I came into Caleb’s house, and Robbie was in the kitchen waiting for me with a cup of warm milk with honey in it. He had one for both of us, and I put my backpack down to take the mug from his hands. “Thank you.”
Robbie gave me a big smile and leaned over the island toward me. “Are the horses okay? Sorry I wasn’t able to come down to help put them in for the night.”
I shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. Took me maybe half an hour, and then Mom needed some help with stuff. What about you? Are you doing okay?”
He nodded. He looked sleepy, and he was already wearing his favorite lounge pants as his pajamas. They were Star Wars and had Darth Vader on them. And they were a bit big on him, so if he hadn’t had a shirt on maybe I would have been able to see his hips. But he wore a once-black shirt that had faded to medium gray. It had a horse on it, like most of his shirts did, though the horse had mostly been destroyed by repeated washings and now only the outline of the rearing horse was still visible against the background.
“You ready for bed?” he asked me.
“Always.”
He laughed and shook his head. There was a blush all over his cheeks.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”
He reached over and took my hand. We were headed upstairs seconds later. “I know you didn’t. You’re the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.”
Now I was the one laughing, because Robbie had never dated before me. Upstairs in his room, we lay together in his bed. We were allowed to keep the door closed, maybe because we didn’t do much. I wanted more, but I wasn’t going to upset him by pushing. We could wait. He’d be my boyfriend forever. I was so sure of that as he cuddled up against my chest, and I got to wrap my arms around him and kiss his bright red hair.
“Good night, Sam,” he said.
“Night, Robbie.” He was asleep within a few minutes. I was nearly asleep when he rolled over in my arms so he was facing me. His breathing had changed, and I knew he was having a nightmare. I was wide awake by the time he started struggling, so I was able to hold on to him. “Robbie, it’s me. It’s okay. I’m right here,” I whispered, hoping it would help calm him down.
He struggled, but soon he was relaxed and in my arms again. He’d beaten my chest a bit, but I’d been holding him so close he wasn’t able to get any leverage to really hit me. He would have been upset if he’d known he’d ever hurt me when he had his nightmares, so I never told him. I didn’t bruise that easily either, so he never had to know. With everything he’d been through between Dan and his older brother Daniel, I knew how upset Robbie would be if he ever, even once, thought he’d hurt me.
“Sam?” he finally whispered, once he’d stopped struggling against me.
I kissed him on his forehead and wished I could take away all of his nightmares. Sometimes he was fine and he was able to sleep through the night. But sometimes it was really bad, and he was hurting. “Yeah. It’s me. I’m right here.”
Robbie was shaking as he opened his eyes and looked at me. “That sucked.”
I didn’t have to ask him what he meant. Whatever he was dreaming about tonight, it had gotten to him. He rolled away from me and quietly got out of his bed. He had a mirror on the back of his door and he went to it and stripped off his shirt. Normally I left him alone while he saw for himself that there were no more bruises on his chest or stomach. But tonight I got out of bed too, and I wrapped my arms around him from behind. His shoulder was cold when I laid my cheek against his skin, and I hugged him tightly.
“No one is ever going to hit you again,” I promised him.
He covered my hands with his, and sighed. “I know. I mean, I really know that. It’s been a year. It’s just that sometimes….”
I nodded against his back. I didn’t say I knew what he was going through, because I didn’t. And I didn’t want to lie to him or diminish what he was feeling either. No one I’d ever trusted and loved, someone that I’d thought was my own father, had ever hit me. Sometimes I wanted to do bad things to Dan for ever making Robbie hurt or giving him this kind of lingering fear. But I knew if I ever acted out what I was thinking, that would make Robbie afraid of me too, and I never wanted that for him. He deserved better than that.
“Do you want to go back to bed?” I asked him.
Robbie shook his head. “That was a bad one. I don’t think I’d be able to sleep anymore tonight. What time is it?”
