Page 2 of Something Unavoidable

Emma had proven Izzy wrong. She might look fragile, but she was the bravest person he knew. After all, she was the one who’d finally spoken up.

Stew was hovering close to her side, his hands fisted like he was trying to keep from reaching out. He was young, too, in the grand scheme of things. Twenty-five or so. Izzy had given him so much shit when he’d been hired—especially with how awkward and anxious he could get. But he’d come through in the end, while Izzy had hesitated, unable—or unwilling—to believe the man he’d idolized was capable of what Emma had claimed.

“Hey.” A fist hit the thick leather of his boot. Izzy’s gaze flicked to Sammy, who smacked him again, grinning with all her teeth. “You got this, bitch. Don’t fuck it up.”

He forced a smile that he knew didn’t reach his eyes, grateful, even if her attempt at “normal” fell flat. “Worry about yourself, bitch,” he tossed back, trying to match her energy. “I’m not the one who can’t keep their—” Izzy blanched, their traditional preride banter a punch in the gut.Keep their legs closed.It was a throwaway line. Something a visiting trainer had shouted at them once. Now, it had taken on a different meaning.

“Heels down?” Sammy offered, her eyes shiny, the hand that had punched Izzy’s boot gripping his ankle.

Izzy nodded, unable to speak past the lump in his throat.

Sammy let him go and gave Blackbird’s flank a hard pat. “Go,” she said. “Knock ’em dead.”

Izzy went.

Twenty-eight fences. Forty-nine efforts. Four miles. The most important seven minutes of his life. He knew how to do this. Hecoulddo this.

The trek to the starting box was gone in a blink. He nodded to well-wishers, but their words slipped past without registering. Finally, it was time. He fastened his chin strap on autopilot, then re-checked stirrups and the cord clipping his air vest to the saddle. The signal horn cut through the fog, and Blackbird, smart, beautiful creature that she was, sprang into action.

They cleared the first jump—a solid vertical—easily. He checked their pace and adjusted the route. Thirty-three strides to the next combination. He steadied his breathing. The second fence was a double-brush. Easy.

The following combination—a fence, a stride, down the bank, then up and over the oxer—flowed exactly the way they’d practiced it.

He needed this win; they all did. Sammy, David, Emma, and Stew. The last few weeks had been… Devastating didn’t begin to cover it. Izzy couldn’t let them down.

Blackbird’s powerful muscles stretched and flexed under him, her hooves pounding against the grass as her long stride drove them up the hill toward number nine. She was on the taller end of average for an Irish Sport Horse, bred to accommodate Izzy’s height, and she ate up the distance.

Izzy knew he was privileged, with parents who had both seen his potential at a young age and had the means and opportunity to support it. She’d been born when he was twelve, on his family’s farm, and Izzy had been there for her first steps. He’d been the first person to touch her, the first to stroke her velvet-soft nose and play with her long ears. He’d been the one to teach her to wear a halter and walk on a lead rope. To come running across the field when he whistled for her. To walk, trot, and canter under-saddle.

She was his best friend, and he’d been devastated when she turned five and his parents sent her off to be trained by a famous Olympian.

Josh Martin had been to four Summer Olympics and brought home the gold three times. He was a world champion six times over, and it was considered an honor to have a horse trained by him. Izzy, in all his seventeen-year-old wisdom, disagreed. Blackbird was his, and he wanted to train her. He’d driven his parents insane until they agreed to let him travel up to Boston to visit his girl.

Josh had won him over with his wealth of experience, his easy smile, and his willingness to listen. Izzy had never met anyone like him. By the end of the week, Izzy had been converted—and a little bit in love. There was no one better to get Blackbird ready to compete professionally, and when Josh offered to let Izzy stay and train with him, he’d jumped at the chance. His parents didn’t take much convincing, and he’d moved into Josh’s spare bedroom at the start of his senior year of high school.

It had been the best four years of his life, and it had lasted right up until he’d walked in on Emma, sobbing in the tack room.

Three minutes was all it took for Izzy’s world to unravel.

He wasn’t ready.

Blackbird surged forward, and only years of practice allowed Izzy to keep his balance. Fuck. He grabbed for her mane as she cleared the fence. Where were they? How the fuck had he let himself get so far inside his head? He scanned ahead for the next jump. Was that twelve or thirteen? Spots floated in his vision, preventing him from reading the blue-and-white numbered flags as they raced toward the next effort.

Emma had once called Blackbird his soul-horse. He’d laughed at how cheesy that sounded, even as he silently agreed. They were perfectly in tune, to the point that it often felt likethey could read each other’s minds. They trusted each other implicitly. That was why, when Izzy realized a stride too late that he’d forgotten Sammy’s warning about the water, she tried to turn for him.

Unfortunately, he’d fucked up, and they hit the first oxer at the wrong angle. Blackbird fought for it and managed to clear the jump, but her landing was all wrong. Then, already off-balance, she hit a slick spot on the muddy grass.

The rapid expansion of his air vest as it detached from the saddle drove the wind from his lungs. There wasn’t any pain when Izzy slammed into the massive log that made up the next jump and flipped over the top of it, but there was a loud crack followed by numbness. That was a bad sign. Izzy hit the dirt, the vest cushioning his fall, and lay there, stunned, as his beautiful girl went down in front of him and didn’t get up.

Oh no.

Any concern for himself vanished as he scrambled to his feet. He only took one step before all the pain that had been missing roared up his leg. His vision flickered black and white, darkness closing in from the edges as he hit the ground again, getting a mouthful of dirt and grass this time. There was no air. He couldn’t breathe.

The last thing he saw was Blackbird, struggling back to her feet, her tack askew, her reins tangled around her front leg.

In the rush of relief, he let the darkness drag him under.

Six years later.

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