Chosen (5 page)

Becca and I went to the pool closet and looked for our rafts—one purple and one blue. Mom and Dad's matching red rafts were off to the side with Charlotte's. My older sister had left last fall to attend college at Sarah Lawrence in Bronxville, New York—outside of New York City. I missed her, but there had always been a rivalry between us. I was the athlete, the rider who
had
to be number one, and she was the overachiever who studied until two a.m., was in every imaginable club, and
also
had to be number one.

I tossed my raft into the clear water, causing ripples. Holding on to the railing, I dipped a French-manicured toe into the perfect stillness that eventually settled around the raft.

“It's
amazing
,” I said. “The water feels sooo good.”

Becca started down the stairs, wading into the
shallow end of the pool, swirling her fingers in the water. I walked alongside the pool to the opposite end and stepped onto the diving board, balancing with my arms out as I reached the end and sat down, dangling my legs. It felt good to be out here—away from the stable and everything related to riding and Canterwood. Plus, Becca was an expert at keeping my mind off things I didn't want to think about.

Becca, now situated on her raft, put on her sunglasses and glanced over at me.

“It's weird to see you out here,” she said. “But I'm glad you're here.”

“
Weird
? Why?” Playfully, I kicked a bit of water in her direction.

“Lauren!” She half-sat up on her elbow, looking at me. “I'll come up there and push you off the diving board.”

I stuck my tongue out at my older sister. “Answer my question. What's weird about me being in the pool?”

Becca skimmed her fingertips across the top of the water. “I'm just not used to seeing you so . . . relaxed,” she said. “You're always either at the stable or obsessing over shows. But after the . . . ” She stopped, chewing on her bottom lip. “Sorry.”

“No, it's okay.” I realized I was making the diving
board shake with my dangling feet. “I have to start talking about it sometime. It was a long time ago.”

“You don't have to talk about it. We came out here to chill.”

I stood up, balancing on my toes at the edge of the board. “You know, you're right.”

Without another word, I bounced up and down on the board, arching my back, then pushing off with my feet and diving into the water.

I kicked to the bottom of the deep end and touched my fingertips to the pool floor. For a few seconds, I stayed down longer than I needed. I wished the cool water could make every memory, every detail of that day vanish. But absolutely nothing could erase it.

When my lungs began to burn as if they were going to burst, I pushed up and I sucked in huge breaths as I broke the water's surface. I wiped the water out of my eyes and swam over to my raft, ignoring the
I'm-your-big-sister-and-I-know-you're-thinking-about-it
look from Becca.

“What's Taylor doing this weekend?” Becca asked. She knew I could talk about my boyfriend for hours.

“He's busy,” I said. “But we're going out on Friday.”

“At least your boyfriend goes to your school,” Becca said. “Grant has swim practice today
and
his stepwitch is
dragging him to a fancy polo match on Saturday that'll be filled with olds and snobs.”

I shot her an apologetic glance. “But you guys must have plans for next week, right?”

“Wednesday night,” Becca confirmed. “We're doing homework at his house and after, we're going to see a movie.”

“Cool. That'll be fun.”

Becca kept me talking as we floated in the pool. The more we talked, the more hopeful I felt—about my jumping skills and Canterwood. Talking about Taylor and my friends made me happy and, for the rest of the afternoon, not a single memory about my accident resurfaced.

AFTER SCHOOL, I HURRIED UP BRIAR CREEK'S
gravel driveway eager to get my lesson over with and go on a leisurely trail ride that Brielle and Ana and I had planned for after our session. We deserved it after a crazy week at school.

I spotted Cricket grazing in the pasture with a few of Kim's school horses. Some of the fences had noticeable cribbing marks. Kim had been talking for months about how she'd get the boards replaced soon, but I liked them the way they were. It made me feel comfortable—unlike some of the chi-chi stables I'd been to before. They'd felt like a fancy house where everyone was afraid to sit on the couches or touch anything that looked as if it would cost a zillion dollars to replace.

I knew how lucky I was to have grown up like I did. My parents had always done well and provided me with whatever I needed. Competing and traveling wasn't inexpensive and Mom and Dad had made sure I'd pitched in. I'd always groomed my own horse, cleaned stalls, and done stable chores, unlike many of my competitors. The girls who'd worked their horses to a sweat and passed them off to waiting groom had never been my friends. They thought having money made them better than everyone else, but really, it just made them people I never wanted to call friends.

I brought my bag of riding clothes into the tiny bathroom and closed the wooden door behind me, sliding the lock shut. The orange walls had tiny cracks near the ceiling, but everything was spotless. My phone chimed as I finished zipping up my heather gray Mossimo hoodie over my favorite PINK brand T-shirt—black with a red metallic heart and silver stitching. My parents had just started to let me shop the Victoria's Secret PINK clothing and pajama line last year, and I spent almost every cent of my allowance there. The whole collection was bright and colorful with pretty, delicate designs adorned with sprays of glitter and sometimes even tiny sequins that made you look
très
-glam even in loungey clothes. If Audrey Hepburn
were alive today, I'd bet she'd shop PINK all the time. There was something to be said for sparkling even while you slept. I was so into PINK, I even followed them on Chatter.

