I closed my eyes. The trailer smelled of hay, warm dust, and that faint, sweet-sour leather polish Kristin always insisted on. The scent stabbed straight through memory, taking me back to a place I’d spent three years trying not to revisit.
“Do you think I don’t know that?” I finally said. My voice cracked, and I hated it. “Do you think I like waking up at night, worried about what I should’ve said? You think I enjoy the ache?”
Tanya’s expression softened, practiced, almost convincing. She reached out, her thumb brushing the back of my hand, the touch deliberate. I should’ve pulled away. Instead, I froze. The contradiction within me was a living thing, a tangled web of revulsion and comfort.
“You can’t have it both ways, Lincoln. You can’t keep her like a phantom and expect to live your life too.” Her thumb traced slow circles, each one leaving a trail of heat behind. “Make a choice. Or don’t. But stop pretending you’re not hurting everyone in the process.”
Her words were intended to sting. They did. But they also held a truth I’d been ducking for years: my indecision was collateral damage, and others were paying the price.
When she stepped back, the distance between us felt heavy with everything left unspoken. Behind her, the sunlight burned brighter off the trailers, turning the dust into a golden haze. Somewhere, a horse nickered. Somewhere else, a gate clanged shut. The rodeo kept breathing around us while my own breath came unevenly.
When she stepped back, I realized Kristin’s trailer door was slightly ajar, darker inside than the sunlit lot. The gap was narrow, only a few inches at most, but my stomach dropped like a stone in water. The shadow inside shifted, faint but present.
For a moment, I saw her silhouette, small and precise, the curve of her shoulders tense, her head tilted as if she was listening. Even in outline, she seemed dangerous in a way only she could look, composed on the outside but a storm brewing under the skin.
A cold chill ran down my spine. I wasn’t sure if she’d heard everything Tanya said, but the possibility was enough to make the ground seem to tilt.
“You think I don’t know what I’m doing?” I said, my voice low, too quiet for Tanya unless she leaned in. The words weren’t really meant for her anyway. “You think I’m choosing this because it’s easy?”
She didn’t answer. Her lips parted, ready to bite back, but she stopped herself. Her silence spoke louder than any words she could’ve thrown at me. The spin of the world narrowed again tosmall details: Lady shifting her weight inside the trailer, the soft rattling of a feed bucket, Tanya’s heels grinding against gravel. The hum of a generator. A distant announcer is calling the next heat. All of it blended into a dull vibration that didn’t quite touch the air between us.
Tanya crossed her arms, watching me with a look that mixed pity and fury. “You’re not saving anyone,” she said finally. “You’re just digging up ghosts.”
The words scraped raw against my chest. She wasn’t wrong. Hearing it spoken out loud made something twist deep inside me. I’d already been buried once by those ghosts, already learned how to breathe in the dirt. Walking away wasn’t courage, it was cowardice dressed up as wisdom.
The heat pressed against my back, sweat burning in the cuts on my palms. But all I could feel was her, small and shaking, dust tangled in her hair, like she was still in my arms.
Tanya shifted, her boots crunching closer. “I could’ve given you something steady,” she said, softer now, almost pleading. “But you’d rather keep chasing the one thing that’s guaranteed to break you again.”
Her voice trembled just enough to hint at a laugh that didn’t sound genuine. I saw it now, the mix of anger and longing, the way she wanted to be the one who fixed me, even though she knew she couldn’t.
I met her eyes. “Don’t make this about you.”
It wasn’t meant to be cruel. It was a warning to her and to me.
She blinked, then flashed that small, dangerous smile that told me she’d file the moment away like ammunition. “Fine,” she said. “But if you break your neck for her, don’t expect me to pick up the pieces.”
Her heels turned, each step crunching over gravel, steady and sure. The sound faded, swallowed by the noise of the grounds, the call of a horse, a radio playing too loudlysomewhere, and the wind dragging the scent of hay and diesel. She disappeared around the corner, leaving nothing but the faint trace of her perfume and the ache of what she’d said.
I stood still, staring at the empty space where she’d been, the words echoing back. The lot felt bigger now, open and lonely.
The light shifted again. The sun sat lower, casting long shadows across the dirt. I could see dust glittering in the air like fine gold powder. Beyond the fence line, a flag snapped in the wind. The world kept going, indifferent to every mess we made of ourselves.
Kristin’s trailer door creaked softly, enough to make me turn. The sound was quiet, but it might as well have been a shout. My chest tightened.
She didn’t come out.
That somehow made it worse.
I took a step closer, then stopped myself. I didn’t have the right. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Lady nickered from inside, a low, familiar sound that broke the stillness. I reached for the latch, sliding it open just enough to look in on her. She turned her head toward me, eyes calm, breathing steady. She’d already moved on from the run, from the fall, from everything that had rattled the humans around her. Horses are built for resilience. They live moment to moment, never dragging the past behind them like a chain.
I envied that.
I stepped inside and ran my hand down Lady’s neck, feeling the warmth and steadiness beneath my palm. “You did good, girl,” I said quietly. “You kept her safe.”
The mare shifted, snorting softly, then lowered her head to the hay. I stood there for another minute, letting the silence wrap around me. The smell of hay, leather, and sweat pressed close, grounding me in something real.
