Danny & Steve [Completed]

Part 9

Danny sighed, and he said, "Don't hate Mom and Dad. They're doing what they think is right."

Mandy lifted her head, looking at him, her eyes red-rimmed. "How can you forgive them?"

Danny shrugged, choking back the tears he felt coming. "They're my parents."

Mandy swiped her forearm over her eyes and sniffled again. "You've always been the best one of us. I'll be pissed for you."

Danny hugged Mandy again. "Thank you, Mandibles. I need a friend right now."

Mandy told him, "You've always got me, big bro."

Danny smiled through his barely withheld tears. "Back at you, little sis."

The days passed more easily with Mandy on his side. They spent a lot of time in the barn with the horses. He helped mucked stalls just to have some kind of labor to take his mind off of how unhappy he was. He wondered how Steve was doing. He'd tried to fish letters from him out of the trash, but his parents made sure they were shredded first. Danny knew it would look like he simply wasn't responding to Steve's letters. As if, eventually, Steve would get the hint.

Danny didn't want him to. There was no hint to get! After slinging filthy straw from the stall of a Quarter Horse named Trixie, he turned to Mandy and said, "Do you want to do something for me?"

"That depends on what it is," Mandy said.

"If I give you a letter to Steve, will you mail it from the post office after school? Mom and Dad will check if I've been there. I just want to let him know I haven't forgotten him." Mom and Dad were watching Danny's every move, and people in town talked.

Mandy said, "Sure." There was no hesitation in her, and Danny loved her for that.

Danny found himself spending more and more time at the barn. Even though the horses were Mandy's, Danny had never had any problem with them. There was Trixie, the chestnut sweetheart who loved anyone that had a bit of apple on them. Then there was the roan Appaloosa gelding, creatively named Spot. He was a harder sell, but Danny had known the horse for so long they were buds. The third in their stable was Pandora, a black Welsh Morgan with a white sock on a hind leg and a snippet of white on her nose. She was Mandy's horse all the way, and Mandy was small enough she could still ride her.

"Hey, Mandy, let's go for a ride," Danny said one day after they'd mucked the stalls.

Mandy said, "You want to? That's awesome!" Danny had never wanted to go riding with her before. He had always gone on his own.

She got the tack, and Danny went to the paddock. He whistled and all three trotted up to him. He was wise enough to have brought some carrot stubs, and he distributed them evenly amidst scratching behind their ears and patting their necks. When Mandy came out with her saddle for Pandora, Danny went in to get one for Spot. It was like riding a bicycle, one never forgot how to saddle a horse after doing it enough times.

Once the horses were ready to go, Mandy and Danny set off for the trails that wended through the trees along a creek behind their parents' property. Trixie tagged along and neither of the siblings tried to stop her. It was a familiar trail, and it felt good to just take in the grey hazy day, bundled in warm clothing, along a nice and easy path.

"What do you want for Christmas?" Mandy asked.

"My boyfriend," Danny replied.

Mandy smiled sadly. "I dunno if I can deliver, but who knows, right?"

Danny told her, "It's all right." He was quiet a moment, then added, "He's not going to wait forever. Especially if I'm not writing back. It's kind of cruel to leave him hanging. It's not like Mom and Dad are going to let me go back there."

Mandy said, "You could get scholarships."

Danny replied, "Yeah, maybe for next semester."

"You could get a job, too."

Danny nodded. "Sure. It would be rough, but I could make it. Mom and Dad would disown me, but it's not like they're even talking to me anymore."

Mandy said, "They don't know what to say."

"I'm their son, they should be able to think of something."

"Yeah," Mandy said. "It's not enough to love you if they're not going to act like it."

"Exactly," Danny said. Finally, he could voice the thought with someone who agreed. "It's the same thing with Steve. I can't just sit here wishing I was there. I need to get a job, save my money, and apply next semester, and I need to get a letter to him. He needs to know I'm still thinking about him, Man-hands."

Mandy grinned. "Do you ever get tired of making up nicknames for me?"

Danny shook his head. "Never."