The Natural History of Us (16 page)

I fell silent and rested my head on my arms. As I lay there, quiet, simply staring back at Justin, a peculiar sensation crept over my skin. I was no mind reader, and my knowledge of boys was limited to my older brothers and my string of book boyfriends, but I could've sworn pride shone in Justin's eyes.

Being from an athletic family, it sucked having everyone waiting for me to relapse and telling me to slow down. Second guessing every move I made. The doctors said they'd never heard of patients having a relapse; sometimes people suffered residual weaknesses, but they were generally older, and I was
expected to make a full recovery. But no one ever knew for sure. Too much was still unknown, and it made me feel out of control and helpless.

But through Justin's eyes, I didn't feel weak. He looked at me and saw someone who could accomplish anything.
Do
anything. I liked that feeling. A lot.

Outside, a dog barked, and suddenly, as if waking from a stupor, Justin blinked his eyes. He cleared his throat and he pushed off the desktop, onto his feet.

The spell was broken. Story time was over.

Confused by the abrupt change, I clamored to sit up as well. Had I said something wrong? I rolled off the mattress, found my balance, and then stood awkwardly in front of him. He wouldn't even look at me. The comfort and ease of the last few minutes was gone, erased, replaced with restless feet and darting eyes.

I frantically glanced around the room, desperate for something to talk about, and that's when I saw the ball.

A level lower than I'd looked before, it was on a stand on his bookshelf. I walked up to it and recognized Larry Dierker's signature. “Ah, nice one.”

Justin moved in behind me. Taking the ball off its stand, he stared at it, palmed it, and admitted almost to himself, “It's my only decent memory from childhood.”

This was huge. Out of everything I'd discovered from my hours of Justin research, I knew one thing without a shadow of a doubt: The boy was Private with a capital P. Worried
he'd
remember that, too, and stop talking, I clamped my mouth shut.

“The only thing Dad loves more than money is baseball,” he said, this time with a definite edge. “Not his own family, not even this stupid house. This place is more like a hotel.”

He scoffed, playing the tough-guy role he probably thought he'd perfected, but I heard the loneliness behind it. I wanted
to turn around and hug him, tell him I was sorry, but I knew he wouldn't want that. So, I stayed where I was, clenching and unclenching my hands.

“Anyway,” he continued, “when I was a kid, one of Dad's vendors had tickets to the game where they retired Dierker's jersey. I never really knew why, but for some reason, Dad let me tag along.”

“2002,” I murmured without thinking.

“Yeah. How did you know that?”

I blew out a breath, cursing my stupid mouth for interrupting. Turning around, I found Justin gaping at me and I shrugged. “Sports fanatic for a father, remember?”

“Oh. Right.” He frowned at that, then shook his head and glanced back at the ball. “I got to meet Larry that day. He signed this and even showed me a proper grip.”

Justin stretched his arm back, miming a perfect throw, and the harsh lines on his face faded away, transforming into a boyish grin. He dropped his hand and sighed. “Baseball's been my life ever since.” He waved the ball in his hand. “And Larry, my favorite player.”

I smiled. “He's one of my dad's favorites, too. I'm actually shocked he didn't name any of us after him, but then, that'd be pretty weird whenever we saw him over at the house.”

Justin's eyes cut to mine. “What do you mean?”

I lifted a shoulder. “Dad's friends with him and he comes by the house sometimes. Mostly after a school visit to go over drills with the team. Dad brings him home for dinner. As you know, he's really active in supporting local youth athletic teams.”

As I spoke, every muscle in Justin's body turned to stone. I scrunched my nose, clueless as to what I could've said to make him catatonic, and waited five, maybe six heartbeats before he closed his mouth and then asked, “Team?”

Now I was really lost. “Well, yeah.”

He had to know… right? I thought back over all our conversations, at school, at the ranch, and over text, and realized I'd never specifically said anything. I also never told anyone at school. The teachers knew, of course, but it never came up in class, and it wasn't like I wore a neon sign over my head that said I was the Coach's daughter. I'd just always assumed Justin knew.

Judging from his current frozen form, I wasn't so sure.

Will this matter
? Praying it didn't, I tucked my hair behind my ear. “Justin, you know my dad's your baseball coach, right?”

A giant step back and a harsh, cynical laugh gave me my answer.

“Hey
girl, you ready to ride?” Annie Oakley's wise eyes peer at me from her stall, saying more than she could even if she could speak. Everything I've already been thinking myself. “Yeah, I know. It's been a while.”