I had to let go of him to look at my phone to check the time, which I really didn’t want to do, but I wanted to give him an answer. I went quickly and was right back beside him seconds later. “About midnight.”
He groaned. “Shit. Why don’t you sleep here until morning? I’ll go down and watch TV.”
“You think I’m going to sleep in your bed without you? That’s crazy. I’m going to watch TV with you. Maybe we can find an old horror movie or something. Some good demon-possession thing where they climb on the ceilings and walk backward while they’re all bent over and being creepy.”
Robbie nodded, and we grabbed the blanket off his bed, and his discarded T-shirt, to head downstairs as quietly as we could. Since we were going to be up anyway, we stopped in the kitchen to grab some snacks. A few bags of chips, some sodas, and a couple of candy bars later, we were in the smaller TV room, which had a door we could close to block out some of the noise we’d be making. I didn’t want to wake anyone up and have them maybe think I didn’t need to be coming over to spend the night anymore.
We started on the couch, but halfway through the first movie in our low-budget horror movie marathon we ended up on his blanket in the middle of the floor with the snacks between us. I was never allowed to eat this at my house since my mom was big on the healthy food she made herself. I was pretty sure that Caleb had to sneak the junk food in when she wasn’t looking so he didn’t get in trouble for having it.
Close to four in the morning, the TV still going, Robbie laid his head on my chest and draped his leg over mine. I wrapped my arms around him and rubbed his back until he silently fell back to sleep. We were on the hardwood floor with only a blanket under us, and it wasn’t that comfortable, but if he was able to sleep like that, I wasn’t about to move him back to the couch.
WE WERE woken up at close to seven by Trent coming into the room. “Oh good,” he said. “You two weren’t kidnapped.”
I groaned as I looked over at him. “Was that even a question?”
Trent shrugged and sat down on the couch. He turned on the news and then took out his phone. “Caleb saw that Robbie’s bedroom door was open and you two weren’t in there. He jumped to the worst possible conclusion when you also weren’t in the barn.”
Robbie came awake slower than I did, and I let him go as he sat up on his knees. I didn’t even mind the spot of drool he left on my shirt. “You okay? Any more nightmares?”
Robbie glanced over at Trent before he shook his head and sat back on his butt. He still looked pretty freaked-out, and I got up to hug him and rest my head on his shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” I promised him.
He nodded and rubbed my arm before getting up. “We should get down to the barn. Trent, sorry we freaked out Uncle Caleb.”
Trent shrugged, but he was looking at Robbie. “If you’re still having nightmares, I think you should go talk to someone.”
Robbie stiffened, and I hurried up getting everything together so there was no trace we’d spent most of the night in the TV room instead of in his bedroom like we were supposed to. “I tried that. It didn’t work.”
“Okay.” Trent sounded like he was dropping it, but Trent was a cop, and he didn’t let things go that easily. “Well, if you change your mind….”
Robbie shrugged. “I doubt I will. But if something happens and I end up coming over to your side, I’ll let you know.”
“Sure you will, kid. Go let your uncle know you’re alive so he can relax. I texted him, but he’ll want to see you for himself.”
Robbie nodded and I fo
llowed him out of the TV room. While Caleb fussed over Robbie, I tossed out our trash and put his blanket back up in his room. Ben was coming out of the bathroom while I was gathering up my things. He smiled at me, and I thought he was going to go on down the hall, but then he stopped in the doorway to Robbie’s room. “Is Robbie okay?” he asked.
I frowned at him. I wasn’t sure what he was asking about. In what way? I had no clue. “Um. How? Why?”
Ben shrugged and rubbed his arms a bit. He had some hay on his long sleeves, which meant he’d probably already been out to the barn and had fed the horses for me. I felt crappy for oversleeping as long as I had. “I hear you guys talking sometimes at night. Not what you say or anything, but I can hear that you’re talking. He sounds upset a lot.”
