holding onto nothing .

[brittany nicole hale]

_{this post is tagged for gabriel alexander morgan. it is complete and came to be 1,329 words.
impressive, huh? the lyrics found in this post are from the song haunted by taylor
swift. this post template was created by the one and only luna, who does not appreciate
stealing. additional notes: sorry i have a tiny bit of an obsession with this song today.}

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It was a rare thing for Brittany Hale to be in a good mood these days. Most of the time she was just moody or angry; there often being few emotions that could be associated with her other than those. But really, who could blame the girl? After everything she had been to, it was no wonder that she was so unstable. To say that she was a mess would be an understatement. True, maybe she should have been over it by now, but she just didn’t know how to be the same person again. She had been devastated after the accident, unable to do anything but cry and blame herself for everything that had happened. She still blamed herself. It haunted her every day of her life, and no matter how hard to she tried to force away the pain of it all, she just couldn’t. The guilt over everything she had done ate her from the inside out to the point that it made her sick. She had lost so much and she had hurt so many people and she would be lying if she said it didn’t affect her. It did. She had lost the man she had loved her entire life, and now he brought out the worst in her whenever she saw him. She was responsible for the death of her little brother and her unborn child, and it didn’t matter how many times people told her it wasn’t her fault. She knew it was, and she would never stop blaming herself. And then she had hurt Hunter, who had only ever been nice to her. She felt bad about everything that she had done, everything that had happened, but she was clueless as to how to fix it to make it better. She wasn’t so certain that she wanted to.

But today Britt wasn’t thinking about any of that. She was feeling good for a change and there was even a small smile on her face. It was really quite amazing. Britt couldn’t say what the cause of it all was, but she wasn’t going to question it while it lasted. It wasn’t like she was feeling completely better, though. She still had the guilt and the pain and her own self-hatred, but it didn’t seem as strong today. She could ignore it for minutes at a time without feeling bad, which was really great. She had no idea what brought this on, though. It wasn’t like she got good feelings like this often. In fact, she hardly ever got them. Most of the time she just felt bad, and though she could still feel those things, there was a bit of a lightness in her that morning. So much so that she was up early, right after the sun had risen. She threw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and grabbed her old riding boots from the closet, ones she hadn’t worn in a very long time. She went outside to the barn, her family owning a good little chunk of land where they raised horses. Her grandparents were very good at training and they created some of the best horses on the east coast. Small little coastal Maine wasn’t where you found a lot of horse farms, but the Hale’s were an exception to this. Britt had been an avid rider since the day she was born, her grandfather getting her on the back of a horse before she could even walk. She had grown to love them so much, but after everything that had happened, she had kind of lost interest in everything she used to love. That included the horses.

Britt owned a beautiful sorrel American Quarter Horse gelding. He had been a gift from her grandfather when she was fifteen and she had trained him herself, working with him every day, training and working hard to shape him into a champion. And they had done it, too. Together she and Dutch had won so many awards and ribbons and trophies that they had run out of room in the barn and the house to place them all. They were an unbeatable team, but for the last year Britt had been neglecting her boy. She had gone down to the barn almost every day to talk with him and look after him, but the two of them hadn’t shared a ride in over a year, and it wasn’t until today that Britt had realized she had missed it. She walked down to the barn, finding her boy out in the field with all the other geldings. She whistled and he looked up immediately, a grin coming to her face as he trotted over to the fence to greet her. She scratched his head and gave him a treat from her pocket when he nipped at them. She grabbed his halter from the gate, opening it and slipping it over the geldings head. “You wanna go for a ride boy?” she whispered to the gelding, grinning when he nickered and nodded his head in response. He was a goofy horse and one of the few she had ever seen do such a thing. With her boy’s approval she led him into the barn and tacked him up, then the two of them went out onto the trails. It was a great ride and Britt was feeling even better after it. When they made it back to the barn, she cleaned him off and fed him his grain, then returned him to the field.

Britt headed into the house again, taking a shower to rid herself of the dirt and grime she had obtained from her ride. She took a nice, long shower, finding some joy in that, too, and when she got out she took the time to groom herself as well. She dried and worked with her curls to get them the ways she wanted. Her hair was quite fussy and hardly ever cooperated, but today she took the time to make it do so. After that she took the time to do her make-up, which was also something that didn’t happen very often anymore. She took a look at herself in the mirror, feeling good about her handy work. It was then that she decided to go somewhere and do something, though she wasn’t so sure as to what. She walked into her bedroom and grabbed her phone from her nightstand, shifting through her contacts to find someone who would want to do something. She scrolled across Amy and Kaler’s names, but she quickly threw those thoughts away, knowing those were two she didn’t want to see. Then she saw Gabriel Morgan’s name and a small smile came to her lips. They were good friends, and he was really a very sweet guy. She quickly dialed the number and pressed the phone to her ear, checking to see if Gabe was available and if he wanted to hang out with her. With his okay, she agreed to meet him at his house in a couple minutes, and hung up to get herself ready. She found jeans and a long-sleeve shirt in her closet and after slipping on her cowboy boots she was out the door, keys in hand.

She drove the distance to Gabe’s house, parking in his driveway and walking to the front door, knocking lightly and waiting there for him to answer. She was actually kind of excited about spending some time with her friend, who she felt she didn’t see nearly often enough. Though she felt that way about a lot of her friends nowadays. That was her own fault, though. She pushed people away. Thankfully she still had some great people in her life, and Gabe was one of them. And she was sure today was going to be really great. Hanging out with him could do nothing but improve her mood, she thought, and so she was ready to get started.

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