big boob cowgirl vol. 26

the beginning of something beautiful and inner child healing

Race 4 Love Pt. 1 by Hannah Wolfe

Special thanks to Ashlon for her contributions to this story!

Lola was an anxious child. Ever since she was a young girl, an overseas vacation tended to put a gigantic knot in her belly, essentially ruining whatever slim chance she had of enjoying the trip. She would sit in the faux-leather airplane seat next to her mother, knuckles white as she gripped the armrests and hyperventilating at the thought that the plane floor would disappear out from under her at any moment, or that she would fall asleep and wake up with the plane falling out of the sky.

As she got older, the fear only became worse and she couldn’t step foot in an airport without her Xanax. But something interesting began to happen: out of this deep and gripping fear of flying, something unexpected emerged. She began running track when she turned 13, and on the weekends she would go running through the woods by her house with her father. They had a pristine dirt path that wound through the lush woods and grassy hills, and by the time she was 15 she began taking these weekend runs without shoes. She savored the feeling of the soft, cool earth pounding solid beneath her, wind in her face and hair, and the sounds of the squirrels and chipmunks and sparrows humming in the brush.

She loved running so much that she kept at it when she went away to college, running barefoot between classes to clear her head. Then, one day, as ordinary as any other, something new happened. It was a clear September morning. Mount Holyoke campus was gorgeous this time of year, as all the ancient oak trees turned their leaves and the pines released their sweet, sharp scent. Minding the prickly pine cones, Lola was jogging through the campus green when she suddenly ran face-first into a tree.

Shaking away the swirling in her head and the pounding in her nose, she looked up and realized, to her mortification, that it was not a tree she had run into. It was, in fact, a boy. Anthony looked around at his scattered art supplies, then at Lola. She stared back at him, mortified.

“I’m so sorry-” she started, but was interrupted by Anthony’s uproarious laughter.

Tears in his eyes and gripping his stomach, he said “You must be the girl everyone’s calling Bigfoot.”

***

Lola and Anthony quickly became boyfriend and girlfriend, and when word got out that Bigfoot was going steady with the skateboarding drug addict, they quickly became the IT couple on campus.

On Saturdays, late at night after their friends wandered back to their dorms, Lola and Anthony would have what they liked to call Robert De Niro Hour, where Lola would play Nancy Grace, and Anthony would respond to her interview questions as Robert De Niro. After that, they would sometimes go to sleep, and sometimes transition into Cats, where they would crawl around the floor and wrestle, and they could only speak in hisses and meows.

When Lola joined the intramural soccer team, Anthony came to every practice with a pack of Gatorade (the orange preferably, the blue if they didn’t have orange, the red after that, but absolutely under no circumstances was he permitted to bring the yellow ones), and came every game with his face painted white and blue.

There was The Stairs Incident, in which Anthony got high off his silver spray paint and tried riding his skateboard down the main campus stairs in the dark, fell, and broke both his skateboard and his left wrist. Lola wrote two of his papers while he recovered, and learned how to make his favorite meal in the common room microwave.

They met each other’s parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, and moved into a campus apartment together. And then, on the night of their graduation, Anthony proposed. She said yes, of course, and they immediately moved onto the excitement of planning the wedding. She tried on hundreds of dresses, they tasted cakes, and made a 36-hour playlist. It was all very adult, and it was a new and sometimes intimidating feeling for her.

The one thing that grounded her in those moments of overwhelming adulthood was Anthony. She had a fear in the back of her mind that he would change, wake up one day and just be different, but he never did. He held her when she cried, made her laugh when she was scared, and made sure the first thing he said in the morning and the last thing he said at night was “I love you.” And, best of all, he still indulged her in participating in Robert De Niro Hour.

The night after their engagement party, Anthony drove Lola home through the empty interstate. Trees blurred in bended shadows as they sped home, headlights occasionally catching the reflective cornea of a lone deer.

It reminded Lola of the woods by her parent’s house, and she couldn’t help the pang of homesickness in her chest. She was engaged, soon to be married, and she would never be a child in that house, those woods, again.

It was a quiet drive, and Lola was so wrapped up in her head that she hadn’t noticed how quiet he was, too. When they got home they brushed their teeth, started a movie on the couch, and that was when Anthony took her hand in his. Tears welled in her eyes even before he spoke, because the look on his face told her that something had changed. He was scared, or sad, or anxious, or some other illegible expression. She couldn’t take it and broke down in front of him, but this was new, too. He was her rock, and he was making her cry, and he was just different.

He started to explain, but he didn’t get very far. Rubbing the back of her hand tenderly with his thumb, he said, “I want you to come with me. That’s why I proposed. Please don’t be upset.”

“How am I supposed to follow you halfway across the world?” she asked, but now she was angry.

Lola ran into their bedroom and slammed the door, and Anthony spent that night on the couch, shivering and blanketless, trying to smooth out the lumps underneath him with his fingers.

That was the last time she ever saw him. In the morning, he was gone.

‎✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡𖧧・ 𓂃˖₊⊹・‎✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡𖧧・ 𓂃˖₊⊹・‎✧˚ ༘ ⋆｡𖧧・ 𓂃˖₊⊹・

Lump by Ashlon Rose

Under my covers I can’t breathe. My eyes are filling up, tears running into my ears. My throat closes up, I can't swallow it down. I take a deep breath. The lump is still there. My hands are numb. My eyes are burning. What’s in there? Why can’t I breathe?

I’m fine, it’s fine. It’ll go away. I take another deep breath. It still won’t go down. Air won’t go in, words won’t come out. I open my mouth wide and take a peak.

It’s who I thought it would be. Long stringy hair, little wire glasses. Knees to her chest, head in her hands. She’s so little. I walk towards her, she doesn’t notice me yet. I know her, I know why she’s sad. I sit next to her, grab her hand, and give it a little squeeze. She looks up at me, wipes her tears and leans her head against my shoulder.

I let her cry. I let her scream. I let her be angry. I hold her hand the whole time. She doesn’t let go. I tell her it won’t be this way forever. I tell her it will be ok. I tell her it’s ok to feel this way.

Under my covers, I push my long stringy hair behind my ears. The lump is gone. I wipe my tears. Someone’s holding her hand telling her everything will be ok. She’s feeling safe to let go. She lets me take a deep breath.