wanted to explain something.

"Thanks Shae, I'll see you around." Devyn responded with an easy smile and tilt of his head, the way we were walking through the crowd and stopping at every second person I doubted Devyn would make it to his next event on time.

Every second or third person wanted to stop him and chat; I just stood back most of the time as Devyn offered that lopsided smile and a few kind words. He was so unlike the guy out at the ranch, who was always serious during work and a total dork.

When we reached his next event, a whole twenty minutes after he was supposed to Devyn introduced me to yet more people. There were a few familiar faces from his last event that had come over and while Devyn chatted to the people I was not comfortable around I kind of went off and began talking to Amber and Chloe.

"Seriously, how'd you end up out here? And dating one of the Corlin brothers to boot?"I realized after a few times being asked this question that snagging one of the Corlin boys was a great feat.

 "I failed a class so my mom shipped me out here...well that and I kept cutting class to go surf." Both girls found that hilarious and began laughing, I smiled because it was funny now but a few months ago I wouldn't have found it so amusing.

"We do the same thing sometimes! Not so much to ride bucking broncos but to go trail riding and what not, I hate school. I don't know why my parents won't let me quit and carry on riding; it's what I want to do after school anyway." Chloe was a girl after my own heart and I suddenly felt like I fit in great, I waved Devyn off when Chloe and Amber more or less dragged me towards the stadium seats. This time around I was happy to go with them, Valerie was off somewhere and I would have been utterly lost.

"So what's it like living with Valerie? I heard she is a psycho to the core, especially when it comes to Devyn. Did you know she scared off three of his past girlfriends because she thought they weren't good enough for him? And I mean, one of the girls was real nice...total sweetheart and was completely heartbroken when she broke up with Devyn. I don't know why he still calls her a friend." Even though I knew Chloe and Amber were trying to get some form of gossip out of me I found it hard to keep my mouth shut. I hadn't been able to talk about Valerie to anyone around me so had all this pent up need to talk and b*tch about her.

"Oh my god! When I first got here she was so bad, like absolutely trying to scare me off the ranch and it got even worse when like...Devyn took an interest in me. She hit me, swore at me, called me a b*tch and probably worse to her mom, I wanted to hit her so bad but because my mom wants me to work things out with my dad I just told Declan and Trisha what she was doing. It was probably immature of me but I'd rather not have to dirty my hands with dealing with Valerie." Despite everything, it felt so good to gossip and actually relate to someone about something that wasn't sport or school life.

"You poor thing! I heard she can get real bad, like so bad her mom and dad wanted to send her away to a special needs school. Not to mention, what in the world was she thinking about wearing that god awful dress today? Leah, did you not tell her that she looked like a balloon?" I laughed, how could I not? I hadn't thought she looked like a balloon when we left the house but now that I thought about it she really did look a little round in her maxi dress.

“I thought it looked fine? That’s normal in California,” so maybe it wasn’t normal to look like a balloon in California but maxi dresses were a part of every ladies wardrobe. They were airy in the hot summer heat and gave room to move, it wasn’t like it made a person look round and frumpy.

“Maybe people in California don’t look so...frumpy? But oh man, does Valerie look frumpy in that dress.” Hearing a noise to the side of us I turned in time to see Valerie’s ‘balloon’ dress billow out behind her as she fled the seats where Amber, Chloe and I sat. Both girls paused for a moment before bursting into laughter, I on the other hand watched as Val fled, feeling a little bad that she actually had no friends here.

Instead of going after Valerie like I should have, or at least defending her I stayed and watched Devyn through his rounds and cheered him on as Chloe and Amber respectively cheered on their boyfriends. For once I felt as normal as I could, given the situation.

“Leah, have you seen Val? A few of the neighbours said they saw her run off crying somewhere.” Declan stopped Devyn and I to ask, I shook my head not knowing where she had run to but also not volunteering why she had run. Truth be told, I would have run too if I had heard people talking about me, but I wouldn’t have cried. It was hard to change a person’s opinion about you and crying wasn’t going to achieve that.

“I’ll help you look; do you want to come along Devyn? Or go grab something to eat? I’ll be okay on my own; I know my way around now.” It was the truth. After Devyn’s ride Amber and Chloe had dragged me off around the rodeo. There were so many people crammed into the area that it made it hard to get a sense of direction, but both girls had pointed out a trick and I didn’t feel so anxious or nervous about getting lost.

“I’ll leave you to it Leah; I’ll come find you after I’ve eaten if that’s okay?” I nodded before leaving Devyn to head off in search of food while Declan and I split up and went in opposite directions.

Valerie wasn’t much of a puzzle; in fact she was probably one of the easiest people to find if ever they ran off. She liked to be alone with her thoughts a lot of the time, liked quiet and most of all liked animals. So, after asking around for ten minutes and getting directions I headed off towards the animal holding area where I was sure I would find Val.

When I arrived at the place there were a few people milling about, mostly officials and a few owners checking in on their animals. I snuck past a few people, ducked behind a stack of hay bales and continued on towards the main holding area. Though, I didn’t have to go that far before spotting a piece of fabric sticking out from a small gap in the hay bale wall.

