The Heartbreak Horse

Because You Already Had Enough Girl Problems.

I finish working by the time Cyan leaves, and give up on Heartbreak an hour later. I cleaned stalls earlier, and won’t have any work to do until it’s time for the horses to come in and eat, so I’m just about ready to head inside the house again. Not that there’s anything to do inside. Oliver usually watches TV, and we only have the one. When he isn’t watching TV, he and Christina are in the living room, and I really don’t like hanging around them, so I stay in my room, which has pretty much nothing to do. Usually I listen to music on my bed and stare at the ceiling.

Anyway, I like being out in the barn better than being at home, but lately I’ve decided that being around Val is too damn hard and that I’m better off bored than ignored, so I start to head for the house. But then she shows up, and though I may be many things, I’m not a coward. So I stay, not wanting her to see me run away.

She’s in the Infiniti—an ugly, black model that looks like a wannabe limousine. That means Christina isn’t with her. When Christina is with her, they take the Avalanche.

She wiggles her fingers down the driveway at me when she sees me, which makes it even harder for me to leave, so I just smile tiredly and wait for her to reach me.

She walks so slowly. She sways her hips a lot. I noticed that Riley’s walk changed from when I knew her before, but she still doesn’t sway her hips the way Val does. Riley just walks with a lot of confidence. No bounce in her step, and no hip swaying. Just confidence.

But Val walks like a wannabe Marilyn, and she runs her hand through her hair about eight times. I don’t really blame her, because her hair looks pretty damn nice to touch, all long and thick and wavy and blond, but still, eight times is a whole lot to be touching your hair in one minute or so. If I did that, my hair’d get all oily and s**t. But then, my hair doesn’t get as oily as white people’s hair. It isn’t as hardy as black people’s hair, either; it’s in between, like everything else about me.

“Joey!” Val squeals all eagerly when she sees me, as if she has missed me since the last time she saw me, which was two days ago. She didn’t miss me. Unless she hasn’t gotten any male attention lately. Sometimes she attempts hooking up with me when she’s drunk and her ego is exceptionally low. Doesn’t happen a lot, but it did happen a few weeks ago at a party. Her little non-boyfriend Mitch West hooked up with some other girl right in front of her, and she got all pissed and tried retaliating by hooking up with me. Luckily, I was smart enough to know that if I was in the pits already, I’d really be in the pits if I let that happen and then had to see her every day.

Plus, Cyan would have killed me. She would have killed Val, too. I’d probably get a quick, painless death, but Val would get a long, torturous one. Cyan really hates Val.

I love Cyan. I really do. I hope she doesn’t resent me for ignoring her pleas before. It’s just that I know there’s more to Riley than there is to Val. I know she isn’t just this cutthroat b***h we all think she is, because I remember who she was, and I know there must be some reason or some long list of reasons she turned into who she is now. I’m intrigued, but more than that, I want to help her.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Val gushes to me, heading into the barn and apparently expecting me to follow her. “Ol’s been telling me I need to keep my elbows bent more, and I really can never remember when I’m riding, so would you mind watching me and reminding me?”

Sure, Val. There’s nothing I want more than to stare at you on your hundred thousand dollar horse and tell you your elbows aren’t bent enough.

Well, it wouldn’t suck telling her to get bent. But that isn’t quite how it would work.

I, of course, am a pushover, so I say in this very phony voice, “Sure, Val.”

She beams at me, and I almost have to wince at how beautiful her beam is, with those white teeth and those green eyes, and by the time I recover, her blond hair is swishing behind her as she heads for the tack room to get her things.

“Hey Joe, would you mind grabbing Belle for me?” she shouts from the tack room. “Since you’re not doing anything.”

“Sure,” I say again in that very humiliating voice, and I head for the back pasture, where Queen Belle is grazing with Christina’s mare, Minuet, and Zoe’s mare, Silver. God, I hate getting the mares. Silver’s all right for a mare—rarely in heat, and usually pretty sweet. She’s a dainty little Appaloosa, sure-footed and well-mannered. But Belle and Minuet are both ultra-expensive breeds, an Oldenburg and a Dutch Warmblood, and they are both very opinionated and high-maintenance, like their owners. Neither of them like me.

Silver comes up to me with ears perked and eyes bright, but the other two ignore me and keep grazing. I give Silver a rub on the face before heading over to the others. Minuet’s ears twitch a little, but that’s all. Belle uninterestedly lifts her head when I reach her, and she lets me put her fancy, engraved leather halter on. She snorts all over me before joining me on the walk back to the barn.

I don’t mind catching horses. I really love horses—almost all of them. Oliver’s horse Santana is incredible, and Christina’s other two, Matador and Marx, though psycho sons of bitches, are fantastic. They all have personalities, and even when they’re jerks, I admire them for it. Kate’s horse Mirage, like most OTTB’s, is scared of nearly everything that moves, but I still like him. Even Phoenix, Cyan’s stocky, inexpensive quarter horse, is alright.

(Don’t worry. They’ll matter later.)

Anyway, I really can’t stand Belle.

She’s just so much like Val—perfect in every way. Like Heartbreak, she’s dark in color, though not as dark as him. She has a tan muzzle and brown coat, and really glistens in the sunlight—almost too much. Her eyes are too big, and almost judgmental. Heartbreak has small eyes. Horses with bigger eyes are often labeled “cuter,” but I always preferred small eyes. They make the horse look older, but they make the horse look kinder, too.

When we get back to the barn, Val is sitting on her tack trunk, texting. She doesn’t even look up until she finishes, and at that point I’ve already hooked Belle up to the crossties.

“Thanks, babe,” Val says brightly, sticking her phone in her pocket. “Was she a good girl?”