I grabbed my BlackBerry from my purse and opened BlackBerry messenger.

Ana:

Brielle & I r 10 mins away. U there yet?

I typed a message back.

Lauren:

Here! Grabbing Cricket from pasture & going 2 outdoor arena 2 practice. C u there
.

Before I put away my phone, I typed a quick Chatter update:
Abt 2 ride w @AnaArtiste & @BrielleisaBeauty. Hoping 2day's lesson goes well! 4:28 p.m
.

I got a Chat back from Ana immediately. @
LaurBell
4:29 p.m
.

I finished packing my school clothes into my bag and took it to my cubby in the room where students kept their stuff. Nothing had locks because we didn't need them. At my last stable, security was so tight I'd been surprised there hadn't been any armed guards. Every rider had a locked space and there were signs everywhere warning riders that if expensive items like phones,
laptops, or iPods went missing, it was the rider—not the stable—that was liable.

I didn't need a lead line to get Cricket, but I did want to take her a treat. I rifled through my tack trunk, took out a few snacks from the Jolly Goodies bag that I'd ordered from State Line Tack, and walked toward the pasture. Treats in hand, I undid the semirusty chain on the metal gate and closed it behind me. Once I was a ways into the pasture, I stopped, letting out the piercing whistle that Cricket knew well.

Her head snapped up from the grass and looked around for me. She spotted me and broke into a trot, leaving the other grazing horses behind. Her hoof beats, muffled by the grass that had been cropped by grazing horses, made me smile. I loved that sound.

Rhythmic. Beautiful. Just like the animal herself. I'd loved everything about horses since I'd ridden my first one at a kindergarten birthday party when I was five. I'd begged-slash-whined about riding until my parents had signed me up for beginner lessons at Winding Road—a tiny stable near our Syracuse home where I'd been born. It was a short drive to the stable since the city in upstate New York wasn't very big.

I rode at Winding Road Stable for years, moving fast
from beginner, to intermediate, to advanced. My instructor, Mr. Scott, entered me in my first show at six, and from then on, I was hooked on competition.

My parents had been hesitant at first to let me compete, but after they saw how much I loved showing, they allowed me to enter a show every few months. That turned into every couple of months, and then every few weeks as I got older. It didn't take long for me to move through local, state, and regional shows. Mr. Scott told my parents that I was ready to compete nationally.

Eventually, I started traveling, mostly with Dad since Mom's job as a lawyer kept her working ten hour days at the office. Dad worked from home as a freelance technical writer, which meant he wrote books and articles. I never could understand those articles—I even secretly thought it must be a pretty boring job, but he always smiled when he worked and the job meant he could accompany me to every show and I never had to travel with a chaperone or nanny like most of my teammates.

When I was eight, Mom got a better job at a bigger law firm in Brooklyn and we'd left Syracuse. Brooklyn had felt like home from the second I'd stepped into our apartment, which I hadn't seen much of since I'd traveled a lot. When we'd moved again, I'd been glad to escape the
apartment that I'd had nightmares in for weeks after my accident. I loved Union, but now, when I thought about Brooklyn, I kind of missed it. The fun memories I had from the apartment were slowly starting to overshadow the bad I'd experienced while living there.

Cricket slowed to a walk as she approached me. “Hi, girl,” I said. The dainty bay stuck her head toward my outstretched hand, inhaling the scent of apple and cinnamon. She carefully lipped the treats from my hand and I laughed at her chin whiskers tickling my palm.

Union offered an option Brooklyn hadn't—a chance for me to have my
own
horse—something Mom and Dad hadn't caved on yet. I'd wanted one since I'd started riding, but they didn't want me to be spoiled. It had never impacted my riding, thankfully, because I'd been lucky enough to have good school horses to ride. But I was still waiting for the day when Mom and Dad said I'd earned the privilege to have my own horse.

“Time to get you groomed and ready for our lesson,” I told her, grasping the light blue halter that made her dark coat look even richer.

I touched a hand to my own face, too, feeling the smile that was ever present whenever I was near a horse. I couldn't stop it even if I tried—and, safe or not—a tiny
voice in my head reminded me that nothing, not even glee, made me feel the way I did when I was with a horse I loved.

I led Cricket out of the pasture and toward the stable. Inside, I spotted Ana and Brielle's horses, that were school horses like Cricket, waiting in our usual spot. We always tied the horses together at the end of the stable so we could catch up on school gossip. True, we BBM'd every chance we got during school hours, but there was something about grooming and gossiping in person that was better, even than Häagen Dazs Dulce de Leche ice cream.

“Hey, guys,” I said to Ana and Brielle. “You got here fast. And cute shirt.” I nodded at Ana's long-sleeved white shirt with a chestnut horse rearing on the back.

“Thanks,” Ana sad, smiling. “I found the coolest new store online—Wolf & Harrison. They have the cutest horse-themed stuff.”

“We changed at school, BTW,” Brielle said, her raven hair still shimmering in a low ponytail. “Our horses were already in their stalls. We looked for you in Cricket's stall, but it was empty, so we figured she was outside.”

“Yeah, Kim must have forgotten to bring her in,” I said, tying up Cricket. “But it's no big. She won't take long to groom—it looks like she didn't roll in the grass.”