Coming to a stop just outside of Val’s hiding place I bent to peer inside and almost smiled when I saw Valerie glaring back at me. “You could have told me this dress was ugly instead of acting like my best friend in front of my mom and dad. I made an idiot of myself!” Rolling my eyes I sat down near the opening of the gap and sighed in frustration at Val’s immaturity.

“I meant what I said this morning Val, the dress looked good on you. Everyone aside from Amber and Chloe has said so, so why are you making a big deal out of it?” I asked, not really thinking about what I was saying or how I’d said it.

“Then why were you agreeing with Amber and Chloe?” Though I had been half heartedly invested in the conversation my attention was fully on it now as Val asked her question.

“Did you hear me agree with them? Sure I might have agreed that you were a bit on the psycho side, I might even have complained about you hitting me and treating me like shit but I never once agreed that you looked like a balloon!” For some reason I felt far more confident in defending myself then I ever had in the past, most likely because I was right but also because Val really was acting like a big kid.

Val made a noise, which I took to mean that she’d run out of things to argue about and slowly she pulled herself out of the little gap she had been hiding in. Turning to look at her I felt a little pity that she didn’t have enough confidence to pull off the look and thought about my offer before actually voicing it.

“Do you want to go and change? I figured you’d feel uncomfortable after a while so I packed a spare lot of clothes, just in case. I should have told you at home, but the worst place ever to test out a new look is at large gatherings. At least for the first time, you should have worn your dress around the house for a while to get a feel for it.” I knew the feeling of trying out a new look for the first time at a big event, you were always left second guessing yourself, wondering if it had been the right idea or if your clothes looked okay and what people thought of them.

“Yeah, if that’s okay. Leah? Thanks for coming to find me...and for offering me normal clothes, I don’t know what I was thinking wearing a dress out here.” I took a moment to savour what Val had said, it wasn’t every day I was going to hear such kind words out of her and I offered a smile.

“Don’t worry about it Val, though I’ll consider that an apology for all the crap you’ve put me through since I’ve been here.” Though I should have dragged an apology out of Val I felt that this was probably as good a time as any to forgive her for everything that had happened.

Val’s cheeks turned a bright shade of pink as we went in search of Declan, it didn’t take long though as he was still frantically searching for Valerie.

“Val! Are you okay? Jacob and Alice said you had run off crying. I was worried,” It was obvious that Declan cared a lot about Valerie and she seemed to love that idea as she went in and hugged him tightly. I could only frown as I watched the interaction, realizing that Valerie craved some sort of approval higher than what Declan had given me.

“I’m fine daddy, Leah and I were just going out to the van, and can we have the keys? We won’t go anywhere; I just want to get out of this dress.” Declan hesitated only a fraction of a second before his hand was in his pocket fishing out the keys to the van.

“Your mom and I will be in the main arena, bring the keys back when you’re done.” In that moment I felt like a total outsider, like I was standing outside Declan’s window looking in on a moment I shouldn’t have seen. Suddenly feeling a little more alone then I had in a while I began walking off towards the large, makeshift parking lot waiting for Val to catch up with me.

“Hey Leah! Wait up,” hearing Val yell from a distance back I stopped and turned to watch as she ran towards me. It was then I noticed that the dress really wasn’t her style and wondered who had convinced her to buy it and why she had thought it looked good.

As soon as Val caught up I began walking again, we made small chit-chat out to the people moved. It was more Val doing the talking and I offering a small noise every so often, when we reached the car Val climbed in, took my bag and quickly changed into the clothes that I had brought along. I had lied when I said that I’d brought my own clothing, in reality I had swiped a few of Val’s clothes from her drawer but she didn’t seem to mind as she climbed out of the van with a large smile on her face.

“I am never wearing a dress again, at least not one like that. Dresses don’t offer the same security as pants do. I would have been dead if a gust of wind had come along and blown my dress in the air.” Laughingly I agreed with Val as she closed the door and locked everything up, it was better to see her in grubby clothes then it was to see her in a dress and I think she finally realized that.

“You know what? You’re absolutely right, at least with a pair of pants no one can see your woo woo.” Val laughed at what I said, but there were a lot of kids around and I wasn’t about to corrupt their ears with the word I would usually use.

“Woo woo? What are you? Four?” Valerie said in a challenging tone, I knew she wanted me to say ‘vagina.’ But after glancing around a few more times I thought better of it and shook my head.

“No, but here are plenty of four year olds around.” As if realizing for the first time that there were actually kids around and that we weren’t really alone, Val nodded as we passed through the game stalls area and headed back towards the main arena.

“Oh right, fair enough. Come on lets go and find my mom and dad and then we can do whatever we want.” I liked the sound of that idea; I would still need to catch up with Devyn before his next event but was sure he was busy still stuffing his face with food. When he was really hungry he was grumpy and to fill that hunger he ate a lot more than I thought could fit into his stomach.

Following Val, we found our way back to the main arena and eventually found Declan and Trisha, I left Valerie with them both and headed off to find Devyn, sure that he must have been done  with eating after having an hour to fill his gut.