RIVAL REVENGE
I GOT UP, BRUSHED OFF MY PANTS, AND LED Charm into the crossties. I still wasn’t ready to go back to my room and needed something to do. So while Charm was in the aisle, I mucked his stall and gave him a fresh layer of sawdust. I filled his hay net with two flakes of hay, gave him his grain, and decided to clean his water bucket.
I unclipped the bucket from the wall and carried it into the indoor wash stall. I hosed it, soaped it, and filled it with clean water. Then I focused my attention on Charm. I groomed him, taking my time to wash and dry his white sock and his blaze. I grabbed clippers from my tack trunk and trimmed his whiskers and bridle path. I picked his hooves—noting that it would be time for him to be shod soon. I ran a wide-toothed comb through Charm’s mane and tail and sprayed them with a leave-in conditioner.
Charm’s coat had a soft, coppery sheen when I finished and his blaze and sock were a brilliant white. It made me feel better to see him look and feel his best.
I unclipped him and led him back to his stall.
“Please don’t lie down, okay?” I asked. “Just for one day?”
Charm seemed to wink at me—like a tease. I mock-rolled my eyes at him and blew him a kiss. “See you tomorrow, guy.”
Charm didn’t look up to respond—his face was in his grain bucket as he chewed noisily.
I left the stable and took a different way back to Winchester—a long path that made a loop and went past Orchard. I still needed more time to think about how to handle Paige. I didn’t want it to drag on forever—I had to make a decision. And the right one. I scuffed my shoe against the sidewalk and was glad when the sun hid behind the clouds. The air seemed to cool a few degrees almost instantly.
I started past Orchard and saw Heather walking up the stairs. She half-turned and saw me. She started to look back to the door, then focused on me.
“Since you don’t have any form of a life, I know you’ve got nowhere to be,” Heather said. “Come to my room with me for a minute.”
“Okay,” was all I could get out. I was too surprised to react to her insult.
In silence, we walked to the Trio’s suite. Heather opened the door and I followed her inside. Julia and Alison were out and I stood twisting my fingers, unsure what this was about. If Julia and Alison hadn’t gotten the DVD, Heather was probably about to inflict a new form of torture that she’d devised just for this occasion.
“Sit,” Heather said.
I sat on the couch—the end closest to the door—and Heather walked back and forth from the window to the coffee table before finally sitting on the table’s edge.
I’d never needed my soothing mint lip gloss more than I’d needed it now, but it was back in my room. I licked my bottom lip and willed Heather to just say whatever it was.
Heather tucked her blond hair behind her ears. “Julia and Alison got the DVD.” She smiled, shaking her head. “They actually got it.”
“That’s great!” I said. “They’re going to be cleared now. Everything just happened at the right moment and we didn’t even have to do anything to Jasmine—she did that to herself.”
Heather nodded. “I know. But you …” She paused and for a second, I thought I saw tears in her eyes before she blinked a couple of times. “You saved my best friends.”
“I hope someone else would have done the same for me. And we never have to talk about it again. I want Julia and Alison to get back on the team and for this entire cheating thing to go away. I have to apologize to them—I thought they really did cheat.”
“I understand why you did,” Heather said, shrugging. “I wouldn’t have believed you either, if the roles were reversed.”
“Mutual distrust. I doubt that’ll ever go away,” I said, half-smiling.
“Never.” Heather said it so fast, we both laughed.
“But now that Julia and Alison should be okay, at least you can focus all of that energy on your riding.”
“Yeah, if I didn’t have that dumb Homecoming nomination.”
I had to fight the urge to jump up and hug Heather. “I feel the same way! Everyone’s so excited—and that’s fine—but I didn’t ask to be nominated. I didn’t want to participate at all.”
“Me either. It’s all so lame.”
We smiled at each other. Real smiles. Something we actually agreed on. That was kind of happening more often.
