Maybe she wouldn’t. Emma was a wallflower, stuck in her hole, and content to hide. Maybe if it was just us two, she would dance like she did before. In front of a crowd, she’d freeze.
No, stop that, Riley. Fuck Emma. She’s a snake. Agreeing to help you, accept your offer to pay to vet school, just to spy on you for your father, to scheme her way into your family legacy.
God, I must be stupid. For a moment, I thought we could be something more. I thought maybe we could work through the past fifteen years and start new. Maybe we could have actually been friends and maybe it could have been more.
The one thing my father was right about was my intelligence. I let a girl get in my way, and that would never happen again. I enjoyed women too much to give up this lifestyle. Emma could have been the one to make me but fuck her. I had mommy issues, I knew.
Emma was hot, and if she knocked on my window and wanted to hook up, I wouldn’t hesitate to open the window. There were a lot of things I would want to do to Emma. The bed, the floor, the shower, I had lots of wild ideas, and it all involved angry hate sex.
Any other relationship we could have had was overshadowed now by my father. He ruined everything good in my life, including his marriage with my mother. He drove her away and had the nerve to blame it on me and the farm life. Fuck him.
I chugged my drink and then another.
The world spun along with the club lights, which flashed around the room. I let the music, the booze, and the girls take over me. I shut off that pesky part of my brain that had feelings, and I let the black hole of numbness and emptiness take over. It felt good to be back here. I knew my role and where I fit in. I drank, I had fun, and I got lucky.
A girl grabbed me by the hand and led me to a back room. Her lips were all over mine, my neck, my shoulder. Her hands roamed my abdomen. I let her do what she wanted to me, not feeling, not caring about the consequences.
Then “React” by the Pussycat Dolls came through the speakers of the club. Right then, I deflated. The big game I talked up in my head about Emma, it lost steam. I stood with this girl still kissing me, but my mind was thinking about yesterday, Emma dancing with the horses, smiling. I remembered Emma dancing with me. That was the first time I actually felt happy in a long time.
Then she had to ruin it by selling me out to my father.
The song ended, and I drifted back into oblivion.
Eleven
Emma
Where was Riley? I didn’t give him a day off.
I had just mucked three stalls, and he still wasn’t there. I looked out the stable for any sign of him approaching, and there was nothing.
The truck was there, and it was still on. Where was he going? He didn’t even have the decency to tell me he wouldn’t be helping today, especially after knowing how out of sorts I was yesterday. I should make him muck extra stalls or something to build character.
I approached the truck and saw Riley asleep. His face was resting uncomfortably on the steering wheel.
Son of a bitch.
He reverted back to his ways fast. What the hell happened? I knew I had given him too much credit. To think he could switch back and forth between these two versions of himself was scary. Who was the real Riley? I had no freaking clue.
This was exactly why I wanted no part in helping him. I knew he would do this, and it would hurt me. It would hurt that I put my time and energy into helping him, and he didn’t respect me enough to keep trying. He’d likely drive drunk again, and that sunk the knife in deeper. He knew, I let him in, and he knew that destroyed me, yet here he was, asleep in his car. At least he didn’t crash it this time.
I collected all of my hurt feelings and the nastyI told you so’sand tucked them far back into my mind, for me to deal with later. I would torture myself with it when I was alone, always alone.
This hurt is why you prefer to be alone. Remember this, Emma.
I knocked loudly on the window. He lifted his head quickly, startled by the sound. He opened the door, and the smell of alcohol assaulted my nose. Slapping me in the face would have hurt me less than that. Confirming that he drank and drove again sent a whole new feeling through my bloodstream: betrayal.
Why I thought he would stop drunk driving, I wasn’t sure. This wasn’t a rehab center. I couldn’t lock him away for thirty days to get clean. He didn’t owe me sobriety or anything, I supposed, except that one favor I had to collect from our race and my vet school tuition. He wasn’t obligated to do anything else, and yet I had expected better from him.
How stupid was I? This was the boy who made it his mission in life to hurt me. He broke up my only high school relationship. I dated the guy for five weeks before Riley learned about it. I had really liked the guy, too, as much as a junior could, I supposed. Riley bullied the guy into breaking up with me, all because he felt I deserved to suffer. The eight years of name calling and insults hadn’t been enough. Now here he was, making me suffer in another way. Asking for my help, forcing me to care, and then making me watch as he pissed my efforts away, in the most offensive way he could.
I was the biggest fool.
“You drank and drove last night?” I asked him.
I already knew he did, but I wanted to hear him admit it. I wanted to hear the fake apology so I could use it to harden my heart against him.
“Yes, Mother, I don’t need the lecture. Save it Vera Atkins.”
