Drew wrote me back before I’d reached the stable.
Drew:
Of course. We can go wherever u want 2 talk.
Lauren:
Thank u. C u in a few!
“Lauren!” Mr. Conner’s voice had a hard edge to it.
I winced and looked at him. His arms were crossed where he stood, balanced on crutches, in the middle of the arena.
“I’m not going to ask any of you again—pay attention. I’m not here to waste my time. If you have something more important to do, please leave.”
I bit down on my lip and kept my eyes between Whisper’s ears. We were minutes away from the end of the lesson, thankfully. I’d messed up since Mr. Conner’s first command to my group.
Before I’d entered the arena, I’d thought I’d prepared myself to share a relatively small space with Brielle. I hadn’t seen her while I’d tacked up, and I’d warmed up Whisper in the aisle and rode into the arena, pretending to have been there all along with everyone else, seconds before Mr. Conner entered.
It had only taken seconds for my eyes to shift from guiding Whisper to looking at Brielle. I stared at her, forgetting where I was for a minute, and she’d turned Zane as they made a figure eight. Her eyes connected with mine.
It had been the first exercise of class, and I accidentally jerked on Whisper’s reins. She stepped out of the pattern we had been assigned and tossed her head. Mr. Conner had reprimanded me, and I’d spent the next few minutes fighting back embarrassed tears.
If I’d known how the lesson was going to go, I wouldn’t have come. The first mistake had been far from my last. I kept getting distracted, and Whisper followed my lead. Mr. Conner’s comments to me became sharper and sharper, but it was almost as if he was talking to someone else. I just couldn’t get it together.
Now I felt sad and worn out. Whisper was annoyed with me. Her tail flicked from side to side, and she kept tugging the reins through my hands. I owed her a huge apology after the lesson. Normally, I would have been mortified if Mr. Conner had made one comment to me. But after six or seven, I’d kicked into a weird, numb kind of state where I stopped absorbing his comments. All I could think about was Brielle. I didn’t want every lesson from now on to be like this. She’d been called out on not paying attention too, and this wasn’t good for Zane or Whisper.
Like a robot, I followed Mr. Conner’s instructions to begin cooling out our horses. I let my eyes stay on Brielle’s back. She had ended up directly in front of me. I knew Brielle well enough to know she felt bad. Her shoulders were slumped, and she was curled forward. Her leg positions were sloppy, and it was almost as if I could feel her vibes of sadness.
“I will see you tomorrow afternoon,” Mr. Conner said. “Final warning: If you don’t come to class prepared to concentrate and work, you’ll be dismissed from class at the first sign of inattentive behavior.”
He wasn’t out of the arena for a half second before Brielle hopped off Zane’s back and led him out of the arena. It only made me think about her more. I wondered if she was crying or upset with her performance. Or upset over us.
“Laur,” a soft voice said.
I looked over, and Carina was beside me.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“C’mon. Let me help you cool Wisp down.” It was then that I noticed Carina was on the ground holding Whisper’s reins under the mare’s chin.
“Lexa took Rocco,” Carina explained. “I wanted to help you get Whisper back in her stall. Cool?”
I dismounted, tears making my vision blurry. This was Carina—a girl who jumped in wherever she could to help someone else. I’d seen her do it several times at the stable and in class. It was a quality I wanted to emulate.
“Thanks, Carina,” I said in a whisper.
Together, Carina, Whisper, and I left the arena and that awful practice behind.
We made another pass down the aisle as we cooled down Whisper.
Carina patted Wisp’s neck and looked over at me. “I think she’s ready to be groomed. You?”
I reached up and ran a hand over Whisper, checking to make sure that she wasn’t too warm.
“Agreed.”
Carina and I were walking on opposite sides of Whisper, each of us holding a rein. During our walk, Carina had stayed mostly quiet, but offered up a few anecdotes of moments during her trip from Sweden to the US when she’d gotten lost or confused. They had been funny enough to keep my mind off my lesson. With each story, my mind had slowly refocused, and I’d shaken off the post-lesson haze that had clouded my vision.
