Bloodless Day

Before

Life was unsettling outside of the barn.

Or maybe it wasn't life. Maybe it was something less. The time spent at Piperson Farms felt real- the whicker of horses, the whirring of fans, the waterfall of grain and a bucket. The pressing heat of oncoming summer, wooden stall doors splintering into my hands, the feel of muscles sliding against skin beneath my palm.

Instead I was in a room painted glittery blue and purple by a series of cleverly placed lights. People I'd spent the past two years of my life but barely knew whirled past, all hairspray and corsets and sleek dresses and shining smiles. Only two hours before had found me in the bathroom, vigorously scrubbing dirt from my fingernails. And now, as Jack moved in his chair- normal, not wheel-, I caught a whiff of horse. It would take far longer than a day to wash the years of the barn off of him.

"Are you sure you don't want to dance?" Jack asked for the third time. "I can stand it- pun intended."

"No," I said firmly. "You're only masking the pain, not getting rid of it."

"I shouldn't have told you," he grumbled.

In anticipation of a night on his feet, the jockey had been stupid enough to overdose on pain killers and stupid enough to tell me he had. So while Lilac and Ned (snuck in with a twenty pressed into the palm of a security guard) and Mary and her girlfriend and Wes and some hapless senior she'd convinced into loving her for the night danced, Jack sulked and I simmered in the corner, anxiously smoothing down my awkward red dress. Every writer in those corny books who sent their characters to dances in the perfect dress had no idea how reality worked. Desses did not flow. They rode up on your leg and caught on the zipper of some girl's purse and nearly got you arrested for theivery. Flow? Hah.

"You look nice," Jack offered. A sort of apology.

I shot him a glower. "I'm only mad at you because I care about you."

He snorted. "I should've brought my wheelchair."

"We would've cleared the dance floor with that thing."

Jack said something else, but my mind had darted ahead, to the morning. Back at Piperson, everything was packed and ready to go- saddles, bridles, coolers, buckets and feed and everything else three DoomsDay stallions could possibly need for Churchill Downs. For the Kentucky Derby. But was BD ready? He'd been firing up ever since our lightning-streaked gallop, but he was still quieter than usual. No challenging screams pierced the air, no striking hooves flashed towards unsuspecting grooms. Most people would not complain about the lack of bad behavior, but....

"You're not happy," Jack observed suddenly, pulling me back into the moment. He studied me with narrowed eyes, a twisted mouth, as though I were an unasked question he wanted the answer to. "And neither am I. Do you want to leave?"

It was nearly midnight. We had no vehicle and no wheelchair and our friends were too occupied with each other to bother with us.

I said, "let's go visit BD."

~~~

Piperson Farms was invisible, shadowed and hidden under a blanket of night. Shining silver patches of moonlight against grass shrouded the ground in a silk veil, beaded with the pearls of the horses. Despite the summer descending upon Kentucky, it was cool out. I shivered, and then shivered again as Jack leaned over me to stare out the bus window.

"Home," he said longingly, simply.

The bus driver shot us an annoyed look. "Is this your stop or not?"

Laughing, Jack withdrew and grabbed my hand. For a moment, it felt as though he'd pull me up, but then his balance faltered and I was forced to offer a shoulder, keep him standing.