His hooves tear up the ground as our dresses are caught by the wind, streaming out behind us. A fallen tree lies ahead. I close my eyes and grit my teeth, but Padlock lunges over it with perfect precision. Before long, he’s almost caught up to Ace. My horse tosses his head with agitation and storms forward. He closes the distance between them until I could reach over and shake Mr. Riley’s hand.
How do you do?
Now that Padlock is in such close proximity to another Titan, it’s as if a primal instinct kicks in. My horse gains speed, and the orange needle meets angry red space. My stomach twists when I realize we’ve entered the slay zone. Frantic, my hand releases the saddle horn. I’m about to flip the autopilot off when Magnolia begins to slip from the saddle. She cries out and her arms flail.
I grab on to her as Padlock races with expert accuracy, arching around tree trunks, diving over limbs and large rocks. His body is a work of art, his footfalls a thing of beauty. It isn’t until I spot a large crevice that I release my hold on my friend. The trench must be fifteen feet across, and there’s no telling how deep it delves. At this speed, there’s no going around the gap. Padlock is going to attempt leaping across in order to outpace the other horse, and there’s no way Magnolia and I can both stay in this saddle if he does. There’s hardly enough room to properly stay seated as it is.
Reaching across my friend, and feeling her slip a second time in the process, I fumble for the autopilot switch. My hands shake from the impact of Padlock’s hooves pounding the uneven surface, and my heart shotguns in my chest. I find purchase on the switch at last, and flip it downward. Then I grab the brake bar and pull as hard as I can. Padlock skids through the dirt as I cling to Magnolia, attempting to keep us both from falling.
We’re treacherously close to the ledge when Padlock jolts to a stop. Four beats later, Hart flies across the open space, man and steel horse soaring across the divide.
It’s a bird. It’s a plane.
It’s Hart Riley and his trusty Titan extraordinaire!
The twosome lands safely on the other side. Hart turns his horse toward me. He smiles his thousand-watt smile and says, “Time. I win.”
The fire crackles and pops, throwing shadows across Magnolia’s face.
And Hart’s face. He’s here too.
Magnolia drills Hart across the open flame as he drags on a cigarette. Turns out he’s a moderately skilled poker player himself. He won his Titan in a lucky hand, he admits. Though he only has it on loan.
“So you have to give the horse back when the race is over?” Magnolia prods, the after-party forgotten now that Hart’s here providing Grade A entertainment.
Hart nods and flicks ashes onto the dry, highly flammable grass.
“It’s kind of like you have a sponsor,” my friend continues.
Hart’s eyes harden. “No, I’m working alone. The Titan’s on loan, that’s all.”
Magnolia scrunches up her nose, thinking about this. “You don’t come from money, do you?”
“Magnolia!” I scold. But I watch Hart’s face, awaiting his answer.
Hart shrugs. “I’m an opportunist. My mom died when I was young, and my dad always loved Percocet. Not a lot of opportunity in my family name. But this race …” He waves his cigarette around his head. “It’s a fresh start.” He sobers, and his voice lowers. “I won’t end up like my father.”
Another puff on his cigarette.
Magnolia and I quiet. It’s obvious Hart isn’t going to elaborate, but I can’t help looking at him differently. He’s here for a similar reason I am; I’m trying to maintain my life, and he’s trying to change his. I wonder what will happen if he loses. What kind of life awaits him?
I dismiss the thought, remind myself that I need to focus on my own family, not my competition.
“You say you won the use of your Titan in a card game, eh?” Magnolia smirks.
Hart leans his head back. “What of it?”
“Care for a wager?”
Hart glances at her with interest, a smile playing on his lips as he eyes her lean legs. “What’d ya have in mind, buttercup?”
“Eww, gross,” Magnolia says, but I don’t miss the way she returns his smile. Magnolia withdraws the playing cards from her pocket. “If I win, you tell us how it is you get out of the gate so quickly.”
My eyes dart to Magnolia. So she’d noticed it too.