“But,” Heather continued, “I don’t want to be completely consumed by riding again. I’ve done that my whole life. And I’ve …”
I let a few seconds go by before I asked, “You’ve what?”
Heather’s guard dropped in that moment. I saw it happen. Her tough girl attitude evaporated.
“I missed a lot,” Heather said, speaking slowly. “My dad was pushing me so hard about riding—and I loved it, really—but there was never a break. I was at a horse show every weekend, training before and after school. My life revolved around winning—not horses or how much I really do love them.”
I tried to keep a neutral expression on my face and not show how shocked I was that Heather Fox was admitting these things to me.
“So do you regret it?” I asked. “Working so hard and competing like you did?”
Heather shook her head. “Not for a second. Riding professionally is my dream, but it’s also got to be something I love doing. And when my dad’s obsessed with it and how many shows I can win, it’s not fun anymore. I almost gave up horses—my favorite thing—because of it.”
“Did you start riding because you wanted to compete?” I asked.
Heather laughed. “You won’t believe this, but I actually pleasure-rode first. I didn’t even think about showing until my trainer told my parents I had talent. Then, lessons went from once a week to three times a week and it escalated from there.”
“I’m coming from a different place, obviously,” I said. “My parents have been supportive of my riding, but they’re hands-off. They let me make the decisions about what I do. That’s worked great. Until now. They don’t see how many hours I’m really in the stable here, or how I’m obsessing over the tape for Mr. Nicholson. So we’re both getting pressured—you from your dad, and me from myself.”
Heather nodded. She didn’t look like she was going to blackmail me with something to be sure I’d never repeat any of this. She needed someone to talk to.
“You’re going to become me,” Heather said. “If you keep riding like you are, you’re going to be obsessed. You won’t be able to enjoy anything—movies, TV, whatever—because all you’ll be doing is thinking about what riding exercises you could be doing right now, how you messed up that oxer last week, and how many points you need to qualify for championships.”
I shifted on the couch. “I’m not obsessed with riding. I just have more time. And I needed to practice more anyway. But I’m not going to have as much time next week with—”
“Homecoming,” Heather said, finishing my sentence. “Lucky us—that’s going to be fantastic.” The sarcasm in Heather’s voice made me smile.
“Oh, please,” I said. “You know you want to win.”
Heather laughed. “You do. And you know it. But if either of us were to win, you know it would be me.”
She smirked at me and I was glad, strangely, to see that side of her back.
“On that note,” I said, “I’ve got to go.” I got up and opened the door. “I’ll probably win. Maybe that would make the whole thing worth it.”
“Oh, God,” Heather said. “Delusional, you poor thing.”
We both rolled our eyes at each other and I shut the door.
Walking out of Orchard, I felt better than I had in days. I’d never expected to have a real talk with Heather—especially not one where she opened up about her background with riding. We hated each other most of the time, but it got harder to dislike Heather every moment when we had interactions like that.
Inside Winchester, I walked down the hallway to my room but I stopped for a second, contemplating if I should chance run
ning into Jasmine in the common room and go there for a few more minutes to think more about what I would say to Paige.
I walked a few more steps, passing Jasmine’s room. Then I stopped. I backed up and noticed the door was open a few inches. I didn’t hear Jas inside, so maybe she’d forgotten to shut the door or something on her way out.
I knocked lightly and waited a few seconds. Silence. I pushed open the door, walked inside, and stopped in the center of her room, trying to process.
It felt like my brain had frozen and I couldn’t even understand what I was seeing.
The room was completely bare. Jas’s bed was stripped. Her desk, chair, and table were gone. The walls were free of posters and her closet doors were open, revealing nothing but a few empty hangers.
Julia and Alison had gotten their revenge.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Twenty-three-year-old Jessica Burkhart is a writer from New York City. Like Sasha, she’s crazy about horses, lip gloss, and all things pink and sparkly. Jess was an equestrian and had a horse like Charm before she started writing. To watch Jess’s vlogs and read her blog, visit www.jessicaburkhart.com.
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