“Yeah,” I mutter, even though it’s a lot more convenient when they come to me instead of me having to come to them. “She was fine.”

Val nods and starts tacking up. Every thirty seconds or so, she pulls out her phone and texts someone. Finally, I can’t help but say something.

“You’re not going to be able to text while you ride, you know.” I wish I could shoot myself in the mouth. I always sound like her father when I talk to her.

She laughs, even though it isn’t funny. “I know. It’s just this guy, you know, Mitch. He wants to hang out, but I keep telling him I have to ride my horse.”

Oh, poor, poor you, Val. That’s just too bad.

“Anyway, I think he might end up coming here,” she says. “But hey, if he does, at least you won’t have to tell me about my elbows! Though I don’t think that’s what he’ll be looking at.”

Now I want to shoot myself for an entirely different reason.

I manage to not suffocate as she finishes tacking up Belle. I glance at my phone a few times, praying Cyan or Kate (my only friends) will text me, or even Matt, but none of them do, and I don’t really want to bother with texting them, so I just deal.

Finally, she brings Belle out into the ring. It’s about then that the douche in the Trans Am shows up: Mitch West.

I’ve met him once before. At that damn party. That party was pretty much what told me to never go to a party again. Everyone who goes to them is just so sketchy. I mean, sure, you hear about the drinking and the s*x and all, but you never hear about how sketchy the characters are. Take Mitch, for example. I’m ninety-five percent certain the guy is a drug dealer. His little brother, Daniel or something, is even creepier, and yet they were, like, the most sought-after guys at the party. 

And the whole relationship between Val and Mitch is so ridiculous. Maybe he’s attractive, maybe not; I can’t really judge. But she’s so above him. And I don’t even like her. I mean, yeah, I like her; I like her way too much. But at the same time, I can’t stand her, so you’d think I’d say she deserves a guy like Mitch. But she doesn’t. He’s way beneath her, and it’s even more disgusting that they aren’t even in a real relationship; basically he calls her when he feels like getting some, and she lets him drag her along because he’s hot, or some s**t.

I almost wish she was going out of state for college in the fall, because even though it would mean she’d have to leave me, it’d also mean she’d get to escape this douche bag. Actually, I’d probably be happy if she left. I really can’t stand being around her. But when she started hanging around Mitch her senior year, her grades plummeted, the schools she’d initially been accepted to rejected her, and she was stuck going to state school.

With us.

Anyway, Mitch drives this old Trans Am. I’m pretty sure he wants people to think he fixed it up himself, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t. Iknow how to fix up cars, but I’m pretty sure a guy like him doesn’t. 

I notice as he walks down the driveway how old he is. He looks like he’s in his mid-twenties, at least, or maybe even older. 

“Hey, man,” he greets when he sees me. “I know you?”

He’s the kind of guy to forget a face, but this is horse country Florida; not many people forget a face that isn’t white, and nobodyforgets a mutt face. That’s why he recognizes me.

“Yeah,” I say shortly. “I’m Joey. Joey Bray.”

The name clearly doesn’t ring a bell to him, so he just shrugs and glances up at Val, whistling. “Damn, she looks damn good on a horse, doesn’t she?”

Not really. She looks decent. Better than Cyan, who exaggerates everything. Not as good as Kate, who under-exaggerates everything. Val is stiff with her motions. She doesn’t look comfortable on Belle. There’s only one person I know who truly rides like she belongs on a horse’s back, and that person hasn’t ridden for two years. And I’m pretty determined to bring her back.

But I can’t deal with that at the moment, because I have to deal with this creep.

“Mitch!” Val squeals when she sees him, trotting over to us. I try to ignore the fact that when she squealed his name, her enthusiasm sounds legitimate, whereas when squealed my name, it sounded as fake as her spray-on tan.

(I probably wouldn’t know the difference, but one time she was leaving Bray for a party and sprayed it on right there front of me.)

“Hey, babe,” Mitch says easily. “Lookin’ good.”

Val beams. She’s such a sucker. As if he even looked.

Well, okay, he probably looked. But Mitch looks at one, two, maybe three things on a girl, and I look at absolutely everything, so I really hate it when girls like his compliments better than mine.

Then again, it isn’t really about what’s said as much as who says it.

“When are we getting out of here?” Mitch asks her. “Horses aren’t really my thing, babe.”

I wish he’d stop calling her “babe.” I always sort of wanted to have someone to call “babe,” even though it’s sort of gross. But to me, if you call someone that, she has to be your girl. I mean, your only girl. And as far as I can tell, he has more than just Val—a lot more.

“I know, baby,” she says, which, really, is just as bad, or worse. “I’m almost done.”

Is she? She just got on.

“Okay.” He glances at his watch. “I just haven’t got all day.”

Val’s face visibly falls, and despite how much she bothers me, it still sucks to see her that way, because for some dipshit reason, I still care about her. 

This happens to Val a lot. Most of us have already figured out that, while the general public thinks the horse thing is “cool,” they don’t stick around to watch you ride very often. People get bored when they don’t get to do anything. It’s the same reason you don’t want to go to a friend’s violin recital or track meet; it’s just boring. 

I mean, I don’t get how horseback riding could ever be considered boring, but that’s definitely what outsiders typically think.

“Yeah,” Val says quietly to Mitch, “um...”

I know what’s coming. It won’t be the first time.

“Joey, sweetie,” she says in this horribly offensive voice, “would you mind hopping on and finishing the ride for Belle? I’ve gotta go.”

I smile this sort of half-smile and duck into the ring, accepting Belle’s reins as Val slides off. She thanks me once, and then twice when I don’t answer the first time, but I don’t reply. If she’s going to run off with this douche bag, she has to deal with the fact that she doesn’t get another phony “sure” out of me.