Splendor (26 page)

“Scarlett,” he answered. “It’s me—Andy. What the hell? Are you all right?”

Suddenly, the ever-present weight on my chest grew just a fraction heavier and I sank to my knees, the hose next to me spraying uselessly into the dry earth.

Andy rushed over, uncertain what to do with this much grief—with my tears, my wailing, my hands pulling my hair out of its braid. His hand hovered above my head for a while before he kneeled next to me, before he untangled my fingers from my hair and folded them in my lap.

“It’s all right,” he murmured, a terrible lie, but it was the best he could offer, and so I turned to him awash in grief, wiped my tears on the front of his blue-and-white Dodgers tee, and sobbed in his arms as he stroked my hair.

After a time, Andy kissed my forehead, then my cheeks, and then his lips found mine. I pressed my breasts into his chest, winding my arms around his neck, my teeth pushing hard into his lips as I took what comfort I could from his embrace.

He seemed surprised by my response, and I could feel him vacillating between pulling me closer and pushing me away. The part of him that was a sixteen-year-old boy won out, and he clutched me to him, his hands wandering up and down my back as he kissed me more deeply, his tongue exploring my mouth.

But it was as if his desire had flipped some switch inside me, and I was suddenly achingly cold. Andy realized that I was no longer returning his kiss, that I was sitting in his arms like a rag doll, and with some measure of self-control, he pulled away from me.

His arms were rigid, and his eyes, usually a bright blue, looked cloudy with a mixture of emotions I couldn’t read. He stumbled to his feet, off balance, unusual for him, and cleared his throat.

“I don’t know, Scarlett,” he said. “Maybe you need some time.”

Then he’d walked away, though over his shoulder he threw “Call me whenever” before climbing into his pickup and driving off.

Next to me, Delilah pawed the earth, her breath warm and moist in my hair. Sitting with Delilah under the tree, for the first time all summer I had the beginning of a desire to do just that—call him. It was like some part of me yearned to pick up my life where I’d left it.
Could I do that?
I wondered. Could I go back to being Scarlett Wenderoth, ace student, girlfriend, BFF? Or was that part of my life as dead as Ronny?

I sighed and stood, stretching my arms over my head. “All right, girl,” I said, patting Delilah’s neck. “Let’s go home.”

I chose a different route back to the stable. I was in no hurry to return to the B&B for dinner with my parents, so I opted to take the circuitous route through the valley toward the barn.

Delilah’s barn was my second home—El Rancho Escondido, “the hidden ranch,” a breeding facility begun by the Wrigley family way back in the 1930s. It was a private establishment, nestled in a valley twelve miles outside of Avalon. The only reason I could keep my mare there was that my mom was best friends with the manager of the ranch. I got my love of riding from my mom, Olivia, though she’d stopped riding when she got pregnant with Ronny. Her good friend Alice ran the ranch now, greeting the busloads of tourists that came by to see the horses and explaining the ranch’s history.

My job was to stay out of the way when I was at the ranch, and not to brag too much around the island about my special privileges. It didn’t hurt that my Delilah had been bred and born right here on Catalina, just like me. She and I were two of a kind—trapped on this island, at least for now.

Delilah didn’t seem to notice this truth, much less mind it. For a fairly young mare—just five years old—she was remarkably calm. Before she had even been born, she’d been earmarked for me. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, but they’d always been dedicated to giving their kids what they needed.

Ronny had needed lots of interaction with the outside world, so our parents had sent him away for part of each summer to stay with friends on the mainland. I needed a horse.

I didn’t
want
a horse the way some girls ask for a pony; I
needed
a horse. All my drawings, all the little stories that I’d written as a kid, all my Christmas lists had been about one thing—horses.

And it had never been enough just to be around the Arabians at the stable. I’d felt a pressing need to have a horse of my own.

Delilah was a beautiful foal. I was there to see her birth. She was sired by a tall chestnut Arab named Nomad, and she was out of an unusually large mare named Rainbow. I watched as she emerged from her mother, slick and wet and beautiful, and I watched as she stood on shaky legs and searched under her mother for her first sip of milk.

I’d trained her. She had known me as long as she’d been alive, and she trusted me completely. So today, when I turned her off the main path and toward a rocky decline, her steps didn’t falter.

I live in a beautiful place,
I thought grudgingly. A fire had ravaged the island’s interior just a few years ago, but the blackened landscape was recovering. Some species of plants were actually doing better now than before the fire; there had been too much growth, choking out light, and the plants had had to compete for ground and access to the sun. After the fire, with almost everything dead, there was room. Seeds still dormant under the soil might emerge this year, with the rain. But even dry and somewhat barren, Catalina was beautiful. Native sage and chaparral danced as the late-afternoon breeze picked up, and I took in a deep breath of the clean, salty ocean air. Delilah seemed invigorated by the breeze too, and she broke into an energetic trot even as we started downhill.

I leaned back in my saddle and pulled gently on the reins. “Easy, girl,” I murmured, but Delilah tossed her head, eager to move forward.

I laughed, happy she was so spirited. After all this time, I barely noticed how strange the sound of my laughter seemed. “All right, then, if you insist,” I said. “Giddyap.”

I loosened the reins and dug my heels into Delilah’s sides. With the grace that only a purebred Arabian can manage, Delilah loped down the hill, her neck long and loose, her haunches tucked tightly beneath her. As soon as she reached a flatter space on the trail she really let go. The pounding of her hooves on the hard soil became all I was aware of, da-da-
dum,
da-da-
dum,
and I leaned forward with the joy of the ride, my cowboy hat blown away and forgotten behind us, my heels pressed down in the stirrups, the waistband of my jeans pushing into my hips as I moved with the rhythm of her gallop. I felt my mouth pulled wide in a smile, and I felt
alive
and
free,
my heart full of something other than pain.

Then we rounded a corner defined by a wide oak tree, and my life irrevocably shifted.

Excerpt copyright © 2012 by Elana Arnold. Published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.