out of sync

4.

It was a little hard to believe. But if my experience with Mia and Elliot was any example, their family didn't mess about when it came to going after what they wanted.

"How did she get into a veterinary course?" I pressed, and she clicked her tongue against her teeth, scowling.

"She's not on a course right now," she clarified incredulously. "She's the same age as us. It's just always been certain that will be her course at university, after we finish A levels."

I kept my mouth shut and took a sheepish step back. She was gathering her things from her locker, getting ready to leave, and I could feel my chances at getting any more information out of her fading into nothing.

"Is she coming back? To the stables?" I forced myself to ask, clinging onto the hope that I might eventually meet her. If I wanted any help from her, I'd also have to hope that she was easier to converse with than the family member in front of me.

"I don't know," Mia answered flippantly. "This is the first time I got her to come anywhere near close in over a week. Might as well stop trying if she's not going to appreciate it."

She turned on her heel and left without any other form of goodbye, not that I expected as much from her.

Still, I had to take a moment to untangle my thoughts in the quiet of the empty tack room before I could finish preparing the stables for the night. I pushed the door open and the cool air of the early summer evenings sped me on as I completed the last of my work.

I didn't need to know more. I've been keeping my head down, working at the stables, getting by in school, helping dad around the house, taking care of Elvis and, more recently, the moor pony. The routines I'd settled into were working, and I had no reason to pull them apart by entertaining some fantasy plan to go to veterinary school. The pony had been doing okay, so far; maybe I could get him to heal enough to go back onto the moors without medicine or another opinion.

I fell back on my usual justifications—the most important thing was for me to continue working so that Dad and I wouldn't have any trouble, so I had to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

My chores occupied me for another half hour and then I headed home. Even throughout dinner with Dad, I was fine carrying out our usual conversation to catch up on our respective days. I kept myself in order up until the moment I got into bed.

I was used to the quiet. Especially in my room, only the faint sound of the sea outside breaking up the seasonal chorus of bugs chirping in the fields below. That night, it felt like every element had gone silent just so that my mind could roar louder. Eventually, I let it take over; the possibilities of a different, much less certain future playing out before me in a dozen different scenarios before I finally lost them in sleep.

——

A couple of days later, I overheard Becky asking Mia for someone called Melody's number.

"Excuse me?" Mia griped, seemingly startled by the question.

"It's just- I forgot to ask her and I told her I would let her know if something happened and-" Becky blurted, the sentence sounding like one long word. "-she said she was your cousin, sorry, I must have got it wrong."

I stood back against the wall of the stable that I was in as I heard Becky begin to shuffle away, but she turned back around when Mia finally relented an answer.

I waited a few minutes before going to search for Becky and found her in Bob's stable tacking him up for a ride. I approached slowly, not even certain what my intention was or how to introduce the question that I had in mind. She startled me when she called out well before I thought I'd be in her line of sight.

"If you're looking for someone to help with the mucking out, you've come to the wrong girl." She glanced at me briefly before continuing, "I have a lesson in a few minutes and I just did my turn yesterday."

"Uh, no actually, I wasn't going to ask about that," I managed to reply. I approached Bob to give him a pat as I tried to put together the right words.

"Look, I know Bob is marvelous, but you can have some time with him later-" she began, but was interrupted when the horse shimmied wildly in order to keep her from buckling his girth. I reached out to catch the piece of tack as it swung under Bob's belly, attempting to steady him with my other hand. Once we got him under control and she successfully finished attaching his saddle, I took a breath and looked at her from over his neck.

"How did you meet Mia's cousin?" I wondered, hoping it didn't seem intrusive. Her eyes brightened and her movements became quicker as she perked up.

"You know Melody, too? I met her at the café, she's come in the last three days in a row while I was working, and today I finally got to talk to her besides just taking her order," she relayed the information quickly.

Of course she'd been at the café, one of the few places that I almost never visit in order to avoid sideways glances from the groups of other kids that gathered there. I used to frequent the cozy shop when I was younger, spending hours at the tables to draw, read, people watch, and occasionally complete homework. Once secondary school began, my classmates made it the spot to meet for after school gossip and flirting; it looked strange for me to be there on my own, watching as they socialized, and they'd only had to point that out to me twice before I stopped going altogether.

"-and she's really cool to talk to, that's why I was so surprised when she told me she's related to Mia," Becky was saying as I zoned back into the conversation I'd started. I felt a jolt of dread pass through my body as realized I had missed most of what she'd said as she rambled on in front of me.

"I'm sorry, I got distracted-" I started, only to be cut off by Dad calling for me out in the yard. When I looked back at Becky, she had strapped on her riding hat and offered a small smile as she led Bob out of the stable.

"No worries, maybe we can all hang out soon!" she offered as she walked away.

The invitation may have been comforting to me, if I'd actually ever met the girl. Becky's enthusiasm was somewhat reassuring; she shrank in Mia's presence, but seemed to light up at just my mentioning of her cousin.

Melody, I reminded myself. Her name is Melody.

I rolled my shoulders and headed towards the direction I'd heard Dad shout from. Work would bring me back, stop any daydreaming before it could start. I didn't need to know more—

but I wanted to.