“And if I win?” he asks.
“I’ll pretend to be your girlfriend for the cameras.” The answer flies from my mouth before I have time to think, because I don’t want him asking anything of my friend.
Hart considers this, trying to determine whether I’ll stand by my promise. He sighs as if his playing cards is doing us a solid. “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Magnolia beats him.
Hart demands another game.
She beats him again.
“Really,” she says through a yawn. “It’s like you’re not even trying.”
But Hart is trying. In fact, I think he might be sweating. And when Magnolia beats him for the third time—best two hands out of three!—I can actually see the perspiration accumulating at his temples.
“Spill,” Magnolia demands, a triumphant smile on her face.
I can’t help mirroring that smile, and watching Hart for a reaction. Will he really tell me his strategy? Does he even have a strategy, or is it simply luck?
Hart leans back on his hands, his eyebrows knitting together. “There’s a hissing sound before the starting gate opens. I push the accelerator button then instead of waiting.”
I think back to the four races I’ve run. “I don’t remember hearing anything.”
“Then you haven’t been listening.”
“Wouldn’t your horse hit the starting gate if you accelerated before it pulled away?” Magnolia asks.
His jaw muscle jumps, irritated that he’s revealing his trick. “No, it’s perfect timing.”
I think about what he’s saying, and whether it would be cheating if I replicated his tactic.
“I don’t know why you need my help,” Hart says, acting aloof. “You do all right on that rusted hunk of metal.”
“Whoa.” I glare at him. “You can talk about me, but don’t talk about my Titan.”
Padlock snorts in agreement. It’s the first time he’s acknowledged our conversation. He’s been too distracted by Hart’s horse, Ace, and why it won’t interact with him the way the gray mare does.
“What I mean is …” Hart hesitates, and I can tell he’s struggling to get the words out. “You’re not half bad when you stop trying so hard.”
“Excuse me?” Magnolia says this on my behalf, bless her.
“You think too much,” Hart continues. “You need to relax and let your horse do some of the racing. Like you did in the woods there at the end. Whatever you did those last few seconds wasn’t quite as tragic as your usual racing style.”
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
He waves his hand, dismissing me. “Forget it.”
He’s right, though. I felt Padlock come alive when Magnolia switched him to autopilot, and though I couldn’t risk him staying that way with Magnolia riding alongside me, I can’t help wondering how I’d fare in the next circuit race if I were to give him control.
I get up and brush off my backside. Then I go to Padlock, run my hands over his back and chuckle when he nuzzles the top of my head. This horse is my ticket to saving my family’s home, and keeping my friend close. But he’s much more than that now. He’s my partner, my comrade. And I’d be lying if I said he hasn’t stolen a piece of my heart. Padlock lowers his head, pressing his forehead against my own. As Magnolia and Hart discuss her mad poker skills, I breathe in the smell of my horse—steel and iron and gasoline, and yeah, a little rust.
I allow myself to wonder what will happen to my horse when this race ends, and my insides clench imagining him being turned off and left to gather dust in Rags’s shed.
“I won’t let that happen,” I whisper to Padlock, in case he can sense what I’m thinking.
“You always look this sexy sitting in the dirt?”
Hart’s voice, and Magnolia’s responsive giggle, nabs my attention.
I turn away from Padlock and shoot daggers at Hart Riley. “Say one more thing to her. I dare you.”
Hart looks pointedly at Magnolia. “One more thing.”
I tackle him and press the side of his face into the ground. His laugh echoes through the dense, muggy forest.
My best friend laughs too.
It’s been a long time since I spent a morning at home, so the day after the gala, I do just that. The problem is no one is there to spend time with. There’s a note on the counter from Mom to Zara saying she’s running to the store, and telling her to clean up her room. I frown at the note, unhappy that my mom is leaving my ten-year-old sister at home alone. Our phone got cut off six weeks ago. What would Zara do if there was an emergency?
When I see that my dad and Dani are also gone, I head to Zara’s room. She’s asleep in her twin-sized bed, a hand-me-down blanket covered in smiling lions pulled to her chin.
