Head Above Water

by Caitlin Ricci

I blushed and hugged him tightly. He was right. I could give therapy another chance. We headed back to the house where Trent was sitting at the island with Uncle Caleb and Ben. I wondered what he was doing there, since normally he was at work by now. But instead they were all just standing there as if they were waiting for Sam and me.

  “What’s going on? Is it something to do with Dan? Is he getting out of jail and coming for us?” I asked them. Ben looked quickly between us as if he was suddenly worried about that too.

  Sam took my hand, giving me his strength, which I needed so ridiculously much right then.

  Uncle Caleb looked shocked. And Trent quickly shook his head. “No. Kid, we were going to ask you guys how you felt about me moving in. I’m here all the time anyway, but if you’re not ready for Caleb and me to live together, then we won’t move on to that step of our relationship yet.”

  Ben was the first to react. I was still freaking out over the possibility of Dan coming back and trying to take my little brother away from me. “That’s it? I’m cool with you moving in.” He went to watch TV in the living room.

  “Robbie?” Uncle Caleb asked. He was still looking worried.

  I swallowed some of my fear and gave Sam’s hand a squeeze. He was pretty much moved in already. He spent nearly every night here and just had his stuff in his townhouse. “Yeah. It’s fine. Totally good. Holy shit, that was scary.” Sam gave me a hug and I clung to him. If his mom had been there she would have told me not to cuss, but Uncle Caleb and Trent didn’t care if we did it, as long as we didn’t do it a lot. I held on to Sam for a long time, and for once no one was clearing their throats to get us to separate.

  “You’re safe,” he told me.

  I nodded against his shoulder.

  “He’s not coming back here.”

  I knew that too, but I had still been so afraid.

  “Trent has a big gun to shoot him if he does try to do anything to you like he used to do.”

  That made me smile. “Thanks for saying that. Is it bad that I want him dead sometimes?”

  Sam kissed my cheek. “If it is, then I’m bad too, because I’d like to see him wiped from the planet. And not just sometimes. All the time.”

  “That’s a perfectly normal thing to want, as long as it doesn’t go beyond that,” Trent told us sternly.

  “Yes, no fantasizing about murdering people,” Uncle Caleb added. I hadn’t been, but I couldn’t have said the same thing about Sam. I was pretty sure he’d do anything to protect me. And the truth was that I would do the same for him. Sam telling me no one was going to hurt me again was the truth because he’d make sure of it, and I believed he’d keep me safe with everything he had.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sam

  ONE THING I loved about Robbie was how he still wore the rainbow bracelet I’d given him on his birthday. It was fraying now, because he wore it all the time. I was pretty sure he never even took it off. He touched it a lot too.

  For our one-year anniversary, I wasn’t sure what to get him. He didn’t wear jewelry except for the bracelet. And he had a ton of T-shirts with horses on them, which was my second choice. He didn’t need any more tack for Witchcraft, and Caleb had all the latest movies and video games for us all to enjoy already. I had absolutely no idea about it, and it was officially our anniversary, and I had yet to even say happy anniversary to him.

  To be fair he hadn’t said it to me either, but I had wanted to do something for our anniversary. As we lay together in his bed that night with his head on my chest, I said it. “Happy one-year anniversary,” I whispered.

  Robbie laughed quietly. “I was wondering when you were going to say it. Happy anniversary, Sam.”

  He leaned up and kissed me as he settled his weight over my chest and legs. I wrapped my arms around him. “I had no idea what to get you. I tried to come up with something, but I was completely stuck and that sucked. I’m sorry. I’ll take you to the movies tomorrow. And ice cream too.”

  “I wasn’t able to come up with anything either. Well, I did think of something, but we were going to talk about that first.”

  Even in just the light from the moon outside of his window I could see him blushing. He was just that pale, and every one of his freckles popped in that white light.

  “Robbie….” I had no idea what to say, but I instantly knew what he was getting at.

