The Mysterious Ryder

The Stranger at the Lake

I was wrong. Even with Hermes at my side, it was awful. Most nights my mother was so drunk and screaming at me that I had to slip out to the barn. When I would come back the next morning, she would be passed out on the floor somewhere. Once she was passed out in the bathtub, still fully clothed.

I'll admit that that scared me.

I called Oliver at least three times a day. I told him I hated it, and wanted to come home, but he insisted that this would work. I would just roll my eyes, sigh, and tell him, "Fine." And then he came back with food.

I guess he hadn't realized just how much of an alcoholic our mother had become. He looked at all the bottles littering the house - as neat as I was, I wanted him to see the bottles - and frowned. He asked if they were mine.

"Oliver!" I shouted. "Of course they're not mine! She has downed every one of those by herself in the past four days. That's sickening."

"Sorry," he said, raising his hands with the bags in them and showing off his muscles. "Bad joke. Seriously, though, where did she get them all? I checked her bag myself before I left. Has anyone come to the house?"

"Well...to be honest...I'm really not around much during the day...I go riding."

"All day?" He set the bags on the counter. "Shane, the point of this is to spend time with each other and work through your differences. You can't do that if you're not home."

"It's kind of hard to talk to her when she's as drunk as a pirate," I mumbled.

He started unloading the bags. I joined him. "Where is Mom, anyway?"

"Passed out on the stairs," I replied, putting the milk in the fridge. I pulled out three boxes of Kraft macaroni 'n' cheese and did a little happy dance; my brother knew that was my weakness. "She should come to any minute now."

As if on cue we heard her groaning from the stairway. She stumbled into the kitchen demanding breakfast before noticing that Oliver was here. She instantly turned sweet and asked him if he wanted to stay for breakfast. Her words were still slurring a bit.

"I think it's probably best if I do," he said frowning. "We need to have a little talk."

I made pancakes with the mix that he brought. He knew that chocolate chip were still my favorite, so he held out a package to me. I gave him a wet kiss on the cheek and smiled gratefully. My brother truly was the greatest; he got started on the coffee for sobering up Mom. She was passed out on the table.

To wake her up, when breakfast was ready I set the plate down hard on the table. Her head shot up and I could tell by the look on her face that her ears were ringing. She went to cuss me out, but Oliver stepped out of the kitchen with the coffee pot. She held up her cup gratefully.

"Thank you, Oliver," she said cheerily. The phony sweetness in her voice almost made me lose my appetite. Almost - it was still chocolate chip pancakes. "Did you get Bailey's creamer for me?"

"No, Ma, I didn't. We need to talk about that. Where are you getting all this alcohol?"

She turned up her nose at him, barely, but still enough to be angled. "That is none of your business."

"Actually," he replied through clenched teeth, "it is. I need to know where you have it."

She narrowed her eyes at me, as if blaming me for telling him. Right, because the litter of bottles and her being passed out wasn't a dead giveaway. "Your father and I had a wine cellar in the basement. We used to stay up late at night getting drunk."

Oliver frowned. "Wine cellar? You never seemed drunk in the morning."

"Guess she just can't hold her liquor like she used to," I said, shoving half a pancake in my mouth.

"That is disgusting, " she seethed, violently slapping my hand to pull it out. Her plan didn't work, so my fork bounced back and stabbed my tongue. "Cut your food before you eat it!"

I swallowed the pancake and stuck my tongue out. It was bleeding. I gave her a nasty look and got up for a paper towel. Oliver was saying something to her in a scolding manner, but I didn't listen. The pain on my tongue was weird, almost tingly. When the bleeding subsided, I looked at it. It was ripped up grossly. That fork did more damage than you would expect.

"I'm going for a ride," I said, but I was airing out my tongue so it came out muffled. "Later."

Oliver stood up to try and stop me, but he still had to deal with Mom and her secret wine cellar. Honestly, I was surprised she hadn't had a man up here already with booze. She loved having men around to light a fire under me. I hated seeing her with other men and she knew it; sometimes she made sure that I saw her with them, scarring me for life. I had at least seven such incidents. Yeah, it wasn't pretty. I was preparing myself for the day I came back to the cabin and heard them. I had an emergency bag packed for an easy get away.

But now I was free from her. When I rode Hermes, I was able to let it all go and enjoy the wind in my hair. Some days I rode to the lake, some I rode into town, and others I just rode. Usually my days to the lake were planned, since I needed a bathing suit, but that day I felt the insatiable urge to go swimming. I prodded Hermes on and we raced to the lake. No one was there, so I figured I'd let my clothes stay dry while I took a dip. I laid my pants and shirt over Hermes' back while I swam around. There was still an old rope swing that Oliver and I had put up all those years ago.

Swinging on it so many times gave me rope burn. The water was so cool and clean that I didn't even realize the bleeding; when I did I saw it on the rope. I stared at my hands and ran for my clothes, quickly throwing them on. I hoisted myself onto Hermes' back, gritting my teeth as my hands came into contact with his saddle.

"You're going to hurt yourself," a voice from the surrounding shrubbery stated. I whirled around in my seat to find the owner, but I forgot that I was holding the reins; instinctively they had gripped it out of fear, so my hands burned as I turned. When I made a small hissing noise, I heard the voice again. "Told you."

"Thank you, stranger who scared me so he could be right."

"It would have happened eventually anyway." His voice was so dull, so bored. There was no feeling, no sympathy. It annoyed me immensely.

"Well thanks for your concern," I spat. I very quickly thought of how probable it was that he saw me in only my underwear; I kicked Hermes into high gear and got away from him. When I got back, I started calling to Oliver to tell him the story, but he was already gone. Mom answered instead.

"You throwin' yourself at strangers?" she slurred. I groaned, wondering why she was already so drunk this early. Usually she had the moral decency to wait until noon; I looked at the clock; I was gone longer than I thought. It was already two o'clock. I had always been terrible at reading the sun.

"Wait, didn't Ollie take all your booze?" I asked, taking the half drunk bottle from her hands. She snatched it back and growled, just as a man walked out in a bathrobe.

"Yes, Oliver took all of the booze from the cellar, but this delicious gentleman-" I almost barfed as she let him kiss her. "-brought some over for me. Isn't that sweet?"

And that's when the screaming started.