When I get back from Jack’s place, I notice Sam’s car is back.I check my phone, but I didn’t miss her text.She didn’t send one.When I get to her place, no lights are on, and she doesn’t answer the door.I wonder whether things went badly.Maybe she’s riding it off?It’s late for her to do something like that, but I wouldn’t put it past her.Actually, it might be the most Samantha thing ever to be doing horse-therapy to deal with a bad date, even at eleven at night.
I fumble my way into the dark barn, realizing she must not be riding unless she’s using night goggles.Once I find the switch, I hit it, startling a few horses whose heads immediately pop up from their stalls.“Sorry, guys, sorry.”
I stand here for a minute, just breathing in the barn smells.I miss it—usually when I come out here, I’m being pressured to ride.I should come out more and justbearound the horses.Foxy’s one of the ones in her stall, so I walk over and rub her neck, and then when she flips around, her backside.
I can’t help noticing that the new barn reallyisnice.Nat and Sam have outdone themselves.The stalls, the large loafing shed where the horses who struggle with being stalled can be together, even in terrible weather, all of it is so well done.Quality materials, beautiful construction, and thoughtful designs.
But if Sam’s not here, where is she?
I decide to check out the tack room, while I’m already out here.Even though the lights weren’t on in the barn, who knows?Maybe she was conserving energy and she just beelined for the tack room and only turned on that light.Organizing the almost entirely repaired tack room.sounds like it could be therapeutic.I hope I’m wrong, but I feel like the lack of a text from her after a dinner with Richard’s father isn’t promising.Something tells me it’s bad news.
Only, when I go into the tack room...it looks entirely fine.
Exactly like it did before.
What on earth have they been doing this whole time?Two weeks ago, when I was walking into Natalie’s place to get Amelia, I heard them talking about picking colors and getting tile.Why would they need to do that if it looks exactly the same?
Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions.I pull out my phone and start scrolling for the photos I took of the twins and Trina posing in the new tack room right after it was finished.I enlarge it, and I study the images.Not a single solitary inch looks different.
Have Natalie and Samantha beenlying to me?
I wander outside, deep in thought, flipping off lights before I go.But then, I’ve finally reached the path beside the barn when I trip on something and nearly crash on my face.When I look around, I realize it’s my own shoelace.How embarrassing.I crouch to tie it, and when I stand back up and head down the path, I nearly collide with Samantha.It’s hard to tell in the dark and with a coat over part of it, but it looks like she has some weirdly light streaks on her navy dress.
“Hey, I was looking for you.”
She freezes, and then she glances over her shoulder.“You were?”
I frown.“Where were you?”
“I, um, well, I had that date with Richard.”She hugs herself with her arms, chilly out here in the winter night’s air.
“I know, I saw your car.”
She sighs.“It went really, really badly.”She inhales and looks up at the stars, casting her features in moonlight.“He—I had to tell him about my lie, that I can’t have kids.”
“Oh, no,” I say.“It had to come out at some point, I guess, but are you alright?”I step closer.“Do you need to go eat some ice cream or something?I’m pretty sure I have a brand-new container, unless the kids got to it.”
“You know, I just cried on Natalie for about an hour.”She snorts.“I—I’m still struggling, but I feel a lot better.”
Natalie.
She was crying onNatalie, but I had no idea.She’sfinenow, becauseNatalieand her already had a little meeting without me.“What’s going on?”I feel like my anger’s bursting out of me, and I hate it, because I know Sam’s probably really upset.
But I can’t help it.
“You and Natalie are, what?You’re just so close, that you tell her about your miscarriages first.”That came out wrong.“You tell her about the lie you told Richard first.You go to lunch, and you go shopping together, and you apparently lie and tell me you’re remodeling a tack room that’s completely fine.”I throw my hands up in the air.“Do you guys justhateme?Why did you convince me to come here at all?”
Sam blinks.“No, I mean?—”
“You have these little secret parties and little jokes, and you go to lunch, and you lie to me about things, and if it weren’t for Jack, I’d wish I hadn’t even moved here at all.”
Samantha’s jaw drops, and she stares at me, blankly.
From a few feet behind her, Natalie starts to clap.
I turn, a little horrified at all the things I said, and I start to cry.“I’m sorry.I’m so sorry.”
But then I notice that whereas Sam has a few streaks, from what I can see, Natalie has lightish paint all over her.In fact, she looks like she rolled around on a freshly painted fence or something.