“Zara,” I whisper. But she doesn’t respond.
Rags wants me at the track by noon, no exceptions, and I really wish I could hang with Zara before I leave. But I also don’t want to wake her, so I head to my room and crawl in bed too. My chest is hollow as I stare at my older sister’s cold pillow. How much has she been here the last few weeks? And what about my dad? What’s happened to the man whose pride hangs on his ability to provide for his family?
I remember a time when our house was full. When me, Dani, and Zara finger-painted on clean sheets of paper in Grandpa’s living room, and then proceeded to paint his bald head at his request. He was a paying customer, after all. Dad had Mom on his lap, and said he’d only let her get up if she made cookies. With chocolate chips. And M&Ms.
We were the Sullivans, and where there was one, there were five more on their way.
I attempt to fall back asleep, trying to recover from my late night with Magnolia and Hart. But I miss my family. I miss my broken, warped, split-down-the-middle family, and I wish we could sit on the couch and eat fried eggs and bicker about the necessity of cable.
I’d argue right now simply to hear their voices. To hear my mom’s quiet opinions and Dani’s passive-aggressive ones. To watch my dad’s face pinch with impatience, and Zara roll her eyes and sigh with exaggerated annoyance. I want all of that. I want to be sandwiched between it even if it’s the best we’ve got at this point.
I just want it in this house.
And I wanted a little piece of it this morning.
As if by some divine miracle, the bedroom window slides open. My heart leaps and I bolt upright. I don’t care how ridiculous the smile is on my face. I can’t hide how happy I am that Dani chose this exact moment to sneak in for a change of clothes or a shower or whatever it is she needs.
She’s sliding her tanned legs through the window—good, solid Sullivan legs—when her dress snags on the frame. She curses under her breath, and I glance away as her yellow summer dress hitches to her waist. But not before I see it.
A green-and-yellow bruise circles her left hip, as glorious as it is grotesque. It’s almost a perfect circle with swirls of deep color, like I’m looking at planet Earth from outer space. If I concentrate hard enough, maybe I can spot our brown clapboard house from my rocket ship.
I lunge to my feet and pull her through the rest of the way. She gasps with surprise that I’m actually home. But it’s me who’s shocked. I hold on to her arm, and even when she shakes it and calls me a slug and tells me to get off her, I don’t let go. Because I see them now. Small, round bruises dotting her wrists—the meteors in her galaxy of pain.
“Who did this?” I ask.
She pulls away at last. “What are you blubbering about?”
“You have bruises all over you, Dani. Who did this?” The realization hits me hard, square between the eyes. “Was it Jason?”
For a moment, it looks as if she’ll deny it. Say she fell a hundred different ways, and my, oh my, isn’t she clumsy? But she doesn’t. She only purses her lips and turns toward the ceiling and says something so clichéd it actually hurts my freaking teeth. “He didn’t know what he was doing. We went out with his friends and had too much to drink.”
“So he’s allowed to hurt you because he was drunk?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
Dani strides away, goes to her closet and rifles for a suddenly important piece of clothing. “Chill with the melodrama, okay? I yelled at him when it should have waited until morning, and we both did and said things we shouldn’t have.” Dani’s voice lowers. “He already apologized like a thousand times.”
I cringe. “Do you know how you sound? You sound like Mom, making excuses for a man who should know better. But Dad would never do this. He would never hurt Mom.”
Dani spins around. “Dad hurts Mom every single day, Astrid. Every day he snaps at her. Every day he makes her feel uncomfortable in her own home. Every day he pushes her, and us, further away. He didn’t keep Grandpa safe, and he won’t keep us safe, either. He’s the one screwing everything up! Jason can keep me safe, though. He messed up once, but every other day he treats me like royalty. And when we lose this house, and you know we will, Jason will put a roof over my head and food in my stomach and he’ll love me out loud. And he won’t gamble that away either.” Dani turns away. There’s the ghost of red lipstick smudged across her mouth. “He thinks I can get my GED and go to college. Says he’ll help me pay for it. I can’t lose that.”
