Keeping King

by Anne Jolin

  “It’s likely you’ll experience that sensation at the things that remind you of him for quite some time.”

  The statement I’ve become familiar with is in no way comforting. I want to forget him. I want to hate him. But my body and mind are physically incapable of doing so, and thus, I am left this echo of a person. I’ve never felt that way about another person in my entire life. Whether it was love or not, I don’t know. All I know is that it felt like our souls were intertwined, all of our hopes, fears, and dreams entangled together.

  It’s as if our hearts have been tethered to one another against their own will. It truly is a tragic chaos to be attached to someone in that way and not be able to have them. It’s a beautiful mess, a constant longing, but the heart wants what the heart wants. Casualties be damned. And my stupid fucking heart is bleeding dry for a man who, for all intents and purposes, could be dead. That would be easier though. It would be easier if he had died than to accept the fact that the only man I had given my heart to disappeared in the night like a coward. No phone calls, no forwarding address, nothing. Just fucking gone.

  Four months later, my brother died of an overdose.

  I hear the click of the clock on her desk and nearly sigh in relief.

  “That’s our time for today.” She smiles sadly at me as I go to stand. “But Charleston”—I lift my eyes to meet hers—“you need to find a way to cope with these losses, something that makes you happy, or this darkness will swallow you whole in time.”

  The burn in my throat returns as she stands to hug me. We’ve hugged after every session for the last year, but it knocks the wind out of my every time. Dr. Colby helps protect me as best she can, even from myself.

  After closing the door behind me, I wave goodbye to the receptionist and step out into the hallway. As I maneuver through the building, my mind starts to wander to places it shouldn’t go but often does, and I don’t notice the man coming up the stairs until I’ve plowed right into him. He quickly steadies me, mumbling an apology before taking off to wherever he came from, but not before the smell of the man’s cologne washes over me. It was his smell. The cologne he always wore.

  My body starts to shake uncontrollably. Leaning one hand against the wall for support and clutching my chest with the other, I focus on breathing as the familiarity assaults my senses. This is what flooding feels like—it’s fucking awful.

  “Are you okay?” a deep voice rumbles from beside me.

  Turning my head, I watch him eye me as he pulls his gaze off my legs and back up to my face.

  “I’m fine,” I snap but manage a half-assed smile to go along with it.

  The boy clucks his tongue before leaning his hip against the wall. “You sure are.”

  His eyes trail over my body and it’s like I can feel the serotonin and dopamine spreading through me like fire. Like a high, like shooting up. In that moment, with the almost gag-worthy, cheesy boy, I feel temporarily healed. It may be a Band-Aid covering a bullet hole, but enough of them would stop the bleeding.

  I can’t abuse drugs. I can’t abuse alcohol. A drink or two, sure, but drowning in my sorrows isn’t going to happen. But men? The cause of my anguish? I can use them, can’t I?

  Because this high makes me feel fucking lethal, and I never want to come down from it.

  “Riding a horse is not a gentle hobby,

  to be picked up and laid down like a game

  of solitare. It is a grand passion.

  It seizes a person whole and, once it has

  done so, he will have to accept that

  his life will be radically changed.”

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Prologue

  Athens, Greece, 2012—Equestrian Day Eight—Olympic Grand Prix Dressage

  Pre-Competition Interview—The Equestrian Journal

  London

  “Miss Daniels, this is your first appearance at the Olympic Summer Games, and rumor has it you’re favorited to win gold. What do you have to say to that?”

  Looping my arm underneath Achilles’ reins, I rub his muzzle with my gloved hand. “I’d say they’re right.” I wink, flashing my award-winning smile.

  “What’s your secret to success?”

  “Persistence,” I regard firmly before edging back into my media-darling persona, “and him.” I nudge the nineteen-hands Dutch Warmblood flanking my left side.

  Scribbling down on his note pad, the man looks over the rim of his glasses. “That seems like a lot of credit to give just to a horse.”

  Clenching my jaw, I smile through gritted teeth but speak with grit. “I give credit where credit’s due.” Then I purse my lips. “And he’s hardly just a horse, sir. He’s Achilles War,” I correct, “and he’s as much the Greek hero his lure alludes to.”

  Shuffling off my defensive tone, the journalist continues. “Some say the bond you share as rider and horse is remarkable. What would you attribute that to?”

  “He’s as much a part of my soul as I am his,” I praise effortlessly. “I trust him with my life.”

  “Hmm,” he hums before pointing at the roof of the indoor arena. “Will the weather be an issue for you in today’s competition?”

  The sound of raindrops hitting the tin roof echoes around my answer. “I’m from Canada,” I smirk. “I can handle getting a little wet.”

  “You’ve chosen an incredibly unique performance for your final round. Some might even call it risky. Can you tell us why?”

  Leaning into Achilles’ neck, I breathe in his smell, drawing strength from the way his powerful body complements mine. “You’ve got to bet big to win big, and that’s a risk we’re willing to take. Aren’t we, Chil?” I ask, resting my forehead on his much larger one.

  He neighs, playfully shoving me with his head in response. My laugher floods the waiting arena.

  “It’s time,” my trainer, Harlow Kent, instructs, officially ending the interview.

  As I shed the outer layer of my Team Canada warm-up jacket, he hands me my black blazer, and I pull it snugly around my upper body. Pressing down the fabric, Harlow checks me over for anything out of place before helping me tuck my white-blond hair into my helmet.

  “You good?”

  Stretching out the tightness in my neck, I nod. “I’m good.”