The ranch at least is quiet today. Dad already left for the ballpark and Mama is out buying supplies for the business. Trevor has a golf event, Faith and Cade are inside working, and I'm out here, trying to resurrect an old dream.

“Don't worry if you're scared,” I say, gently tugging Oakley toward the barrel course Cade and I laid out just last week. “That's perfectly normal. In fact, if you want to know a secret, I'm pretty scared, too.”

Her soft whinny makes me smile and I comb my hand through her long, chestnut mane.

It's not as if the two of us haven't ridden together since the accident. We've gone on walks around the pasture, even made it up to a slow trot. Easy instructional things with the kids. But slow and easy ain't gonna cut it for the exhibition. It's time for me to put on my big girl panties.

We make it out to the course way too soon. A quick check around the field is enough to know we're still alone. I can still back out if I want to. Walk away, give Annie an apple, and pretend this never happened. No one would be any the wiser. But even as I think it, I know that's not true. I would know.

Justin is a hell of a lot of things, but one thing he's not, at least in this case, is wrong. There is a huge part of me that lives beneath the fear that wants to do this. Wants to break out of the steel prison of anxiety and feel the wind slap across my face again. My heart rate picks up speed just imagining it.

A question bubbles to the surface, the same one that's taunted me for years.
What if
?

What if I really can do it again? What if I can find greatness, find that missing piece that's been absent for so long, and be whole again?

What if I've wasted my best years on the circuit for nothing?

Obviously, the “what if” game is a double-edged sword. Not only the back and forth of doubts but the chance that things can go horribly wrong. I could fall again, get hurt worse than I was before. Or I could find out, once and for all, that it really is all over.

That certainty is something I'm not sure I can handle.

A strong breeze, unusual for this time of year, slaps my face, and I breathe deeply. “Enough navel gazing,” I mutter, channeling my dad. I take the reins and cluck my tongue. “Come on, girl. Let's do this.”

Luckily, the mechanics of riding still come naturally for me. After I mount Oakley, it's easy to steer her toward the opposite end of the course. Easy in theory, at least. From the way my heart pounds, you'd think I was doing a heck of a lot more than a slow walk.

Breathing through the anxiety bunching my stomach, I tell myself everything is fine.

“Nothing we haven't done before.”

Oakley's ears twitch at my voice and I close my eyes, visualizing success. As I rock back and forth in the saddle, I remember everything I need to do. The steps, the posture… the confidence. I open my eyes, exhale the fear, and glance at the doghouse one last time.

With a cluck of my tongue, I nudge Oakley's flank.

Wind lashes my hair back as we pick up speed. My clucks continue, my spurs nudging us onward, knowing we'll need to go much faster than this at the event. Hooves pound the earth beneath me as the first barrel approaches, so much slower than I ever remember, but that doesn't seem to matter, because suddenly and without warning… it's all too much.

My heart racing impossibly fast.

My chest squeezing with each pulse. I can't. Catch. My breath.

Fear coats my skin and I tremble as I push my heels out and forward. Self-loathing churns my stomach as I slide myself back in the saddle. My eyes slam shut and I pull on the reins, somehow finding enough air to force out one pathetic word. “
Whoa
.”

Silence.

The absence of wind.

Only me, my hammering heart, and Oakley.

And the answer to, “What if?”

Fighting back tears, I soak in the moment of defeat. Saturate myself with it. In case I need further proof, I open my eyes and see where we slid to a stop, right in front of the first barrel. A humorless laugh breaks free, along with a blasted tear. We never made it beyond a slow freaking lope. If that doesn't count as a failure, I don't know what does.

“Peyton!”

I curse at Cade's frantic voice, the rhythmic sound of his close, thumping footsteps telling me that my covert ride wasn't nearly as secret as I'd hoped. Quickly, I swipe the telltale
evidence of my tears and put on my game face mere moments before he rounds the fence in front of me.

“Are you all right?” His eyes are wide behind his black frames. I hate that I scared him. Even more that I disappointed him. We both know that I'm far from all right, but I answer the only way my pride will allow. I roll back my shoulders, cluck softly, and nudge Oakley forward, around the first barrel.

Cade watches, leaning his arms against the fence post as Annie and I walk—not trot, not lope, and certainly not gallop—around the second and then the third and then straight out of the ring. It's not until we are headed back to the barn that I look back and meet his worried gaze.

“It's time to go to the game.”