Heartlines

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Wednesday went by a lot slower than the other few days of the week had. It seemed to drag on, sitting through all my classes with the same level of interest (or lack thereof), and one thing on my mind- tomorrow. Of course, I was left with a ton of homework. Story of my life, it seemed.

After picking Navy up and driving on home, I decided to get started right away so that I could get to the barn. Navy started pestering me before I got my Calculus finished, asking for things to do. It was clear he was bored. “Little man, I can’t help you right now. See all this?” I gestured to all the paperwork laid out on my desk, “I’ve got to get all this done as quickly as I can. I want to get to the barn before it’s too late for me to ride. Why don’t you see what mom has for you to do? I’m sure she’d love for you to lift her spirits a bit,” I smiled and tried to be as cheery about it as possible, masking my annoyance. Not from Navy, but from my homework, though he certaintly wasn’t helping the case too terribly much. Finally he nodded and proceeded to head down the stairs, back to the living room.

I returned to my work, but not before catching a glance of the drawing I had been working on of Kiro. I looked back at my work, then back to the sketch, then back to the work again, before finally throwing my pencil down and walking out the door. Math can wait.

~*~

I walked into the arena on Kiro on a nice, loose rein. Trina was sitting patiently on the mounting block, waiting for us to come on in. “I thought you said you had tons of work to do?” She asked me, “It wasn’t but an hour after three; took me longer than that to do work for six classes when I was your age.” We both chuckled a bit, then I explained that it could wait until I was finished with my job here. “Yeah,” She scoffed, “Some chore you have here! You get to ride your horse, ride a few more, clean some stalls, call it a day. Wish this was my only job, that’s for sure!” We chatted back and forth a bit while me and Kiro warmed up, doing some nice walking exercises to get him all loosened up. After a bit of working trot, we were ready to get into the lesson.

The ride consisted of mostly flatwork, since Trina knew we had been working hard yesterday at Jared’s. Though, as far as she knew, we had just done some very simple jumping exercises. Which wasn’t being dishonest, but her definition of ‘simple’ corresponded with Hunter work; not exactly rollbacks and adding/subtracting distances to the extremes that we were. In all honesty, I probably could have told her all about my trip and have no harm done - those types of things were useful in the Hunter ring, just as they were in Jumpers – but I knew, as training progressed, she would have to be in the dark about the work I would be doing over fences. So it was best for her to never really have any good, solid details, so that it wouldn’t be suspicious later on. This sucked for me, as I hated lying to her. “Oh well,” I thought aloud, “Just a little white lie, won’t hurt anybody.”

After ending the lesson with some 2’3” lines and a good cool down, I dismounted and untacked Kiro. I groomed him next, making sure to get every little hair on his body all cleaned and sweat free. I had always been a huge stickler on grooming, and knew it’s importance. This time, though, I noticed he was wincing a bit over the saddle area. “You alright, buddy?” I asked him, wishing I could get a reply. I massaged the area a bit, hoping it was just a small muscle catch. After leaving it and coming back to it with the same wincing motion, I decided to call tomorrow’s ride off. “That’s alright buddy. I’ll check your saddle out, see if I can get another saddle pad to go over your square one. Maybe I can find one in black sheepskin to go with your red! Wouldn’t that be nice, Kiro? In the meantime, you can have tomorrow off to rest up. We don’t want his back too sore!” I gave him some more pats and love, then sent him in his stall. After fixing his feed and water, I decided it would be good to call Jared and let him know about tomorrow.

After two rings, he answered the phone. “Hey Krista Kat! How’s my best friend?” I smiled, though there was no one but the horses to see it, “Pretty good, but afraid I’ve hit a bump in the road for the moment,” I explained the situation with Kiro, and how I didn’t want to work him tomorrow. “Aw, send the big guy my best wishes! I’m sure he’ll be just fine in a day, I should have told you that all that jumping and riding could stretch him a bit thin, since he hasn’t done much speed stuff like that. I’m sorry, Kat.”

He sounded extremely guilty, as if it was all his fault, “Don’t be sorry, