Page 56 of Maverick
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Not the most idyllic childhood. Like I said, I don’t think we can waste a whole lot of time here on earth, but being high, that’s a waste. To lose whole years to a fog brought to you by a drug… That’s a waste. It’s better to feel things. All the things.” He firms up his jaw. “I did… I did struggle after Sadie died. But not for long. Because I realized what I was doing.”
“Oh, you…”
“I’ve always liked alcohol. Easy to tell myself that’s not the same thing. But then, when I was drinking all the time, from the time I got up, just to deal with breathing in a world she wasn’t in… I realized that just because it wasn’t meth didn’t mean I wasn’t flirting with addiction. I cut myself off. I just have to say that, because I need you to know I don’t think I’m better than her. I don’t think I’m better than anyone who struggles with it. I’ve just seen the consequences. And so when I found myself tiptoeing into it, I backed out quickly.
“What about your father?”
“Absent. I believe he’s in prison mostly. But then, my mom is in and out. Not that it makes a difference. Except that sometimes when she’s in prison, she’s clean. He’s silent for a long moment. “My mom is just a broken person. I don’t think she ever had a chance. She was born into addiction. Abuse. From what I can gather from the little that she’s told me whenever we’ve actually had a conversation. And it just makes me feel like… I don’t know. I don’t think there’s a way that her life ever could have gone any differently. I wish that wasn’t the case. Maybe she shouldhave been stronger. I don’t know. But she’s not. There’s no point being angry about it.”
“Well, you were born into the same thing, it sounds like. You didn’t make everybody around you suffer for it.”
He lifts a brow. “I didn’t? My being the villain of the circuit would say otherwise.”
“You aren’t, though. And anyway, you didn’t have a child that you couldn’t raise.”
“No. I suppose not. Everything good in me, though, that came from Sadie. And there was a whole lot of stuff that I hadn’t worked out yet. There still is.”
He doesn’t have to finish that sentence. There’s a whole lot that he’s been through that he hasn’t had a chance to work out, and now there’s a whole lot of new stuff. A lot of new grief, a lot of new issues. Because that’s how life is.
He was a child of an addict, raised in a terrible environment, and now he’s husband to a dead wife, and whatever issues he had before, I know they’re only worse now.
I get it.
I understand what he’s telling me.
“What about you? Born rich, raised rich, but you didn’t get along with your parents, because it sounds like they’re difficult.”
“Yes. Basically. Also, they were consumed with their own thing. It’s not meth, but horses are a drug of a kind, I think.” I laugh. “I’m sorry. That was kind of a fucked up thing to say to you.”
“No. I get it. I mean, hell. It could be argued that I’m chasing that same high being a bull rider, after all. What is that if not constant adrenaline poisoning?”
“Yeah. True enough. I don’t know. I think my parents are overachievers. I think they chose each other because my mother’s perfectionism matched my father’s. I don’t know. My mother is so driven. She always has been. Frankly, I’m surprisedshe chose to have kids, but in a lot of ways, I feel like she had them because she wanted us to carry on the bloodline. Do magnificent horse-type things for the family name. At least, that’s how it seems to me. My dad is not a rider, but he’s very invested in that world. And I just feel like everything that they are meshes together so perfectly. And so we had to be perfect in response to that. Because if we were going to get any attention from them, we needed to be contributing to the overall goal. The furthering of our family being important in the equestrian world.”
“So basically, your parents had kids so that they could have some other people to talk to horses about.”
I laugh. I never thought about it that way before, but he’s not entirely wrong. “Yes. A little bit bad. Some more horse playmates for them. But bearing their last names so that if we appeared in the Olympics, it would be part of the lineage. That’s what they care about. Being winners. Looking good. Looking important. And I get it. I care about it too. It really does seem petty, the issues that I have when I compare them to yours.”
“Life is going to fuck you up one way or another. It’s not a contest. Anyway, you’re young. There’s plenty of time for you to get broken up a little bit more.” He elbows me in the shoulder. Then I wrinkle my nose. “I’m going to pass on that.”
“I hate to break it to you. Life doesn’t ask.”
“Well.” I don’t know what else to say. So I don’t say anything. I just keep on walking with him. Because what else can I do?
I watch as he puts Frank away, and I wonder what the rest of the day holds. If he’s going to pull away from me now that he shared all this.
I don’t really know him. Now I know some things about him. I know his body, but it’s funny the things that still feel mysterious. I want to know him. I want to understand him. I feel driven to now. I was so appalled when I realized that he wasa whole human being. A man with thoughts and feelings and a whole back story. Now I find myself obsessed with it. With him.
“Those pipes up in the attic,” he says. “They’re a weird fit. And I need to get a matching piece to fix them. They don’t have it in town. At least not as far as I can tell online. I have to see how long it’s going to take me to order one.”
“Oh.”
“In the meantime, you can stay in my house.”
My chest feels like it’s going to explode. My heart feels almost full to bursting.
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