Ben was a bit of a puzzle for me. Sometimes he could be sweet and actually want attention and affection from people, but most of the time he just seemed to want to be left alone. I figured it was what he’d seen Dan do to Robbie and the effects of not being able to protect his brother, even if Ben was younger than Robbie. “He gets scared sometimes,” I told Ben as quietly as I could manage.
“Because he thinks we’re going to get thrown out?”
I quickly shook my head. “No. Because he’s afraid your dad is going to come back.”
Ben backed up in a hurry, putting himself in the hallway and firmly out of Robbie’s room. “Is there a chance of that? Did he say that Dan was coming back?” He was trembling now as he looked up at me with wide eyes. And I’d never once heard him call his dad by his first name. When had that started?
I shook my head again. “He didn’t, and Dan’s not coming back.” That I knew of, but Ben was freaked-out enough without me trying to clarify things for him. “Not ever. Robbie just gets scared. He has nightmares of still being around him. You don’t have to worry about that.”
Ben gave me a nod and licked his lips like he might have been nervous about something. Like how his horse did when Ben asked Blue to cross a bridge and Blue didn’t want to. “I know I was weird about you two at first, but I’m glad you’re together now.”
That made me happy. My family loved Robbie, and I’d known Caleb most of my life, and Trent was cool. But I’d always wondered about Ben. Daniel was a lost cause, and if he fell off the planet, I’d be okay with that. But Ben was sometimes nice, and I’d had the feeling he didn’t hate us being together for a few months now. “Thanks. You should tell Robbie that. I think it would make him happy.”
Ben didn’t look so sure. “Maybe. I mean, we don’t talk all that much anymore.”
“Sam! We gotta go!” Robbie called from the kitchen. Caleb hated when he did that, but maybe Robbie was too tired to care right then.
I hurried past Ben. “Change that. He loves you.” I rushed down the stairs to catch up to Robbie, who was getting his boots on.
“What took you so long?” he asked. He wasn’t being mean, but he did look a bit grumpy.
I came up and kissed him on the lips, just a little fast kiss. “For being rude,” I told him before he could ask me why I’d kissed him.
Robbie grinned at me and took a kiss from me too. “For being cute. And for caring about me.” I’d barely had time to get my shoes on before he was out the door. A quick stop at my house to drop off my stuff, and then we were in the barn and taking care of our horses.
Chapter Nineteen
Robbie
I WAS thinking about what Trent had said about me going back to therapy as I took Witchcraft out of her stall. I played with her mane as she stood tied to the door of her stall, eating a bit of grain Sam had put in a pan by her feet. Her grain was a sweet treat, but the grain Sam gave to Magic was to keep his joints healthy in his old age.
He was considered elderly now, and if Sam had ever worked the old gelding hard in the past, he would have had to cut back now. I highly doubted that Sam had ever actually worked Magic a day in his life since Uncle Caleb had started fostering, and later adopted, him.
Sam would have probably disagreed with me on that point. But then again he thought taking Magic around the arena for an hour at a walk was good exercise for him. And, at Magic’s age, maybe it was.
But with Witchcraft I worked her until she was sweating. It usually seemed to be the only way to make her happy and relaxed. When she was worked hard she was calm and supple in my hands. She wasn’t ever spooky, even when I was hurt and hadn’t ridden her for a few weeks, on doctor’s orders.
I never worked her hard enough to leave her shaking, because I considered that to be on the level of abuse, and I would never hurt my mare. She was my best friend just like Sam was. This morning we played one of our favorite games together while I considered Trent’s words and the faraway possibility of maybe, someday, going back to therapy.
While we were alone in the pasture together and Sam had Magic, Blue, and Hawk in another pasture, I put a sugar cube in my hand and backed away from Witchcraft. She followed me easily, as she always had, and I used the sugar cubes in my pockets to make her stretch her neck for the treats and also to bend her neck down. She’d be doing all of that on her own anyway, but by doing these range-of-motion types of exercises with her, I was able to see if she had any stiffness or soreness going on by how far she was willing to let me stretch her out. There was nothing wrong with her this morning, and for a long time, while Sam let the horses chase him around the pasture, I stood there with my mare, just running my fingers through her long black mane.
