Not People
I FEEL LIKE this late afternoon sun—losing heat, running out of shine, fading out. But in a good way.
The event is over, and people have scattered around the equestrian center, outside the roofed arena.
While I wasn’t looking, the faces I kept scanning for potential threats when we first arrived turned into regular any-town folk, but there’s still this weird filter over the air that’s making everything feel off somehow.
Like I’m watching this B-list Sci-Fi flick where everyone seems normal, but something is slightly off, and when you look closer, it turns out no one has eyes, or their mouths are upside down.
It’s nothing that gruesome this time. Still kind of mind-blowing, though.
No one is holding a phone.
I’ve seen only one in all this time I’ve been actively studying the surroundings, so it’s not like they banned electronics or there’s zero service so why bother.
But even that one lady had hers in hand because she was showing baby pictures to her friends.
Oh, and there’s a guy over there, taking a picture of his daughter holding a prize ribbon.
And after that it’s done, phone lost inside a pocket .
I forget most people don’t hang their lives and careers on social media.
The lady with the baby pictures surely isn’t zooming in to check for awkward hand placement, or if a microscopic stress pimple is visible through the makeup. And that dad snapped one picture, not fifty in five different poses and three different perspectives, with a wardrobe change in between.
Don’t miss that. Don’t miss checking my phone a million times a day.
Not since Riverlight. Shocker, I know.
Maybe that’s also who I am, the guy who forgets to check his phone.
Gonna trade my smartphone for a dumb one, those that flip open.
Maybe go live off-grid in a mountain somewhere.
Nah, that’s too much. It’s not like I hate being around other people, especially like this, without having to check posture or analyze every word for possible out-of-context sound bites before they leave my mouth.
Not standing behind a velvet rope, just a fabric face mask. It’s too weird to be entirely at ease, but it’s sinking in. Slowly.
Ruin licks his lips next to me. My smile blooms as I pet his forehead—AP’s too, so she doesn’t feel left out.
Then I glance over at Eli and huff out a chuckle.
He’s been trying to leave Pete and the rest of his fan club so we can head off, but it’s been ten minutes and he’s gotten two steps in, so I guess we’re spending the night.
As if he senses I’m watching, Eli glances at me when no one’s looking, shooting me an apologetic eye stretch. I try not to laugh at how miserable he looks, drowning in all that warmth, as I tie Ruin’s and AP’s lead ropes to a nearby post. Guess it’s time to save his gorgeous ass.
“Sure ya ain’t havin’ some of that cobbler?” Pete asks Eli as I’m approaching. “Plenty still left.”
“Ya can’t go home without eatin’,” the ash-haired lady insists. “Your momma would kill me.” She laughs .
“I, uh…” Eli mumbles, clutching the brim of his hat before his eyes snap to me, splayed open. Everyone else’s too, wondering if I’m important enough for a piece of cobbler, I’m sure.
I don’t say anything, don’t even step too deep into the entourage pocket. I just touch Eli’s arm and nudge my head toward the horses.
“Oh, we’re keepin’ ya from your work,” an older woman points out. “Ya have a wonderful ride home, little one,” she tells Eli, bony arms reaching up for a final embrace.
And squishing my heart because she’s the one who’s tiny, but in her eyes, he’s still the little one. Adorable.
Eli excuses himself, and this time, they let him go. We walk back to the horses as he puts his hat back on, leaning in to whisper, “Can’t believe you just did that.” And there’s honest amazement in his voice, like I lied about our names and the bouncer still let us in.
I grin, untying the horses from the post. “What? You didn’t want saving?”
“Oh, I did.” He chuckles, taking AP’s lead and checking her tack. “But weren’t you scared they’d recognize you?”
I stop moving, dead in the air. Cold lightning zaps up and down my spine and then out through my teeth, leaving only the numbness behind. No, I wasn’t afraid. Can’t believe I wasn’t. I touch my mask, way too late to check if it was on properly.
“Shit, I totally forgot.”
“You forgot? To be scared?” He smiles like I’m mad and it’s unbelievable. Which is accurate.
I shake my head. Mom would have my ass if she knew about this. “You think they…?”
His grin is easy, shedding that layer of panic off my skin. “Not a chance. You were pretty smooth. ”
“Yeah, ninja-style. Black mask and everything.”