I tugged on Whisper’s rein, halting her.
Carina peered at me in front of Whisper.
“You okay?” she asked. Bits of her blond hair had escaped her long ponytail and hung around her ears and cheeks.
“Thanks to you,” I said. “Carina, what you and Lex did for me—I can’t thank you enough. I really let Mr. Conner get to me, and a problem that I’m dealing with sort of hit me when the lesson started. Really bad timing.”
Carina gave me a sympathetic smile. “Oh, please. No thanks necessary. I’ve been so wanting to hang out with you more. We see each other here and there but rarely get a chance to hang out like this. I told Lex I’d owe her one if she cooled and groomed Rocco for me. But you know Lex—she’ll never cash that in.”
“She definitely won’t,” I said. “Lexa’s awesome like that.” I smiled at Carina. “But really, you’ve done more than enough. You should go—I can handle getting Whisper groomed and back in her stall. No arguments, either—I’m taking you to The Sweet Shoppe soon, my treat.”
Carina grinned, her pink lips shiny with gloss. “Well, I guess I won’t talk you out of The Sweet Shoppe. If it’s okay, though, I’d like to hang with you while you finish up with Whisper. There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”
“Of course I don’t mind,” I said. “You sit and relax, though. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Carina walked over to join me on Whisper’s left side, and I led my horse down the aisle. Carina and I waved at Lexa, who was chatting to Rocco as she groomed the gelding. Lex grinned at us and waved back, body brush in hand.
When we reached Whisper’s stall, a clean Honor was munching hay from her hay net. “Cool with you if I groom Whisper inside her stall?” I asked Carina. Something told me she would appreciate the privacy of the stall walls when talking to me.
“Perfect,” Carina said.
I led Whisper inside and changed her bridle for her halter. Carina got Whisper’s tack box and set it in front of her stall.
I tied Whisper to the iron bars at the front of her stall and dug around in my box for the hoof pick.
“So, what’s up?” I asked.
“Well, this is kind of something I wanted to tell you, Lexa, Cole, and the rest of my friends and teammates at once,” Carina said. She leaned her back against Whisper’s stall wall. “But timing hasn’t worked out and I’ve got the opportunity to talk to you, so I want to take it.”
“I’m honored that you want to share something with me,” I said. “I feel like you and I have become friends faster than I thought was possible in the limited amount of time we’ve hung out.”
“I feel the same,” Carina said. She released her hair from its ponytail. “That’s why I’m kind of afraid to talk to you more than anyone.”
I bent over, picking Whisper’s right hoof. I just knew Carina was going to tell me about her background. Unless she was going to blindside me with something totally new. But my gut said otherwise.
“Please don’t be scared,” I said. I scraped arena dirt from Whisper’s hoof. “We’re friends. You can talk to me.”
I finished the hoof, stood, and looked at Carina. She looked nervous for the first time since we’d met. Her hands were shoved deep into the pocket of her down coat, she was shifting from boot to boot, and she played with the ends of her hair. Her ice-blue eyes were wide.
She took a big breath. “I want you to know who I am. T
he real Carina Johansson. When I found out I’d been accepted to Canterwood, I’d decided to keep my past from home to myself. I wanted you and the rest of the team to judge me on who I was here, not what I’d done at home.”
I nodded.
“That was until I made friends. Plus, I just found out that if I want, I can apply to extend my stay at Canterwood.”
“Oh, mon Dieu!” I exclaimed. “Carina! That’s awesome! I know you’re homesick, but you have to stay! Are you? Do you want to?”
Carina grinned. “I want to. I miss my family and my horses like crazy, and I don’t know how I’m going to deal over Christmas, but I want to stay here. I love it so much.”
“Yay!” I stepped forward, hugging her. Whisper, never one to miss a hug, nosed each of us with her muzzle.
We laughed, and I went back to Whisper’s hind leg.
