(Brie)
“Brianna,” Dad began. “Another race? You just ran one!”
“Two months ago, Dad!” I complained. “And this one is higher up! It’s got a better reward, and it’s far more popular…”
I heard my dad take a deep breath. “I thought that was going to be a onetime gig.”
Frustration prickled up my spine. “No you didn’t, Dad.” I said. “You knew perfectly well that this would keep going. You knew how much I yearn to race!”
He sighed in exasperation. “I don’t have time fer this right now, Brianna. I got chores that need doin’.”
I set my jaw.
“Don’t you have homework to do?” He said as he turned away from me into a stall of one of Ian’s horses. “And git some shoes on!”
I wiggled my shoeless toes and scowled, turning to go up to the house.
* * * *
(Brie)
It was the last hour of the school day, and class could not get much slower than this. My fingers drilled on my desk.
“Miss Stone! Is there something I can help you with?” Miss Tale snapped in English; not her normal French.
I stopped drumming my fingers. “Could I go to my locker?” I asked.
“What on earth would you need your locker for?” she asked impatiently.
I tapped my tummy. “I’m hungry…”
The classroom erupted into laughter. Miss Tale seemed to think about it, but then abruptly gave my answer. “No.”
“But-“
“It can wait!” She snapped. “You’re obviously not dying of hunger!”
She then continued speaking French to the class, explaining that our articulation, and accents are very important…
“I made you something…” Ian whispered in my ear. I jumped. I had forgotten he sat by me. When I didn’t answer he kept going. “It’s a project I think you’ll like. I’ve been working on it for two months.”
“What is it?” I asked, curious.
“You’ll have to wait and se—you’ll have to wait till I give it to you!” he said, a smile creeping into his voice. I smirked at his stumble over words.
“And when are you planning on giving it to me?” I say.
“Let’s just say this;” He said, his warm breath beating down my ear and neck. “I challenge you and Ila to a race.”
I cocked my head to the side. “You…think you can beat us?!” I burst out laughing, and Miss Tale was forced to stop teaching again.
“Brianna, would you care to share with the class?”
“W-what?” I asked, my laughter dying away.
“Obviously you found something to be rather hysterical, I asked if you wanted to share that with us.”
“No!” I snapped, too harshly. “I mean; no thanks. It’s this blindness thing; you get these weird hallucinations…”
The class chuckled.
“Miss Stone, please join me in the hall…” That made the room go silent.
“Oh…okay.” I said, standing up and grabbing Champ’s leash. Like a good dog, he led me out to the hall, where Miss Tale stood waiting. She closed the door behind me.
“Brianna, your grade is dropping. Rapidly. I don’t know if you’re not paying attention, or if you’re not getting it, but I’m telling you this; the crap happening in class needs to stop. No one can learn with you and Ian goofing around in the back of class.”
“I-I’m…sorry.” I mumbled.
“I understand that you’re a big horse jockey, and that you might be getting back into that sport, but let me tell you this; you need to keep your grades up, even your extra-curricular ones.”
My blind eyes rolled.
“Brianna, you can take my advice seriously or as a joke, but all I’m trying to do is help you fulfill your dream.”
Irritation gripped at me. “Oh really? And why the heck would you wanna do that? Pity? Look, I’m just—“
“Don’t even think for a moment that I pity you.”
Whoa. My heart stopped there for a moment. Well, that’s…good, I think…
Then Miss Tate went on. “I’m doing this for you, because I had a teacher who once did it for me.”
“Oh, well that’s nice.” I said in a tone that made it obvious that I didn’t care.
“I was a gymnast.” The way she said it made me listen intently. “I got a major concussion in a balance-beam routine. They said I was lucky I had my sight. I didn’t feel lucky though. Do you have any idea how much recovery and extra training I had to do to get back to the level of gymnastics I had been competing at before that accident?”
I didn’t answer, but I wanted to know. I began to think that Miss Tate knew at least partially what I’ve been going through these past years.
“It took me three years to get back up on that balance-beam and do the same routine that had pushed me to work harder for my dream. But I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that I kept pushing myself through the rough patches. I almost gave up. I almost threw it all away because I got frustrated.”
I wish I had my sight right now. Some stories you just can’t experience the full tale without watching the speaker’s facial expressions.
“There was a time when my parents weren’t getting along at home, my friends were treating me like I had a low intelligence level, and my coach was questioning if I really wanted to continue gymnastics. So of course my grades dropped dramatically. I was even pulled into a group of druggies. I went to a party involving drugs and alcohol, and was stopped on my way home for hazardous driving. I was drunk.”
I swallowed. Okay, but I wasn’t a druggie!
She went on. “The cop that pulled me over was also one of my teachers. When he saw that it was me and understood what had happened, he turned off his car and pulled me outta mine.
We went and sat on the side of the road for an hour and a half. There was a lot of talking, some crying, and hugging. He told me that the way I was choosing to live my life was stupid. And he didn’t add any sugar words. He was very blunt and to the point. The decisions I was making were idiotic and they would lead to very big problems. Then he started talking to me about school. He told me that if my grades continued the way they were going, I was going to have to repeat Sophomore year. Then finally he made a deal with me. he said;
“If you stop drinking, and stop the drugs and pick up your grades, this little meeting between us can stay between us.”
My mouth was dry, reminding me to close it. “What’d you do?” I asked.
