Chapter 20 #2
I scrubbed my face, suddenly tired even though it wasn’t yet noon. “Well, none of this is your problem, but I just got dumped again. For sure this time. So, I’ll let you get on with your ride.”
Adam and Sage looked at one another, then at me.
“Do you want to come with?” Adam asked. “I’ll ride on Joan with Sage, and you can take Brian.” He nodded to the gray-and-white horse standing next to Joan.
I considered my options. There was overpriced lunch somewhere on the island, followed by wandering around places filled with happy, annoying tourists.
I’d spend the entire time stewing with rage about being passed up by the band.
Then I would go back to an empty house and try not to talk to a ghost that I’d scared off with my feelings.
Nope. At that point, even a ride on horseback sounded more appealing. “I’d love to ride with you.”
“Yes!” Adam pumped his arm in the air. “I’ll go get you a helmet. Be right back!” He raced into the garage, then into the house, slamming the door behind him.
Sage and I walked over to the horses, and they showed me how to treat the unfamiliar one. Mirroring the teen’s actions, I carefully approached from the front to make sure the horse could see me and extended my hand. Sage whispered calming words to Joan.
“Brian and Joan ... Who names your horses, anyway?” I asked.
Sage chuckled. “Me and Dad name most of them, but Medium Sebastian is Adam’s. This is Dr. Brian Mare. Despite his name, he’s a boy.”
I groaned, but couldn’t help the smile that came with it. “Pleasure to meet you, Dr. Mare,” I said, stroking the horse’s nose gently. “I’m a big fan.”
***
Riding a horse did not come back as easily as riding a bike.
The two times I’d ridden since I arrived on Mackinac had left me with sore buttocks and no increased horse-riding abilities.
I followed behind Adam and Sage, who rode together on the back of Joan Jett the Blackhorse.
They insisted that Brian would do 99 percent of the work and to relax so that the horse didn’t get mixed signals from my body, but it was extremely difficult to relax while perched atop a gigantic animal with nothing to hold on to but a flimsy piece of rope.
Sage and Adam led me out the back of their property and into the forest. I tried to use my core to stabilize myself and regretted never going to Pilates.
While we rode, I focused on the clip-clop of the horses and the sound of birds playfully calling in the trees.
Sweat was making my shirt stick to my back, and even though I wasn’t really exercising yet, I was breathing hard.
Instead of fading away or becoming transformed into positivity by the magic of horses and sunshine, doomy thoughts crowded my skull.
I kept picturing Annabelle’s face as she mocked me for wanting her to come back and inhabit a body.
Or Stephani onstage with Brooke, their faces mashed together like Bruce Springsteen and Clarence Clemons.
I kept expecting a rush of anger to make my face hot and my fists clench.
But all I felt was a sort of hopeless, numb nothingness.
Mackinac Island was supposed to be my cash cow, my ticket to financial security and a future with the band I thought I loved.
Somehow while here I’d fallen in love and become consumed by it, only to have the whole thing go up in flames.
And finally realized the band I loved didn’t love me back.
I had less than I did when I arrived. Nothing. That’s all I had and it’s all I amounted to.
The horse underneath me tossed its head, shaking me out of my reverie and throwing me off balance.
Despite the fact that it was about noon, the forest was so dense that it was dark underneath the canopy of trees.
Sunlight drifted in through the gaps, sending beams through the dark, shadowy trees toward the ground.
I shaded my eyes and looked around; Sage and Adam were a few horse-lengths ahead of me, going around a curve in the trail.
Willing myself to relax, I closed my eyes for a moment and felt my heart pounding against my ribs.
I kept hearing Annabelle saying “Why would I want to come back?” and seeing her face split in two, with black horrors spilling from her mouth.
When I opened my eyes again, the forest was dark, completely dark, not just shadowy and green.
The trail ahead of me cut diagonally through the darkness, only it wasn’t a trail anymore, it was railroad tracks.
And in the distance, the light of a train.
No!
I shook my head, physically shaking myself out of the vision that had plagued me since adolescence. My legs and thighs tightened around the horse as I struggled to regain my sense of place, and Brian Mare kicked forward, thinking I was telling him to gallop.
Adrenaline spiked in my veins, like a shot of battery acid pumping through my body. I gripped the reins tighter, but this only urged the horse on.
He surged forward, throwing me back in the saddle.
I tried to compensate by shifting my weight, but it wasn’t enough.
I felt my thighs sliding, felt the force of the horse’s motion pushing me out of the saddle like I weighed nothing at all.
Before I tipped over completely, I shook my foot to wrench it from the stirrup.
A blaze of pain flared from my ankle. I threw my body forcefully away from the sweating, stinking mass of the horse.
A rush of adrenaline coursed through me. My arms flailed. It happened so fast, but before I hit the ground, something deep within me rebelled. I was only in the air for half a second but I had time to rail against the unfairness of it.
This is not the end of my story.
When I hit the ground, I gasped at the overwhelming force of the impact on my right shoulder, then felt nothing at all.