Bloodless Day

The Worst Thing

The office was well-lit, with the polite busy aura that accompanied the presence of six women tapping at their laptops, phones cuddling into their chins like kittens, another beeping in the background.
Something about it reminded me of the hospital reception room. Panic welled in my chest even as one of the ladies shoved a schedule at me, resuming her work at the computer. She'd been shoe shopping.
I dashed from the room, inhaling deeply, feeling the sense of frustrated helplessness I'd been stamping down over the year rise up again.
No.
Not here.
My shuddering breath of a diverted panic attack roused me from my nightmare, bringing me back to the school.
This wasn't a hospital. There was no antiseptic scent, the hushed murmur of a worried family, the sudden rush of a heart attack entering the ER.
This was a place of learning. Where people learned, studied for a future.
She'd never had the chance for a future.
I stared at my hand, held it out, drew it back, concentrating.
Eight hours before I could return to my bedroom, eight hours before I could stop suppressing everything.
I could manage.
*****
"Who's funeral is it?"
Someone jostled me as I slouched in my seat, not miserable quite yet but getting there. I glanced up to study the voice's owner and found her studying me back, or, particularly, my dark clothing.
The first word that came to mind was 'coiffed'. I wasn't sure what it meant, but she was it: coiffed blonde hair swept into a white headband, dark, questioning eyes, soft face and a blindingly white tank top that flowed over pale, distressed jeans.
"My best friend's. Who's wedding is it?"
She sat down next to me. "Mine. Though I'm not sure who the lucky groom is yet."
"Or bride."
"If I had a bride, I'd wear the tux."
I liked her. Her name was Lilac, and she didn't offer an apology or a question for a death she didn't know nor care of, something that struck me as different but appreciative.
"We just moved here. From Cali."
Lilac raised her eyebrow. "Bit of a move. We go there a few times a year, particularly at Santa Anita."
"Santa... What now?" The name rang a bell, but I couldn't quite place it.

"Race track- oh, careful, he's not the nicest of teachers."

We fell silent as the teacher entered the class, muttering excuses of a parent teacher conference, but I paid him no heed, instead briefly pondering Lilac and her Santa Anita- now that she'd jogged my memory, I knew that Santa Anita was a famous track in California, which meant that the coiffed girl next to me was a horse person. She didn't remind me of the slouchy trainer I'd had when I'd taken a handful of lessons when I was eight years old, but maybe I hadn't been around horses long enough to recognize horse people instantly. I'd quit lessons before I turned nine.

She'd taken lessons with me. It had been great fun- we'd tried a little bit of everything that summer, from ballet to vocal classes to karate and horseback riding. As the school year approached, Her and my parents confronted us with a choice- pick one extracurricular, or none. So we picked none, and the constant lessons ceased.

Memories from that wonderful summer resurfaced, and I let myself reflect upon them as the teacher droned on. reliving those peaceful days- the popsicle fights, the Barbie dolls, the blissfully lazy days. We'd thought they'd last forever, and even though that summer hadn't lasted, there was always another summer, until there wasn't.

Maybe that was The Worst Thing. The fact that no matter how confident we are of our future, of how we have plans- I'd wanted to be a doctor, She'd planned on being president of the United States and, eventually, the world- and there had been no consideration that either of us would never have the chance to enact on our plans.

I put my head on the desk, exhausted.