“Well,” Miss Tate said as though it were hard for her to tell someone this story. “I took him up for his offer. I worked hard on all of my school work, and applied myself harder at the gym. It wasn’t easy at first, but once I got into the routine, it became more of something I enjoyed doing. Towards the end of the school year, I realized I was passing all of my classes with A’s, and I actually felt smart. I felt like I understood things and that I could apply them to other aspects of my life. That year I got a special award in gymnastics for having the greatest improvement for academics and gymnastics.”
“Do you see that now, I’m not trying to yell at you, but help you get on the right track?”
I nodded my head. What had pushed her to do that for me? She was just a teacher and I was just a student. There was nothing special about either of us. “Why’d you do that?” I said.
I heard her shift slightly. “Because we’ve got similar stories, Brie. Now lets get back to class.”
* * *
I was sitting on the couch in the living room, waiting. Just waiting. For what? Ian. He said he was going to come over and we’d have our race too! It was almost 4:30, and I was getting very impatient. Finally, I just got up, went to the front door and put my boots on. I grabbed a riding jacket and walked out the door. I would tack the horses up so that he couldn’t say that we didn’t have enough time.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve been wearing down a nice solid path for the last few months, making my way down to the horse barn. I had walked the same way every day, and my body now had the steps memorized. Well, something must have gone wrong today, because around the time I should have been walking through the barn doors, I was slamming my face on the wall.
I stumbled backwards, touching my forehead and cheek bone. They were hot, and getting rather fluffy. Fantastic. Oh, well. I continued on, this time, holding my hands out in front of me, preventing anymore of those scenarios. When I reached Ila’s stall I heard her give me a soft welcoming nicker, and so I smiled.
“Oh! What’re you doin’ here?” I jumped at Callis’ voice. He was in her stall.
“Huh?” I said stupidly. “Um, I was gonna ride her! What are you doing?”
He chuckled, and then abruptly stopped. “Did you—what’d you do to your head?!”
Suddenly my face was being cradled in two callused cowboy hands, gingerly touching my goose-eggs.
“I ran into a wall.” I said flatly.
“Brie, really, what happened?”
“Callis,” I said. “Really. I ran into a wall. I’m blind; remember?”
I got no reply, but I could tell he didn’t like it when I kept reminding him about that. I thought about our kiss right then. Had I liked it? Well…maybe. Okay, yeah. I did. My face began to feel hot, and I was almost positive I was blushing. Callis just had to confirm my beliefs.
“What’s the matter?” He said. “You’re getting red.”
I shook my head. “Nothing. My head is just burning!” Nice coverup.
“Oh.” He said quietly.
I cleared my throat. “So what were you doing with Ila?” I said.
Callis dropped his hand from my face and took a step back. “Just making sure she’s good and healthy. She had two ticks, but I took care of them for you…”
I smiled. “Thanks Callis.” I stepped forward, completely guessing where he was, and attempted to hug him. Right on; my arms folded around his midsection, and I felt his warm arms retaliate with their own hug.
But the hug was short-lived. Suddenly Callis stepped back, slightly pushing me away. “What are you doing here?” He said, his tone a little offensive.
“Brianna and I were gonna go on a ride.” Ian’s voice echoed through the barn, as did his footsteps. Crap. I hadn’t even heard the car come up. This probably made me look really bad.
“Brie?” Callis was making sure this was part of my plan, but I could detect the hurt in his voice. I nodded sheepishly. “Alright. But if she comes back with so much as a scratch—“
“Why do you care?” Ian asked, his voice a lot closer now, and challenging Callis.
“What do you mean? She’s the boss’ daughter! She—“ Ouch. That’s what I was? Just the boss’ daughter?
“Yeah sure, something tells me that ain’t no look you’d give the boss’ daughter…” Ian countered.
I let out an irritated sigh as Callis tensed up beside me. “Ian, shut up.” I snapped. “Callis, cool it down.”
There was a long pause where no one said or did anything and then Callis took a deep breath. “Whatever. I’ll be out fixin’ some fence in the South pasture if you need me—“
“We won’t need you.” Ian said.
“—Brianna.”
“Yep. Thanks Callis. See ya later.” I piped up.
“That’d be a miracle…” He muttered, walking away.
It took me a moment to understand what he had said and then when I figured it out, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Alright,” I said to Ian. “You wanna go tack up your filly and I’ll tack up mine?”
I moved to go to the tack room, but Ian stopped me. “Wait, don’t you need help with that…?”
My brow furrowed in confusion. “Why would I…”
“Uh, well, you’re blind and…”
I put my hands on my hips. “Ian, I can horserace blind, and you think I can’t tack her up? This girl is insulted!” I laughed a little and continued my way to the room.
All in all, I beat Ian to tacking up his own horse, but he kept telling me that it was because he kept coming and checking to see if I needed any help.
“Bullhonky.” I retorted.
I grabbed a riding vest and helmet and led Ila out to the practice track; this route I also had memorized, and I didn’t hit any walls!
“So, I wanna know what this surprise gift thingy is…” I said, as Ian and his horse entered the track.
“First I gotta ask you a few questions.” He said.
“Okay.” I said, a little uneasily.
“You know when I was here that first time and you claimed that you were able to see everything around you? When Callis didn’t believe you?”
“Yeah.” I said, not appreciating that last bit that he added in.
“And it was very painful because of the sunlight?”
“Yes, Ian. Get to the point.” I snapped impatiently.
“What if you had something to block that? What if there wasn’t any pain and you just could see? Do you think you would continually get your sight back?”
This confused me. “Well, Ian. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think about that. There’s no point in getting my hopes up if I know they’ll just as readily get crushed.”
“But this,” He said, putting something in my hands. “Could potentionally cure it…”