14. Georgina #2
“When I hit the ground, everything went gray at the edges.” I can feel the echo of it even now, the strange muffled quality of those moments. “I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I could hear people running toward me, voices everywhere, but I couldn’t make my mouth work to tell them I was alive.”
“Elle.” Max turns toward me, his hand lifting from his knee, and I know how badly I want to take it. I also know how easily I could stop here, let him hold me, and leave the rest unsaid again.
“Wait.” I hold up my hand, making myself look at him. “Let me finish. Please. If you tell me I’m safe now, I won’t know how to explain the rest.”
He nods and falls silent again. I take a breath and keep going.
“I remember being angry.” The admission surprises me even as I say it.
“Lying there on the ground, not knowing what was broken, and I was furious at myself. I’ve always known where the ground was.
I’d fallen before. I thought I knew how to land, how to get back up.
And suddenly I was just… helpless. This body that always did what I asked it to do, and it wouldn’t even let me breathe. ”
Sovrano has wandered closer, his ears pricked toward the sound of my voice. I watch him approach, feeling the familiar ache of wanting to reach for him.
“The worst part wasn’t the pain.” I pull my knees up to my chest. “The worst part was afterward. Everyone kept telling me how brave I was, how I saved Giselle, how lucky we both were. And I couldn’t say that I didn’t feel brave.
I felt like a fraud. Because the moment I tried to get back on a horse, my body decided it wasn’t going to let me, and all the brave in the world couldn’t change that. ”
“But you…” Max turns his palm upward between us, then lets it settle on his knee. “Sorry. Go on.”
I wait for him to finish anyway. He has always hated hearing me speak about myself that way, and I can almost hear him insisting that I was brave, that anyone would be afraid.
I know what I did for Giselle. I would do it again.
Knowing that has never stopped the ground rushing toward me when I close my eyes, and this time he lets me sit with that without asking me to feel differently.
“You can ask questions.” I turn back to watch Sovrano. “Just don’t tell me what I should have done differently.”
“When you tried that morning, what were you hoping for?” Max glances at the empty arena around us. “Were you going to ride out, or stay in the yard?”
“I wasn’t going to ride out.” I look down at the dirt on the side of my shoe.
“I wanted to be on his back. Just that. I wanted to feel like myself for a minute. I used to make decisions in the saddle without second-guessing every movement. I could ride beside you and hold my own.” I shake my head.
“And then I couldn’t even get my leg over the saddle, and I had to listen to everyone talk about how well I was recovering while this part of me hadn’t caught up.
I knew I was better. I could walk, I could get through a day without pain.
But I still couldn’t do the thing I wanted most.”
I stop because my throat has tightened, and Max waits while I swallow.
He doesn’t move into the space between us.
After a while I stretch my legs out beside his and pick a small stone out of the tread of my shoe.
It is an ordinary, irritating thing to do with hands that were shaking a few minutes ago, and I am grateful that he doesn’t watch them.
We have been here long enough for the afternoon to cool.
Sovrano leaves the last patch of grass and comes toward the bank, stopping to investigate the rope hanging from the gatepost. His ears turn toward us when I say his name, and I remember the way he used to lift his head over the stall door before I reached it.
He still does that. Whatever has happened between Max and me, Sovrano hasn’t stopped knowing me.
“Can you bring him closer?” I lift my head and meet Max’s eyes. “I want to touch him.”
Max rises and walks to the gatepost. He collects the rope and clips it to the halter, then leads my horse toward me with the same easy competence he brings to everything with horses. He stops a comfortable distance away, leaving me room to approach on my own terms.
I stand up from the bank and brush the dirt from my trousers. Sovrano stretches his neck toward me, curious, and I can smell the familiar scent of him, hay and dust and something warm underneath.
For a moment I see Giselle sitting on his back, her hands where mine should have been. I hate that the memory is here too. Sovrano tips an ear toward me, interested in the sound of my shoes on the sand, and I make myself look at the horse in front of me. He didn’t choose any of it. Neither did I.
I raise my hand and let my fingers settle against his neck.
The coat is warm beneath my palm, lying smooth until I reach the little whorl near his shoulder.
I move my thumb around it, feeling the change in the grain of the hair.
I remember this. The relief is so sharp that I have to take a breath before I can move my hand again.
“There you are.” I spread my palm more firmly against his neck. “I missed you.”
Sovrano turns his head and noses at my shoulder, looking for treats I haven’t brought. I laugh despite myself, the sound wet and unsteady, and run my hand up his neck to scratch behind his ear where he likes it.
Max stands quietly, holding the rope, giving me all the time I need.
I let my fingers work their way into his mane, separating strands that have twisted together.
Tears run down my face and catch beside my mouth.
Sovrano shifts his weight, bored with standing still, and I move with him without thinking.
The small adjustment makes me cry harder for a moment.
I have spent so long watching everything I do around him that I’d forgotten there are things my body still remembers without being told.
“Can we stay a little longer?” I look across Sovrano’s neck toward Max, my fingers still buried in the mane. “I don’t want to take him in yet.”
“Of course.” Max gives the rope a little more slack and shifts to a comfortable stance beside the horse’s head. He wipes his free hand on his trousers, leaving a pale mark of arena dust, and waits.
I rest my forehead against Sovrano’s neck.
Beneath my cheek he is warm and solid, smelling of grass and the dust I’ve loosened from his coat.
I haven’t forgotten how frightened I was on that mounting block.
When I lift my head, the mounting block will still be there beside the gate, and I will still have no intention of using it today.
For now, I want to stand with my horse until he grows thoroughly tired of being fussed over.
Max says nothing when I start telling Sovrano he has become spoiled.
His mouth moves into a small smile, then he looks down at the rope, leaving the conversation to us.
I watch his fingers for a moment. Those are the hands I wanted reaching for me on all those mornings, and it hurts to have him this close without knowing whether I can let him come any closer.
But I have told him something I used to keep to myself, and he has stayed through the telling.
I stroke Sovrano’s neck again, feeling the steady warmth beneath my palm, and find myself wanting another afternoon with both of them.
The thought catches me unprepared. Tomorrow might be harder; Max might still disappoint me.
I can’t decide either of those things while I’m standing here.
I want there to be a next time, and I want him in it.