The You I've Never Known(85)
That would hurt, and my head
is just starting to feel better.”
The swelling is down, the knot a lot smaller. What’s mostly left is a huge ugly bruise on my forehead.
And another on my right cheek.
When I reach the GTO, Gabe does
a double take. Wow. You look, uh . . .
That’s some kind of contusion you’ve got going on. Does it still hurt?
“Only when I touch it, so I’m
trying to avoid that. Of course, I haven’t tried thinking real
hard.” Mostly because that does hurt. I hop into the passenger
seat and as we take off, I ask,
“How’s Zelda doing? She was
pretty shaky yesterday.”
I wish I could tell you, but I really don’t know. By the time I got home last night, she’d drunk herself into a stupor, and she was still sleeping it off when I left this morning. She’s struggling, obviously, but that’s to be expected.
What about you? Better?
Better Is a Relative Term
That’s what I tell him
before running down
all the new information
Monica made me privy to.
“I don’t know what to do
with it, Gabe. One damn
lie piles onto the next
and now it’s just a huge
stinking heap of bullshit.”
I wouldn’t expect to shovel through that pile for a while.
One good thing, though.
Well, two, actually.
“Really? Do tell. I could
use some good news.”
Well, you are eighteen, which means you don’t have to leave Sonora and move in with Maya.
And, two, I’m glad you’ve decided to talk to your mom. It’s important. If you don’t, you’ll never get to the bottom of the manure.
“I still don’t think of her as my mom. It’s possible
I’ve managed to accept
‘mother.’ I’ve thought
and thought and can’t
come up with one good
reason for a complete
stranger to contrive such
a complicated deception,
so I guess she must be for real.”
She’s totally for real, Air.
You should’ve seen the look on her face when she saw you standing there in front of the gym. I thought she was going to pass out.
She seriously couldn’t believe she was that close to you.
He stops to assess my sudden, unbidden scowl. Whoa. Wait.
You’re not mad I said that, are you?
Wow
Everyone’s tiptoeing
around me. Way to go,
me. Ariel. Casey.
Whoever. This is not
how you treat friends.
“Gabe? I’m sorry I’ve been so bitchy, okay? I really don’t know how to process this. To have every single thing you believe about
yourself be proven a lie?”
But that’s not exactly true. You’re still the same warm, funny, sexy-as-hell girl inside. No one knows who they are at seventeen.
Or eighteen, or nineteen or maybe ever, for that matter.
My dad used to say you learn something new every day.
If that’s true, don’t you change a little every time? How can you learn something new and still be the same?
“I don’t know. But ‘new’ and counterintuitive are two
different things. I prefer new.”
As Accurate
As my response is,
his question
is valid.
I understand
that while
the definition
of the external
me
seems to
have changed,
intrinsically,
I’m the same
person I was
prior to . . .
yesterday.
How
is
that
even
possible?
Fortuitously
We’ve reached the Triple G and I can think
about what I’ve got to do now instead of what
might come afterward.
Gabe asks for the key
to the Focus, promises
to extricate it from the ditch, then continues to the house.
Hillary is a lucky girl.
I arrive at the barn
with five minutes to spare.
Max, who has already saddled a bay gelding, can’t help but notice my gorgeous face.
Boy, I hope whoever did that to you got it worse.
“Actually, my steering wheel looks a whole lot better than I do. It was just a little accident.”
He’s unconvinced, but lets it go. You okay to ride?
Superfly there is raring to go.
“How can I turn him down?
No worries. I’ll be fine.”
The horse’s name totally fits.
Wind sharp through my hair, we circle the big paddock on a well-used track. Trot to warm up, urge him into a lope, and after once around, when I give him his head we are, indeed, flying. The syncopation
of his gait; the warm puffs of his exhales into the chill air; the rising scent of horse as he works up a sweat.
These things make sense, and I’m grateful for their logic.
Slow him, walk him to cool the heat of his exertion.