“That’s not the news, but it’s exciting,” Carina said. “At home, in Sweden, I grew up on a horse farm. My parents met each other at a horse auction, and when they got married, they each combined their tiny start-up farms. It took years, but we’ve become a well-established stable in Sweden. Riders come from all over the country to buy our Swedish Warmbloods, and we have a great trainer on staff—my trainer Aksel.”
“Wow,” I said, pretending it was the first time I’d heard about any of this. Carina had opened up to me on her own time, and I didn’t want to make her feel bad.
“I’ve been competing in Sweden and Europe since I was a kid,” she added. “I guess I have a good amount of experience.” She paused, her fair face turning a little pink.
“What’s a ‘good amount’?” I asked. I picked Whisper’s hoof and turned back to face Carina. I hoped if I prompted her with questions that it would make things easier on her.
“Um, well, right now, I’m currently the title holder of the Juniors’ All Around Qualifier,” Carina said. “It’s nothing huge, but it’s kind of important in my hometown.”
“Wow,” I said. “It doesn’t sound small, Carina. That’s so cool! I knew after watching you during all of our lessons that you were good. This isn’t a surprise to me at all.”
Carina smiled, looking down at her boots. “Thanks, Lauren. I didn’t want you or anyone else to think I was hiding my riding experience. At the same time, I didn’t want you to think I was telling you to brag about it. That’s not my style. I hope you know that.”
I rested a hand on Whisper’s hindquarters. “I do know that. You’re telling me about yourself, C, not bragging. I want to know more about you. This title—those shows—that’s you. Our friends will be just as excited as I am to learn about it—promise.”
Carina’s eyes quickly met mine. “Really? You think?”
“I know,” I said. “Trust me. I’ve kind of got some experience in that department.”
Carina raised an eyebrow. “Care to share?”
“If you can handle a sort of long story,” I said, smiling.
“Hit me with it,” Carina said.
As I groomed Whisper, I launched into my own coming-to-Canterwood story. The more I talked, the closer I felt to Carina and the stronger our friendship grew. Maybe the bad lesson had been a blessing in disguise.
HOT CHOCOLATE CURES EVERYTHING
“MMM. THANKS,” I SAID, SMILING at Drew. I had taken my first sip of the hot chocolate he’d gotten for me at The Sweet Shoppe. We’d walked over after Polo and Whisper had been tucked into their stalls for the evening.
“It’s good,” Drew agreed. He sipped his own cocoa. We had chosen a private table for two in the back of the Shoppe.
“I’m glad we came here. The smells and atmosphere always put me in a good mood,” I said. I nodded toward my drink. “I definitely owe Carina one of those.”
“She stayed with you until Whisper was cooled and groomed, right?” Drew asked.
Despite everything that had happened in class and what I was about to tell him, I couldn’t help but notice how cute he looked. His black hair was a little tousled, and he wore a clover-green kangaroo-pocket hoodie that made his pale skin stand out.
“Carina helped with everything,” I said. “Including talking me out of my bad mood after that lesson. She confided some info about herself with me, and it’s something she’s looking forward to sharing with you and the rest of our team.”
“Can’t wait to hear it,” Drew said.
“I’m trying to tell myself that the bad lesson was worth it since Carina talked to me. But I wish I could permanently erase it from my brain.”
“Everyone has a lesson like that. It happens. You’ll wow Mr. Conner next time, and he’ll forget all about it.”
I smiled at Drew for trying to make me feel better. “I hope so.” I took another sip of hot chocolate. “Enough about that lesson. Ugh. I’m glad you were able to meet me after riding so we could talk.”
Drew’s eyes settled on me. “Of course I’d meet you to talk. I’m guessing from the way you’ve acted today, it’s something pretty bad.”
“Bad to really, really bad.”
Drew scooted his chair a little closer to mine. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” I sighed. “Over the weekend, Clare told me that something was up with Brielle.”
“They’re roommates, right?” Drew asked.
I nodded. “Clare couldn’t tell me what exactly was going on because she didn’t have proof of anything. She didn’t hear Brielle on the phone or see an e-mail or anything that pointed to what was going on.”
Drew was quiet, watching me. A couple of older students came into the Shoppe and stood at the counter. I crossed my fingers that no one from our grade would have a sweet tooth attack while Drew and I were here.