We both laugh as we mount on AP and Ruin, walking away toward the same path we arrived from. When we’re far enough, I take off my cap, hooking it on Ruin’s saddle before running a hand through my sweaty hair. The mask comes off too, eyes locked on it for a second before tucking it in my pocket.
I wore this thing to hide, and then walked right into a crowd. For what? To save Eli, who barely needed it?
Maybe I wanted to go there. Maybe I wanted to get caught.
Or maybe I just wanted to be the one saving him this time.
Which is exceptionally insane. I’m in no position to save anyone, let alone someone like Eli, who always knows what he wants and doesn’t hesitate to go get it.
Someone who takes on rearing horses and human ugliness exactly the same way—chest first, chest always.
Whether giving it to the bullets to save who’s on his back, or sharing it against a scared muzzle, for the warmth and the heartbeats.
Which means I got myself lost in wishful thinking. Yet again.
Today has been too weird. Like the ghost inside me got a day pass outside, acting on the impossible things I want, ignoring fears and repercussions and just going for it.
Saying shit from heart to mouth without checking with the brain first. Like it’s not the one getting mortified if I get caught, so fuck it, let’s trash this guy’s life and laugh at the fire.
Even weirder is that I’m not even that mad about it.
We’re deep in the woods again when I realize this isn’t the same path we took coming to the equestrian center. The trees are less compacted into each other, amber sunlight slanting in easily between the trunks, casting stretched-out shadows against the grass.
I’m about to ask Eli about it, but… the view.
The forest gives way to a winding path along a ridge, opening up to the valley and the whole damn earth, spread out like something unreal someone painted out of the lines, ignoring the numbers.
An artist’s fever dream, created by hurling emerald paint buckets and blind dashes of gold flakes and peat and petals, then cut through with jagged silver where a river gleams across the fields.
It makes me stop, right there on the trail, a tug on Ruin’s lead.
No. No, it’s the world that stops.
So many times in my life I’d had to hit pause—for a minute, for an hour, never more—forced by drive or despair to make the time to regroup. When stress hit like a sledgehammer, and I needed to catch my breath so the machine didn’t break.
This isn’t that.
This is the world stopping so I can catch up.
This is air that doesn’t weigh going in, light that feeds the soul and warms the flesh with genuine purpose, no demands in return.
Not like spotlights or camera flashes. This sun will still rise tomorrow, even if I fuck up my life, my career, even if I’m not on brand. The universe doesn’t give a shit.
When was the last time I took the time for something beautiful? Not for a photo op, not to create content. Just to look out of myself because that beauty exists and I exist at the same time, and there’s something miraculous in that coincidence?
There were moments, maybe, before competitions. Standing at the in-gate, staring at the arena beyond. But that was different—strategic appreciation, cataloging jumps and distances, plotting paths. The beauty incidental to the function.
This is just... beauty. For its own sake.
And for mine too. Somehow.
My gaze drifts across the valley. My ribs ache, trying to absorb it all—the way the mountains cut into the sky, how the shadows pool in the creases of the land.
When the horizon grabs my eyes, they keep following its line, almost red from the drop of the sun, until it brings me back to our path on the ridge.
And to Eli, who has stopped when I did, just ahead. Watching me, giving me this time, too. And I could swear he’s the one bearing the light, holding it behind his back where it glows and outlines him in gold. Turning him into an ancient god of all things wild and eternal.
One I’d worship. One I’d sacrifice to.
I nudge Ruin forward, back into motion. We catch up and fall into step, side by side, matching gait and serenity.
Eli is smiling, that small, gentle one that makes me want to flip him off and run to the hills before I say something romantic I truly mean but shouldn’t. I don’t want to run, this time, so I smile too, try to match him, raw as it feels.
We don’t say anything—no need to fill the space with chatter or questions or summaries of the day.
Just silence over hoofbeats as we ride the winding trail down to the valley floor.
The quiet feels good between us. Feelings instead of thoughts, the present instead of the past I can’t change or the future I can’t predict.
Soon we reach a wide meadow of tall grass and wildflowers, swaying in the breeze. Eli looks over at me, and there’s a spark in his eyes that seems like flirtiness but hyped on coffee, if that’s even a thing. That spark takes flame and blazes through his face, and before I know it, he’s just gone.
AP surges forward into a gallop, and my first instinct is to check for stray missiles or horseback assassins behind my back, but I don’t. Because I know a challenge when I see one.