Page 14 of Run for the Money

The rational part of my brain knows this isn’t the end of the world—or even the competition. I made it to tomorrow’s final. Barely. It’s a clean slate in the morning; none of today’s scores carry over. Our places determine what order we’ll ride in, but today’s time penalty won’t count against me. If I do another clean run—faster next time—I could still place in the top ten. I’m not so naive to expect I could win, but I’m not dead in the water yet.

The irrational part of my brain doesn’t care about the scoring system or my potential. All it cares about is the raw disappointment on Nick’s face when the judging panel announced my place. Apparently the irrational part of my brain also craves Nick’s approval, which pisses me off. I shouldn’t care what he thinks of me.

“This is your fault, you know,” I tell GT. “If you weren’t so handsome, I wouldn’t be in this situation. But you had to go and steal my heart.”

He gives me what I’m fairly certain is the horse-version of a side-eye. Hard to say, since I’m standing beside him in his stall so he can only look at me with one eye at a time, and he has to look sideways to do it. But his surprisingly human gaze, peering out at me from under unfairly long lashes, speaks volumes.

“Okay, it’s my fault. I spent all my prep time being a whiny baby instead of focusing on the event. I made you look like an idiot out there. I’m so sorry, sweet boy. I’ll bebetter tomorrow.”

His tail swishes—freshly combed, and shining—and he swings his huge head toward the front of his stall. It’s a clear request for me to leave, but I’m not quite ready. I’ve been hiding out in the stables for a lot longer than it took to give GT his post-competition rub down, hoping that by the time I come out Nick will have left for the hotel without me. Can I get a cab in Cheyenne? Probably not. But it’s a three minute drive from the arena to the hotel; the walk can’t be that bad.

I really don’t want Nick to see me cry again. More than that, I don’t want to see his disappointment again. It reminds me too much of my parents in the days following my dramatic exit from this sport. It was classic—we’re not mad, just disappointed.They went on and on about how much time, energy, and money the whole family had invested into me. I wasn’t the only one who’d made sacrifices, and I wasn’t the only one with expectations and dreams.

They were right. I might be the one on the horse, but I’ve never done this alone. As angry as I am at Nick for hiding the real reason he asked me to ride, I still hate failing him. It’s not so much him in particular as it is adding one more person to the list of people I’ve let down. Once again, I’ve failed to meet expectations.

I pat GT’s flank over his thick blanket, and he grunts softly. At leastheisn’t looking at me like I’m pathetic. I may have let him down, but he’s still on my side.

“Maybe I should stay here with you tonight,” I tell him.

“No. Go get in the truck.”

Nick’s voice scares the living daylights out of me, and I jump backward, hitting the stall door. It swings open, because I didn’t latch it, and I stumble directly into Nick. I take it back; with coordination like this, nineteenth place is a miracle, not a disappointment.

“How long were you lurking?” I ask, scrambling to put some distance between us.

He rubs his chest where I smacked into him, scowling. “Long enough to know you’re going to sulk here all night without an intervention. Consider yourself intervened—get in the truck so I can get a hot meal into you and get you into bed.”

“Classy, Nick,” I say to cover my embarrassment.

“In your bed. We need to get you in your bed. I mean, you need to sleep before the competition. Dammit, Melanie, get in the truck before I run my tongue right out of my mouth. It’s cold and I’m tired, and I’m sure you are, too.”

Slightly cheered by how flustered he is, I head out to the truck, but not before seeing him gently brush GT’s forelock so the hair isn’t in the horse’s eye, and secure the stall door.

I refuse Nick’s offer to buy me dinner, largely because I need to cry in the privacy of my hotel room for a while. Silently, I award myself one million niceness points for not making any snide remarks about whether or not he can afford to buy me dinner, then head to my room alone. I give myself until my room service order arrives to cry, then pull myself together. Too much of the last six months has been lost to crying over one thing or another—usually Paul—and I’m sick of it. Having something new to weep over doesn’t improve the experience.

It’s early when I finish eating. I’ve been awake for almost sixteen hours, but I’m not tired. There’s too much adrenaline in me, so I go down to the hotel bar. My room is too quiet, and I’ll drive myself crazy if I have too much time to think. Since it’s the tail end of happy hour, I can sit on a stool in the center of the bar’s hubbub and blend in. I won’t have to talk to anyone, but I won’t have to be alone either.

I order a whiskey sour even though I have no intention of drinking it, and get comfortable. I wish I could talk to someone about today, but that would require admitting to my friends that I’m competing again. My college friends would be too excited. My high school friends would definitely bring up Diana and the accident which is a shortcut to talking about Paul. All of my post-college friends are Paul’s friends, too, so that’s a hard no.

Eventually, I’ll have to fess up to this. I shouldn’t wait for thePony Clubblog orHorse & Houndto post event results. But it’ll be so much easier to tell people I’m doing this if I’m doing it successfully. Nineteenth place is not successful.

Someone drops onto the stool next to mine with a heavy sigh. “Hard liquor, Melanie? The night before a competition? Seriously?”

Nick. Perfect. Just who I want to see right now.

When I don’t answer him, he sighs again. “So it’s back to the silent treatment? Nothing nice to say to me?”

Finally, he gets it.

The bartender walks over, giving my still-full glass a once-over before he turns to Nick and asks, “What can I get you?”

“I’ll take a Stella, and the biggest glass of water you can muster up for my friend here,” Nick says, jerking his thumb at me.

“Something wrong with your drink, or you just trying to take up space in my bar?” the bartender asks me.

I shake my head. “I like to savor things.”

He rolls his eyes and moves off to grab Nick’s beer. I pluck the luridly red cherry out of my drink and pop it in my mouth, more to avoid interacting with Nick than because I want it. It’s too sweet but I swallow it anyway.

---