  He nodded. “I know. We’ll talk about it sometime. It doesn’t have to be tonight.”

  “No… no…. If you’re ready.” Was he? Holy shit. If he wasn’t, I was totally fine waiting some more. We’d been good. There was no reason to risk messing us up now. I loved him and I’d been waiting, and I could definitely keep waiting until he knew he was ready. I was okay with that. I wouldn’t be upset with him for all the world.

  But even while I’d been thinking that, he’d managed to get his pants off. I was shaking as I took mine off too. Then our shirts were easy, and we were naked together. This wasn’t new, though. We’d done stuff before, but for some reason I couldn’t remember how to be relaxed around him when we were like this. I wasn’t a virgin, though for Robbie I really wished I’d waited because what we had was so much more important to me than what I’d had with Max. I shouldn’t have been freaking out as much as I was.

  “You okay?” he asked me as we lay together with our arms around each other.

  I nodded. “Yeah. Just surprised.”

  “But isn’t this what you and Max did on your anniversary?”

  He wanted to bring up my ex-boyfriend? Now? He had crappy timing with that one for sure. I sighed and tried not to act upset. But that was hard to do because this was another big difference between Robbie and Max. “He didn’t really do anniversaries. When we started going out, I was really stupid, which was probably the problem actually. I was all excited about having my first boyfriend that I wanted to celebrate the first week, then our one-month anniversary, then by six months I got the picture and realized he wasn’t into celebrating them at all. So when our one-year anniversary came around, I didn’t say anything, and he didn’t either.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s mean of him. And I liked all those milestones for us. Every single one. Is that why you waited until late tonight to say it?”

  “Yeah. I guess I didn’t want you to get mad at me.” And I didn’t want Robbie to think I was stupid and childish. But now I felt pretty stupid saying that, because of course Robbie wasn’t Max, and I couldn’t expect him to act the same way Max had.

  “It’s okay. I get it. Because even though I know I’m not Daniel I try hard to catch myself when I’m starting to get mad so that I don’t end up getting too angry. I’m scared that I’ll snap and just go off and hurt one of you someday. I won’t mean to, but it could happen. It was way too easy to get into that last fistfight with Daniel, and I’d tried to hurt him.”

  I rubbed his back, and he cuddled up against me. It was impossible to ignore just how naked we were together, but I was trying not to think about it. “You’re nothing like your brother, though. And you’re not Max either. I’m sorry.” I couldn’t believe I’d expected him to act like Max. Again. The only thing Robbie and Max had in common was that I had cared about them both. But it was Robbie I loved and who I saw my future with.

  “You promise that I’m nothing like Daniel?”

  “Absolutely.” I couldn’t even believe he’d gone and thought that to begin with. “You’re kind and good. You care about other people, and Daniel was a total prick. Don’t argue. You know he was too.”

  Robbie laughed, and then covered his mouth quickly with his hands to muffle the last of the sounds. “Okay. Enough about them and their crap. Can we do this?”

  I really, really wanted to. But I didn’t want to be a jerk to him either. “We can wait. Neither one of us is going anywhere.”

  He looked absolutely miserable for some reason. “You don’t want to anymore. I made you wait too long and now you’ve lost interest.”

  “No!” I hadn’t
meant to, but somehow I got him flipped over so I was lying on top of him, and he looked shocked under me. “Sorry!” I wasn’t even sure how I’d managed to do that. “Sorry. I’ll just go get off you now.” I tried to move, but he put his hand on my shoulder to stop me. So I froze.

  “It’s okay. I’m okay. We’re okay. It’s all okay.”

  He sounded like he was losing his mind. “That was a lot of okays.”

  Robbie nodded quickly. “You didn’t lose interest in having sex with me?”

  I shook my head. “Never.”

  “So… in that case…. There’s stuff in the wooden box on my nightstand. The one with the horse on it.” He chuckled. “Not that everything I own doesn’t have a horse on it.”