*****

Lilac eventually figured out that where I lived was only- only!- two miles down the road from her place, and offered- more like demanded- that I ride home with her. Of course, I'd left my phone on my bed to continue blasting In/Humanity, so I'd had to borrow her phone to ask Mom. She thought it was okay, and that was how I ended up sliding into the dusty green truck that smelled comfortably of hay and uncomfortably of day-old French fries.
Lilac shoved the McDonald's bag out of the way in a flurry of apology.
"No worries," I said, but my mind spun with them, recalling the last time I'd gotten into a car with a friend. With The friend.
But she was not a friend. I'd only just met her. So things wouldn't turn out horrifically.
I could only hope.
Lilac chattered amiably as she pulled out of the parking lot, hitting the car repeatedly as she tugged at the manual. "Stupid. Thing. Won't. Shift!" She exclaimed, exasperated, but like a key clicking in a lock, the car's ride changed and became suddenly smoother on the road.
"That's better. So, why did your parents move here? It's a great deal more different than Cali."
To escape, not the future, but the past. To get away from memories. To fix me.
"Job change." I murmured.
My dad was a writer and my mother ran an educational site. Location mattered not to their professions.
Lilac caught my reluctance and deftly changed the topic, something She never would have done. When She uncovered the possibility of a secret, She'd left no stones unturned until She'd unearthed it.
There were many differences I'd noticed between Her and Lilac, but I sensed that their cores were the same- genuinely friendly, with a darker sense of humor and a daring that was portrayed in every joke, every motion. However, She had been more reserved towards those She didn't know, while Lilac had dove straight in, as though she'd been expecting me and my friendship.
I didn't know what to think of that. I wasn't ready for a friend. The problem with friends was that they could leave.
All this I sorted through while Lilac chattered and I replied, quietly memorizing the route from school to house. There was the Denny's. There was the traitorously sharp turn, there was the pond, ice-blue in this January cold. There was a fence, long and white, rolling across the hills like an outstretched hand. A few horses stood on the other side of it, nibbling at large round hay bales. Closer to the road, another horse ran, red blanket flapping against his dark coat as he surged up the hill.
"Why is that horse wearing a blanket? Don't they have fur?"
Lilac followed my gaze towards the horse and laughed, rolling down the window. Cold air screamed over us as she raised her voice to be heard over it. "That's Skip! We clipped him for the four year old season- he gets super lathered after a race. He's one of my favorites."
"Your... wait. You mentioned earlier you had racehorses or something. This is your farm?"
"Yep." Lilac rolled the window back up as another fence intersected with the one on the road; Skip met it and wheeled away, back to the other horses. "My grandfather started raising TBs here about fifty years ago. Want to go see it?"
I had no idea what a TB was, but the pride in her voice convinced me to nod. "Sure. Mom won't mind if I'm late."
"Great." With that, she slowed the truck as we neared an opening in the fence. A dark gate was swung lazily open to the inside, and a decorated sign hung from the fence, announcing, "Piperson Farms, 1968", beneath that was a Latin motto, but Lilac turned the truck through the gate too quickly for me to read it.
The driveway was long and trundling. Lilac fell silent as she drove up the smoothly paved road, and I studied the horses in the fields on either side of the fence. Most were glossy chestnuts and bays, but I spotted a handful of white horses scattered in the distance. "How come there's no pintos? I used to take lessons, and there were tons of pintos at that barn." I asked Lilac.
She snorted. "You didn't take lessons long enough. Thoroughbreds don't have pinto coloring- well there are a few. But very rare. I think currently three are racing. What do you know?"
Oh. Thoroughbred- TB. I made the connection before replying, "I know how to put a halter on and tell chestnut from bay."
Lilac snickered. "At least you're honest about it. Most people reckon they're experts because they went on a trail ride- oh look, here's Ned."
This was because we'd parked on a gravelly strip next to a long, low stable. Horse heads hung over stall doors, all with pricked ears and eager eyes except for a few withdrawn bodies, sleek like blood in the back of their stalls. A gangly ginger boy extracted himself from one of those stalls, walking over to the truck with an impish grin crossing his face as Lilac shoved open her door and jumped neatly out. I followed suit and watched as she met the ginger with a kiss to the cheek and then the mouth. They both grinned against each other's mouths and for just a minute, I felt a little lonely. But then Her scorn at relationships, at depending on someone else, touched my memory, and I shoved the longing away.
Lilac turned back to face me. "Ned, Anna. Anna, Ned. Anna's new to town."
One arm casually draped over her shoulders, Ned waved the other at me. "Hello, Anna. You look a mite sad." His accent was Irish, but I could tell that American was beginning to undermine it.
I pressed my lips together as I stared at him. "And you look like you can legally go into a bar and drink."
"I'm nineteen." He shrugged.
"My parents had a ten year age difference. Three isn't so bad, and I'm seventeen next week." Lilac ducked under Ned's arm suddenly and sprang towards the barn. "Here, I'll introduce you to the horses. This is our two year old string- three is the next row over and so on. We have a broodmare barn and of course the stud, and the training ring is in that direction." She waved vaguely in the direction opposite the driveway before pausing in front of a dark horse sprinkled with white. "This is Skip's full brother, Pirate's Deck. We call him Pie. Skip's a fantastic stakes horse and we hoped that for Pie too, but he's showing more potential for the sprinters."
I had no idea what that meant, but I tentatively stretched my hand out towards Pie. The horse stretched his neck out as well, ears forward and eyes bright. After sniffing me carefully, his mouth opened and he began to lick my palm.
A giggle escaped me for the first time in a long time. "That tickles!"
"He's a sweet horse." Lilac smiled. "Come on, let's meet the others. Then I'll have to drop you off at home, I have some of the colts to exercise."
"You ride them?" I asked, amazed, as we drifted down the aisle. A sweet chestnut with a clover-shaped star that nuzzled my pockets for treats was introduced to me as Dancer's Lucky Shamrock, and next to her was a bay gelding named Holiday Break. Lilac told me different statistics about their racing records or prospects, as well as funny little stories- how Holiday rolled the first time she rode him, how a black mare named Shooting Starlet liked to let out a little buck before entering the gate, how a dappled grey named Uranium pawed while eating. I enjoyed listening to her and Ned bicker about this mare or that gelding's qualities, and all too soon it was time to go.
As we got in the truck, it flashed across my mind that I hadn't thought about Her for nearly an hour, and felt guilty. She couldn't think anymore, couldn't feel anymore, and here I was not doing either for Her. I was a terrible friend.
But even so, it was a nice afternoon.

~~~~~

Two chapters in as many minutes! Oops. I wrote them both over the course of three days and debated wether I should post this or not, consideirng how easily I lose interest in my Wattpad projects- not so of my hopefully to-be published book- but I think I'll stick with this one.

Thanks for reading!

~Iggy