Page 54 of Wild Horses

“I love you, Theron. I’m sorry I left you holding the bag with the farm. I’ll make sure you’re compensated for all the time and money you lost on it.” She backs out of the hug and pushes herself up to sit with her legs hanging over the side of the bed.

I stand up and sit beside her with my arm around her. “I love you, too, Mom. Don’t worry about the money. Blake pays well and I’m sure Boone and Marta won’t have a problem renting me a room while I save up for something else. Like they did for Skye.”

Mom’s eyes go wide as she snaps them to mine. She gasps. “Skye. Don’t you need to go?” Mom says looking around me at her clock on the bedside table. “You should have left hours ago.”

“You needed me—needme. I can’t leave now.”

“For crying out loud, Theron. You shouldn’t have even been here to find me like this. Jesus. If there’s anything I’ve learned since losing your dad, it’s that no matter how much time we spent together, it wasn’t enough. Every chance you have to be with the person you love, you take it.”

“What about you?” I ask her. I want to go but I still feel like I should stay. I’ve walked out on my mom so many times.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll never make it in time.”

“Send her a message. Let her know you’re on your way.”

“It’s not the same. She’s been left alone, at the other end of excuses, her whole life.”

“You love her?” She asks, firmly. In full-on mom-mode.

“More than anything.”

“Then you do your best. You go. You beg her to forgive you and do better next time. If she loves you, she’ll understand.”

I hug her again. Kiss her cheek still damp with tears. As I exit the room, she wishes me luck. And I leave hoping I didn’t fuck up the chance I had to finally earn Skye’s trust.

thirty-seven

Skye

Thisisit.Thefinal countdown. The last patron left about fifteen minutes ago. The catering staff has almost finished cleaning up. And in a minute, Mina will call it a night and lock up.

“I’m sorry, Skye, sweetie. I really thought he’d be here,” Mina says when she finds me staring out the glass double doors in front of the partition where ‘A little broken but still beating’ hangs but now with a little ‘sold’ sign slid into the metal track under the plaque.

“I know. Me too.”

The street outside is alive with bumper-to-bumper traffic. People walk at a brisk pace barely aware of the world around them. More than once, I think I see Theron coming through the crowd and my heart flutters only to be broken when it’s not him.

“If you want, we can leave it open a little longer.”

“No. It’s okay. I’m gonna do a quick sweep of the floor. Make sure there’s nothing to add to the lost and found then head home.”

“Skye, sweetie, you don’t have to—.”

“I want to. I like to.”

Mina gives me a sweet, sad sort of smile. As she goes to lock the doors, I walk around the gallery, not just looking for a glint of an earring or cufflink in the many corners created by the white partitions in the otherwise open floor plan, but also looking at my art with new eyes. Proud to know how many other eyes looked on each canvas tonight.

So many eyes except the two I care about most. That many of these paintings were inspired by.

“Skye?” Mina whispers.

When I turn to answer her, she’s gone.

“Mina?” I call her name again as I weave my way through the exhibit. Until I come back to the front of the gallery and stumble when I find Theron standing there. I want to laugh at how out of place he looks, in his dirty jeans, threadbare T-shirt, and feed store-branded trucker hat, but the part of me that wants to be mad at him for being so late stops me.

“You’re late.”

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