Did I want to go back to therapy? Not really. I’d gone a few times, last year, and I hadn’t enjoyed it at all. But maybe that was the point. Having nightmares almost every night was pretty exhausting, and I was sure it wasn’t any easier for Sam when I woke him up too. The nightmares had been getting fewer in number since they’d started a year and a half ago, and they were definitely easier to get over now that I had Sam sleeping next to me every night, but I missed not being afraid to go to sleep.
Ben still went to therapy, but we never talked about why or if it was helping him get over what we’d been through. Just every Saturday Uncle Caleb took him into Denver, and they came back a few hours later. I could have asked Ben about it, and I was sure he would have told me, but I didn’t really think his mental issues were any of my business.
We were brothers and always would be, but losing Mom and what Dan had done to me had messed us all up. Ben and I, we were better, but I wanted us to be how we were back before Mom died.
What Daniel had said about how Ben would have been if I’d been aborted still hurt a lot of the time. Sure he’d been angry, and maybe he hadn’t been totally honest about how he felt. But I knew there was plenty of truth in his words. Because I knew if I hadn’t ever been born, Daniel and Ben would have been okay. But I couldn’t wish that had happened, not when I knew how much it would have hurt Sam.
That my big brother hated me and blamed me for everything that had gone wrong in his life had hurt at first, but the truth was getting easier to deal with. As long as I didn’t think about it, I was generally fine. But I still had nightmares all the time and they left me shaking and exhausted. Maybe I did need to go see someone to talk about my issues. I definitely had plenty of them. But maybe all I really needed right now was just a good night’s sleep for once. I felt like I was always running on empty.
I took Witchcraft to the pasture to be with the other horses, and then I met Sam in the barn where he was busy mucking out the stalls.
“Hey, how’s Witchcraft?” he asked as I grabbed a pitchfork to start helping him with the morning barn chores. I wished I had come in earlier, because he was nearly done clearing out the soiled hay and leaving new bedding in the stalls, so I wasn’t really able to help much at all.
“She’s good,” I told him.
Sam smiled, and we finished clearing out Blue’s stall. We didn’t ever touch Cleric’s old stall. We’d cleaned it out right after his death, but after that had been done, that was it. There was dust on his stall door and some mice were living
in the corners of his old stall, making their home among the wood as they chewed on it. It had always sucked to compete against Daniel and Cleric, but I missed seeing Cleric around, and I really missed Daniel.
“Do you think I need therapy?” I asked Sam when the last thing to do was wipe down the saddles with a bit of leather oil to keep them from cracking in the dry Colorado air.
He raised his eyebrows at. “You’re asking me that?”
I shrugged. “Well, yeah.” Why wouldn’t I be asking him that? He was my boyfriend, my best friend, and I loved him. Of course I wanted his opinion of my sanity.
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
He nodded, and smiled at me to soften that blow to my ego. “Maybe you’ll get something from a shrink that will help you sleep.”
I hadn’t thought of it like that. “Maybe. But you really think I’m crazy?”
“Isn’t that all relative?”
I frowned.
“But no, I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you need to be able to sleep without waking up and having to check yourself for new bruises to make sure you don’t have any.”
I chuckled at how blunt he always was with me and slowly nodded. Because he was right. That was what I was doing. And it sucked that I had to make sure my nightmares hadn’t suddenly become my reality again. We put the soiled bedding in the compost pile, and then we put the pitchforks back in the toolshed.
“Are you going to give therapy another try, then?” Sam asked.
I shrugged. I wasn’t really sure yet. “Maybe. Would you mind?”
Sam shook his head. “Why would I? I want you happy. This is something that might help you with that. Of course I’m on board with it.”
“Or it could be a total bust,” I grumbled.
Sam leaned over and kissed my cheek. “You won’t know until you try.”
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