I listen to her speech and dismiss it at once. “You’ve got to tell someone what happened. We’ve got to tell Dad.”
That does it. Tears fill Dani’s eyes, crest over mascara-laden lashes. “If you tell him, or anyone, I’ll leave with Jason. I’ll leave and you’ll never see me again.”
Now I’m crying too, because I know she isn’t bluffing. And because for the first time, I see I’m not the only one who’s lived in fear of losing my small sense of stability. I don’t want to lose my sister too.
“Why are you guys being so loud?” a new voice asks.
When I see Zara standing in the doorway, the morning sun granting her an ethereal glow, I wipe the tears from my face. Plaster on a winning, reassuring smile. “Hey, there you are, sleepyhead.”
Dani turns her back to Zara—more camouflage, more denial that anything bad has happened under the Sullivan roof.
Zara steps farther into the room. “I heard you guys fighting.”
“We argue because we share a room,” I lie. “It happens. You want pancakes? I’ll make them with applesauce like you like.”
“I’m not stupid.” Zara’s cheeks redden. “I know what’s going on.”
“Be quiet, Zara,” Dani says.
“Don’t tell me that!” Zara’s yelling at Dani now, her small hands balled into fists. “I know you basically live with your boyfriend, because you’re never here when I wake up. I know Mom and Dad fight, because I hear them.” She looks at me now. “And I know you’re more interested in flirting with Hart Riley than being here.” When my face contorts, she says, “Yeah, I know about your stupid boyfriend. Mom gets the Titan Enquirer and I see the pictures of you.” I want to correct her, but she plunges onward. “You two both have a place to run away to, but I’m stuck here. I hear every time Mom and Dad argue about the house, and about where we’ll go if we lose it. I hear when Mom leaves in the middle of the night, and when Dad snores from the living room couch. Were either of you two here when the guy came to take our car last night? No, just me. You were probably both—”
“Wait, what? Who came to get the car, Zara?”
“They took Mom and Dad’s car,” she repeats. “They’re using it to pay for the house or something.”
The room spins, and I hardly hear whatever else Zara says, though I want to listen so badly. Right now, she needs me to
be her sister, but my mind clicks to survival mode the same way Padlock switched to autopilot last night. If we don’t have a car, and we don’t have a house—where will we go? At least last time we had the backseat to curl up in on hard nights. We had air conditioning and a little heat if we could afford the fuel. What will we do without our vehicle to fall back on?
Zara must see the change in my face, because she starts to cry in earnest. “See? That’s what happens when you go away.”
A lump forms in my throat. “I didn’t go away. I’m right here.”
But when I reach for her, she jerks backward. “You’re never here anymore. You don’t care about us at all. All you care about is your stupid horse.”
“That’s not true. I love you, Zara. And Mom and Dad. And Dani too.” I glance at my older sister, who’s chewing her thumbnail. She doesn’t meet my gaze. “Everything I’m doing at the track is to try and save this family. If I win, we can stay here. You can keep going to your school and stay with your friends. Mom and Dad won’t fight anymore, and Dani can come home.”
This time when I look at Dani, she stares at me intently.
“I have to worry about saving our house right now, but after this summer is over, you’ll see me every day.” I bend down so Zara and I are eye to eye. “You understand?”
Zara glowers at the ground, but I don’t miss the way her lower lip trembles. She mumbles something under her breath I don’t catch. When I ask her to repeat it, she fills her lungs and yells, “You’re just like Dad! All you care about is gambling and money!”
I straighten, stunned by her words. Hurt rains over my body, slips into my cracks, makes a home for itself in my heart. I don’t know how to feel about what she said. Do I defend myself and argue that my father and I are nothing alike? Or apologize and admit that maybe we are? That maybe the man I believed emotionally abandoned us is simply doing the same thing I am.
Trying to save our home.
Titans Page 19