  Robbie was quiet as I took out the box of condoms and the little bottle of lube we’d gotten at the grocery store. My hands were shaking as I opened the paper box and pulled one shiny package out. Robbie covered my hands with his. And he was shaking too.

  “It’ll be okay,” he whispered, his voice breaking.

  I leaned down and kissed his hands. Of course it would be. Because when we were together everything was always great. Even when we argued, we were still wonderful together. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Sam.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Robbie

  WHEN WE came down for breakfast the next morning I was sure everyone would know what we had done the night before. But Ben, Uncle Caleb, Trent, and even Sam’s parents were completely normal. There were no sly winks or dirty looks. We had french toast, because it was Saturday, and we ate quickly. Then Sam and I were off to the barn to take care of the horses.

  I loved that we were off school, but Sam’s mom had only given us two weeks off, and we were halfway through our break already. I didn’t want to go back to school after the break either. I felt like I knew everything and was ready to be done. But we were about to start life lessons like budgeting our money and stuff, though I didn’t want to.

  Sam’s mom was awesome when she wasn’t being terrifying and warning me about making her son upset, which I was trying not to do, ever. But sometimes I made mistakes. Not that many anymore, though. I liked that I was getting better about that. But she was still scary sometimes.

  “Do you think they knew?” Sam asked as we started taking care of the horses.

  It was nice to know I wasn’t the only one who was feeling a bit paranoid about getting caught having sex. “Naw. I think we’re in the clear.” We’d been careful and as quiet as we could have possibly been.

  Sam grinned over at me. “You okay after last night? Not regretting it at all? What we did, I mean?”

  I leaned over the wheelbarrow we were putting the soiled hay into to kiss him. “I’m definitely okay. Thanks for letting me wait until I was ready.”

  He gave me a quick nod. “I would have never wanted to rush you. I love you.”

  “I know. And I love you too.”

  We kept cleaning up the barn until Sam asked, “Are you going to call Joe today?”

  I wasn’t totally sure. I’d been trying to call him, once a month and that was normally on the last Saturday of the month. He was cool. He ran a horse rescue. He was a big part of the reason I had Witchcraft in my life. But talking to him sometimes was weird, because I’d only just found out about him, and so much of the time I didn’t know what to say to him. I wish I’d grown up knowing him, but then I wouldn’t have had my brothers, even Daniel, and my horse and my new family. Also I wouldn’t have met Sam, and I wouldn’t change that for the world.

  “Do you think he’s expecting a call?” I asked.

  He shrugged, and we finished cleaning out the last of the stalls. “Maybe. I mean, you’ve been calling him pretty regularly for a few months now. He might be sad if you suddenly didn’t.”

  Sam was right. Like he usually was. I nodded. “After we go for a ride, though. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  We were ready to go a half hour later. I’d tacked Witchcraft up in all her gear, from her saddle to her breast collar to her gentle snaffle bit that she had easily accepted from me. Sam had Magic in a halter and two lead ropes that worked as his reins. I had no idea how he was able to ride like that. Maybe because he didn’t care how he looked while he was riding. He didn’t worry about where his heels were or if his spine was straight or how deep he was sitting in the saddle. All the things I’d grown up having repeated to me like the ABC’s, he completely ignored them, because he was just having fun. I had no idea what it would have been like to be able to ride without that litany of reminders about my riding form running through my mind every single second I was on my horse.

  Instead of going through the woods or hanging out in one of the pastures, or even in the arena, we headed out to the road. “I want to give Magic some more experience around cars,” Sam explained to me.

  I shrugged. It was a good idea. Witchcraft had her head up, and she was alert as we walked in the dirt along the side of the road. She was a good girl, and though I could feel her shudder a few times in her nervousness, especially when some motorcycles zoomed past us at speeds that would have had Trent pulling them over and giving them massive fines.

  We stopped at the first driveway on the left because the equestrian facility I’d been showing at ever since moving to Thornwood was suddenly for sale, apparently. “Huh.” I pulled Witchcraft to a stop in the driveway, and Sam came up behind me on Magic.

