Page 86 of The Stars in the Sky
"You ever gonna learn to fucking knock?" he finally managed, wrapping a towel around his pelvis and then pulling me close to him. "Shit."
I’d lost control laughing, too, and hugged him back, probably drying him off in the process. "I don't think so. Especially not if these are the goodies I'm gonna get. Just lock the door if you don't want me barging in."
"Wish I could lock the door right now.”
I had received a good eyeful of Mr. Will and I could tell that he was starting to get ideas. Or he had them already. It wasn’t getting any easier to stay away from him. So I kissed him quickly, wriggled out of his grasp, and hightailed it out of there, finding the other bathroom.
On Wednesday morning, I sat next to Will in the chow hall for breakfast, Josephine sitting across from me and David sitting next to her. They were chattering about their favorite horses. As usual, Will pressed his leg against mine the entire meal, although he did glance disgustedly at my muesli and soy milk, shaking his head.
The schedule was horses in the morning, lunch, and then a group games session. "Alright everyone, gather around," I called to the kids. "We're going to do something called a trust fall."
Grouping the children and leaders into two units, I instructed them. "We are going to take turns experiencing what it feels like to fall and have someone catch you. You are going to close your eyes, cross your arms over your chest, and fall backwards, trusting that everyone will keep you from falling. Have any of you ever done that before?"
I received some blank stares and a few heads shaking.
"It will be a new experience, then, but I think it's important to try it. And it's important to know that everyone here will support everyone else. Josephine, if David asked you if you would let him fall, would you?"
"No," she answered. "I would catch him if I could."
"Good," I said. "You will have help. You don't have to do it alone. Now, this is scary. It is normal for it to feel scary. It will feel like you are free falling. You have to trust. But I want everyone to tell me, individually, that you will catch whoever is going to fall."
"David, would you catch whoever is going to fall?"
"Yes."
We did it. The feeling of having to trust, having to close your eyes, and just fall—I figured that these kids had never experienced that before. I did it too, going into one group, and falling backwards, feeling a dozen pairs of hands hold me up.
Hands held every individual up.
Exactly the way Will held me up.
Exactly the way we all need to hold each other up and learn to trust. Learn to earn that trust and learn to accept that trust.
When the hands returned a person gently to a standing position, almost everyone had a look of delight on his or her face.
Awesomesauce. They were starting to bond.
By Thursday afternoon, the kids were grooming horses, feeding chickens, mucking out stalls, and running free. They laughed, told stories, teased each other, made tie-dyes, and helped. It was a good week.
But I couldn't wait for it to be over.
On Friday morning, everyone packed up, and they left after breakfast, smiling and waving goodbye.
Then the staff who had days off took off. All I could think about was my cowboy.
And then I went to find Will over by the barns, my heart rate elevated, my panties wet, from thinking all morning about what he was going to do. He wasn't in the barn when I called, so I went over to the tack room, but he wasn't in there either. As I went to leave, I saw him standing in the doorway, a look on his face that I could only describe as desire.
Our two weeks were up.