“I totally blew Clare off,” I said. “She had no concrete proof, and I thought that since Bri was my best friend, if something was wrong, I’d see it before anyone else. But Clare wouldn’t stop talking about it. Then she told Khloe, and you know how Khloe is about stuff like that. By yesterday morning, I knew I had to just ask Brielle if everything was cool so I could make Clare and Khlo see that I was right.”
I took a long sip, and when I put down my cup, Drew’s hand enclosed mine. Something about that sweet gesture gave me the courage to keep talking and get through this story for a final time.
“I met Brielle after riding. I’d planned to meet you after we talked. I told Bri that I was meeting her for a silly reason and asked if anything was wrong. Turns out, she was hiding something from me and it had started to get to her.”
“Oh, Laur.” Drew’s mouth turned down.
“Last summer and part of the fall, Brielle was dating someone. Ana knew and didn’t tell me, and neither did Brielle.”
Drew sat back in his chair a little.
“Brielle and the guy only stopped dating when he transferred schools.”
I watched Drew, waiting for him to catch on. His expression was turning stony.
“He transferred to Canterwood.”
Drew’s jaw clenched so tight that I saw the muscles move in his face and chin.
“Then she transferred to Canterwood.”
Drew’s hands, resting on top of the table, balled into fists.
“And neither of them bothered to tell me about this incident. I found out when I questioned Brielle, not expecting to hear anything and only with the intent to silence Clare.”
A string of inaudible words escaped from Drew’s lips. His cheeks turned scarlet, and he gripped the edge of the table with his hands, his fingertips turning white.
“Lauren. I don’t know what to say.” Drew’s voice was deep and anger-filled.
“You don’t have to say anything,” I said. “Except that you, hopefully, don’t want to break up with me because of yet another Taylor problem.”
I swallowed, staring at him and awaiting his response.
“Oh, gosh, Lauren, no. Never!” Anger disappeared from his face and concern replaced it. He reached out a hand and I put mine in his.
“I was scared t
o tell you,” I said. “I know how much it’s put a strain on you to have Taylor here. It’s not a normal situation. Plus, now you’re both cocaptains on the swim team. You can’t avoid him all the time. I’m so sorry.”
Drew squeezed my hand. “Don’t you ever apologize to me for this. You did nothing wrong. I’m glad you came to me and told me what happened. I’m not going to break up with you because of something someone else did. I can handle Taylor.”
A breath that I’d been holding since I’d found out released. “I can’t tell you how much better that makes me feel. I didn’t want to lose you over this. I already talked to both of them, and I haven’t spoken to them since.”
“What do you want to happen next?” Drew asked. His cheeks slowly returned to their normal color. That gave me relief too. I didn’t want him angry enough to get into a fight with Taylor or do anything that could get him into trouble.
I sighed. “I’m not sure. Right now, I can’t imagine ever being friends with Brielle or Taylor again. Ana . . . I don’t know. She was put in a bad spot. But Khloe and I talked a lot about this, and I don’t want to make rash decisions that are emotion fueled. I need to take a step back from the whole thing for a while, stay away from Bri and Taylor, and see how it goes.”
“That’s one of the reasons why I like you so much,” Drew said.
I smiled. “What do you mean?”
“You have every right to make Brielle’s and Taylor’s lives miserable here,” Drew said. “But that’s not you. You’re bigger than that. You also don’t write people off for one mistake.”
“Well, like I said, I really don’t see us ever being friends right now,” I said. “But things change. I’m just going to focus on school, riding, and my friends.” I grinned. “Oh, and you.”
Drew smiled back, making me feel warm inside. “That is definitely the right decision.”
DREW VS. TAYLOR
“I HATE THIS WEATHER,” KHLOE grumbled. She pulled her coat collar higher up around her neck. “If it’s going to be this cold, at least make it worth it and snow!”
“Exactly what I said a few days ago,” I said, hurrying up the sidewalk toward the English building. “This is brutal.”
Famous Page 8
