But as I rode away I thought I heard him call after me, “Just keep telling yourself that, Georgie Porgie. I’ll keep telling myself that too.”
I brought his lunch again the next day.
Moses
“SHE LIKES YOU, YOU KNOW.” Gigi smiled at me, teasing.
I just grunted.
“Georgia likes you, Moses. And she’s such a good girl. A nice girl. Pretty too. Why don’t you give her some attention? That’s all she wants, you know.” Gigi winked at me, and I felt the heat that I had so prided myself on controlling start to spread through my chest and down my abdomen.
Georgia may only want attention now. But that wouldn’t last. If I gave her attention, she would want to spend more time with me. And if I spent time with her, she might want me to be her boyfriend. And if I was her boyfriend, she would want me to be normal. She would want me to be normal because she was normal. And normal was so lost to me that I didn’t even know where to look for it.
Still . . .
I thought about the way she looked when she fell asleep the night I painted the ceiling in her room. I’d looked down through the slats on the scaffolding, and she was directly below me, curled around a pillow she’d pulled off her bed. It was as if I floated over her, my body hovering six feet above hers. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, the same color as the wheat in the fields around the small town where we lived. But her hair wasn’t coarse and wispy. It was silky and thick and wavy from the braid she’d worn all day. She was tall, not as tall as I was, but long and lean, with golden skin and deep brown eyes that were a sharp contrast with her fair hair. My opposite. I had light eyes and dark hair. Maybe if you put us together, our physical oddities would even out. My belly tightened at the thought. No one would put us together. Especially not me.
I found myself watching her sleep, the painting temporarily forgotten. The man in the corner of the room who shared his thoughts, who shared Georgia’s story in pictures that poured into my head and out my hands, had disappeared. I wondered if I could call him back. I wasn’t finished yet.
But I didn’t try to call him back. Instead, I stared down at Georgia for a long, long time, watching the girl who was easily as persistent as the ghosts in my head. And for once, my mind was full of pictures of my own making, filled with dreams only I had conjured. And for the first time ever, I fell asleep with Georgia beneath me and peace inside of me.
Georgia
LUCKY HADN’T BEEN WORKED with at all before he came to us. Dad didn’t have much time to train him, but I had nothing but time. I had a knack, everyone said I did. So I spent a few hours with him every morning getting him used to me, making sure I was the one who fed him, I was the one who he saw, day in and day out. He would run when I drew near, deliver a skittish two-step when I cut off his desired direction, and generally get very irritated with me. The day I got a rope around his head and he let me lead him around was a month in the making. It took me another two weeks before we were in a bridle and he let me draw his head back toward me as I stood at his side.
“That’s it, baby. You gonna let me have your head?” I smiled as I talked, trying not to gloat. You train a horse with pressure. Not pain. Pressure. A horse doesn’t want to get in the trailer? You don’t force him. You just run him in circles, round and round the trailer until he’s breathing hard. Then you try to take him up the ramp again. He doesn’t want to go? You keep running him. Eventually, he’ll figure out that the pressure lets up when he’s in the trailer. He gets to rest in the trailer. So he’ll climb that ramp eagerly every time.
I got a little impatient. My dad always said when you’re working with people or with animals, impatience is the worst mistake you can make. But I’d grown a little cocky. He was giving me his head, and I wanted the rest of him. I fisted my hands in his mane and drew my body up so that my belly brushed his side. He went still, quivering, and I felt that quiver echo in my stomach, anticipation zinging down my legs and arms, making me stupid.
“We’re friends aren’t we, Lucky?” I whispered. “Let’s go for a little run. Just an easy little run.”
He didn’t pull away, and I took the hesitation for consent. In one quick move I hoisted myself up and over, and as my butt hit his back we were off, and I knew with a terrible twist in my gut that he wasn’t ready. But it was too damn late. I was on his back, hands in his hair, committed. I would have been fine if he’d just decided to shake me loose. I knew how to fall. But he bolted instead, flying across the field with me clinging to his back. We cleared the fence separating our property from Gene Powell’s and I did my best to meld my body with his, but it’s incredibly hard to stay on a horse without a saddle. They are smooth, slick, and powerful, and my thighs were screaming with the effort to keep him between them. We cleared another fence and I stayed seated, but my arms were trembling, and I was terrified that Lucky was going to hurt himself. Horses break their legs and it’s not just an easy trip to the ER and a big cast and crutches. It’s over. I wasn’t thinking about myself. I was thinking of my mistake in judgment, how I’d pushed him too far. And I didn’t know how to fix it.
On the third fence, Lucky landed hard and I started to slide to the side. I cursed a streak of the bluest words I’d ever said, yanking with all my might on Lucky’s mane, and trying to right myself. But there was no stopping my descent, and I hit the ground hard, my shoulder and hip getting the worst of it as I rolled and found myself staring up at a sky that was far too blue for dying.