  “That’s weird,” he said.

  “Yeah, it is.” We were only allowed on the property when there was a show going on, but I was curious enough to ignore that rule as I brought Witchcraft back into a slow walk. We headed down the paved driveway and past white vinyl fencing.

  The owner, Steve—a man I’d only seen a few times—came out to meet us before we got too far onto the property. “You two boys know this is private property, right?”

  I nodded. “Sure. I’ve been here before. You’re selling?”

  Steve came within ten feet of us, and Magic dropped his head to start munching on some grass along the side of the driveway. He had really bad manners, but Sam didn’t seem to care at all. He was actually rubbing Magic’s neck and telling him what a good boy he was. I smiled at him and then went back to talking to Steve.

  “I am.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Because I can’t afford it. You two want it? Nine hundred thousand and it’s yours.”

  He was joking with us, but it got me thinking. “In a few years I would have loved to take you up on that, if I had the money.”

  Steve laughed at me. “And what would you know about running an equestrian center?”

  There were a few things I really hated. On the top of that list was anyone being mean to my family, including Sam and his. But right below that was how much I really didn’t like when people treated me like I was just some stupid kid.

  “I’m pretty sure we could figure it out,” Sam said, now paying attention and no longer letting Magic eat while he was supposed to be out on a ride. “We could have a horse rescue and host clinics and seminars here about training and rehabilitating horses.”

  The scariest part of that wasn’t how much work Sam’s idea would be or how much money it would take to make it happen, especially since neither one of us had jobs of any kind and we definitely couldn’t afford a $900,000 place like this. No, the scariest part of it all was I could instantly see us sitting there on Steve’s wraparound front porch, drinking sweet tea and watching the horses we rescued graze in the pastures. I smiled at Sam, and he winked like he knew I loved his idea.

  Steve laughed, which really annoyed me. “You two probably have no concept of how much it costs to take care of one horse, let alone a whole stable of them. I know who you are. You live at Caleb’s place, and I’ve heard that he’s rich enough just to throw money around like crazy.”

  Okay, that was it. It was probably a good thing I’d never spent much time with Steve, because I likely would have
stopped showing well before now. I knew now that he was selling his place, I wouldn’t be showing anymore anyway. And the funny thing was that I was completely fine with that. But I wasn’t okay at all with how he was talking to Sam and also about my uncle.

  “This is Witchcraft. She was a rescue horse, and that’s Magic, who was also rescued. She gets her feet trimmed monthly, which is forty-five. Her grain is thirty a month. Her saddle was four hundred and seventy-five, because I can show in it. For the rescue I’d probably get a couple of all-purpose saddles that can be used between the horses. Her saddle pad, breast collar, headstall, reins, and bit were another two hundred. Her grooming supplies were about fifty total. Those costs are all one-time things, though, unless something breaks. Now, I may not know how much my uncle pays in electricity and water, but I know that the alfalfa-hay mix we feed them is eight dollars a bale, and we spend about seventy in hay per month in the summer, and about two hundred a month in the winter when they can’t graze as much because the winter grass isn’t as good for them.”

  I took a deep breath and was about to continue, but then Sam jumped in for me. “Then you have to add in the cost of a vehicle that we can use to trailer the horses, a trailer, and the maintenance for both and the gas for getting the horses around when we rescue them or adopt them out. Plus you also have vet costs that are routine and also when they get sick. A few months back we had a horse colic and go down. He didn’t make it and I saw that bill. It was expensive, but that’s the cost of owning horses. Just because Caleb has money doesn’t mean he throws it around, or is stupid about it in any way.”

  I nodded along with Sam. “Come on, I think we’re done here.” I started to turn Witchcraft around but Steve stopped us.

  “Kids, I’m sorry. I was a bit mean to you, and I misjudged you. For the last ten years I’ve been here and I’ve been doing shows, and these kids, they have no concept of owning a horse. They just got on them and their parents foot the bill for everything.”