  Holding out his hands by his knee, Harlow gives me a leg up into the saddle, waiting as I slip the toe of my Ariat boots into the stirrups before tapping me once on the thigh. “Good luck.”

  Feeling Chil’s muscles dance between my legs, I squeeze back in reassurance and lean forward to rub his neck. “Just you and me, Chil. Forget the rest.”

  Sitting up straight, I drop my shoulders back and position myself for entry to the ring.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the Canadian favorite’s up next,” the announcers shouts, battling against the cheering crowd. “London Daniels riding Achilles War.”

  Three Days Later

  General Hospital—Athens, Greece

  Post-Competition Interview—The Equestrian Journal

  “Can you tell us what happened?” the journalist asks, settling into the chair across from my bed.

  Sitting up, I wince, fighting back tears.

  I refuse to cry.

  “It was my fault.”

  The man’s eyes widen in shock at my confession. “One would argue that it was your horse’s fault, Miss Daniels. Achilles, your Greek hero, seemed to spook mid routine. In fact, rumors are spreading that he may, indeed, have been your Achilles’ heel.”

  Gripping the side rails of my bed so hard that my knuckles turn white, I withhold the urge to pummel the opinionated asshat in the face. Being cordial goes against the basic fiber of my being, but Harlow was insistent that I would never progress if the media didn’t adorn me with attention.

  “To suggest that Achilles War is anything less than a champion would be both ignorant and stupid on your part.”

  In the corner of my room, Harlow chokes on his coffee. Holding out my palm towards him, I
interrupt his attempts to “put a spin” on my outburst.

  Goodbye, gold medal.

  Goodbye, media darling.

  Never missing a beat, I continue my tirade and preverbal chewing out of the reporter’s ass. “The competition grounds were wet from the unlikely monsoon of rain over the weekend. I’d taken Achilles out the day before to give us both a chance to settle in, but I mistook his uncertainty and allotted it to the travel time. It was my mistake.”

  He continues jotting notes down in time with the sound of the loop on his recorder moving.

  “By the time the morning had come round, most of the arena was underwater, the dry ground playing host for flooding. I took for granted the trust Chil had put in me in the past. I should have withdrawn, but my pride and ego are what led me here.”

  It’s a bitter pill to swallow, accepting fault in losing the gold medal for your country, but that would hardly be enough of a reason to let the blame rest on Chil’s shoulders, however wide they might be.

  “How did the weather result in your fall?”hHe grills, circling like a shark that smells blood in the water.

  The one thing the press loves more than a rising star is a fallen angel.

  Looking past his scrawny frame, I seek strength in the now bright sun. Achilles has always been my rock, and being separated from him for any length of time is next to impossible for me to bear, let alone in a situation such as this.

  “The routine started fine. I could feel his tension but urged him on regardless. It wasn’t until we moved into the pirouette that I could feel how off he was. When he reared, I was not in any way prepared for such a sudden reaction, and I was unable to get my arms around his neck.” Squeezing my eyes hut, I replay those fractions of a second in my mind. “When he came down, he threw an exaggerated buck, unseating me before rearing to his hind legs again. This time, I was holding on only by the reins. It seemed like forever he was standing there, frozen in midair.”

  “It was at this time you made the decision to forfeit?”

  Opening my eyes, I drag them off the window, I narrow them at him, putting all the force of my physical and mental hurt into my stare. “It was not a matter of forfeiting or ‘tossing in the towel,’ as I’ve heard it said on the news. In the moment, I decided that it was best to bail on my own regard, as I didn’t want to pull Achilles over on top of me.”

  “Brave,” he murmurs sarcastically. “Did you know you’d hurt yourself right away?”

  “When I threw myself off and landed on my lower back, I knew instantly that I had done damage”—I wince inwardly—“and sure enough, moments later, the pain kicked in confirming my suspicions.”

  “You were later taken by ambulance to Athens General Hospital. What is the seriousness of your injuries? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  I mind, you clown, my brain screams, but thankfully, my mouth does not comply. “I have fractures in my sacrum on both sides.” It’s not hard to miss the depression settling in my voice at the possibility of being faced with the end of my professional riding career. “The sacrum is a triangle-shaped bone that is found at the bottom of the spine,” I add for effect, hoping he feels as stupid as he looks.

  “What is your prognosis?”

  “Standard procedure is three months off before I can start riding again.”

  “But you won’t know to what degree until that time,” he finishes for me, and I nod.

  Anxiety is creeping up my throat and into my features; I have no idea what life would be like without horses or riding.

  “You wish to stand by your earlier statement that this national loss is attributed only to your lack of skill, not your horse’s temperament?”

  He is pushing my buttons, and he knows it.

  “As a horse has its own mind and sometimes objects to being through or in front of your leg, or it just finds things a bit hard, and they will react in a way that can trigger those fears.” I look him directly in the eye so there is no possibility of him neglecting what I have to say. “I imagine you’d see no kindness or flattery in being whipped or sparred through an event that crippled you with fright, all for the sake of shiny, gold coin around your boss’s neck.”

  The reporter later describes me in his article as “hostile denial in its finest form,” which is followed by a brutally accurate portrayal of my injuries and a detailed description of my shortcomings as a rider. No longer do I push the boundaries of the sport in a fresh and challenging way. It has now been deemed that I have no respect for the discipline and, for lack of a better phrase, got what I deserved. However, it is in his last statement where he truly kicks me while I’m down.

  With the injuries sustained during her fall, it is unlikely London Daniels will return to ride professionally at any capacity, but I suppose the real question is: Would the equestrian industry as a whole want the fallen favorite even if she could?