I need to get to her.
Twenty-three
Mabel
Squeezing my thighs tighter around Dusty’s middle, leaning forward in the saddle I urge my old boy to go faster.
The sun’s long set, and my daughter’s being put to bed by the one man I’d pleaded silently to myself for years to do so.
My head’s a fucking mess.
My heart’s even worse.
I feel like I can’t breathe anymore, so when Maverick went with Ellie and my dad, I made my excuses and run downto the horse barn, down to my favourite boy.
None of my friend’s even questioned where I was going, as I’d done this every Fourth of July once Ellie went to bed.
At first, they’d question but after a few years they stopped asking. They realised that it was my tradition, as well as my own way to go and break down in our field at yet another year missed.
Except this year wasn’t missed, and I don’t know how to deal with it.
I spot the field coming into the distance; I come here so much that I never need any light to know the way. When Ellie was small, I’d bring her here with me whenever I needed to get away, but as she got older, she wasn’t interested in sitting on a blanket in a field that meant nothing to her, yet everything to me.
I’ll sneak over here at any opportunity that I can get, no matter the time of day, or the season of the year.
Pulling on Dusty’s reins to slow my old boy down, we enter into a trot, the Tennessee stars lighting up the sky so brightly I don’t need any help from a torch to see. Reaching the post that me and Maverick had put up so many years ago, I halt my boy to a stop next to it, before swinging my leg over and dismounting him.
I give him a good pat on his neck, thanking him for once again bringing me here as safely as his old legs could carry him. He replies back to my affection with a snort, pulling on my hair up in between his teeth.
I snort back at him. “Thanks, old man,” stepping down towards his back to get my usual supplies I bring out here every year.
Pulling the blanket I’d folded onto his back off, I stretch it out and place it on the grass next to the makeshift post. I remove the rucksack from my shoulders and place it onto the blanket.
Kneeling down next to the bag on the blanket, I pull out my portable speaker and place it on the blanket before taking out the first of two bottles of white wine I decided to swipe, alongside a plastic wine glass.
Pouring myself a glass, leaning back onto my left hand, I let out a sigh of relief. Even though this place held so many memories, it’s always been the place that I feel most at peace.
Looking back towards Dusty, who happily has his head down, munching away on the long grass that grows here, I put my wine down into the potable holder that I have for times like these.
Getting my phone from my pocket, I connect tothe speaker and decide on my slow country playlist.Brooks and Dunnquietly fills the night air as I take my glass from its perch and take a long hard gulp.
I lean my head back and take in my surroundings like I do every time I come here; the wolves howling up the mountains and the trees whistling in the wind. I hear horses galloping through the fields, but the noise startles me; why can I hear a horse galloping through the fields?
I snap my head into the direction of the noise, convincing myself I’m imagining it. No one around here rode a horse at this time of night.
Well, no one except me.
I look back down towards my phone and press pause on the song that’s coming through it. The hooves still thudding against the ground, quickly realising that I’m not imagining it.
Still holding onto my plastic glass of wine, I stand from where I’m sat on the blanket and squint my eyes to get a better view of where the noise is coming from.
Dusty lifts his head up and starts to shake it up and down, which is what he always does with another incoming horse, letting out a whine as he does it. I squint my eyes even more, spotting a horse and a rider coming towards us.
Fuck.
The only person that might know where I am would be Maverick.
I take another gulp of my wine as I watch the man who has haunted my dreams for well over a decade, come racing towards me on my brothers horse, my shoulders sag at the sight of him.
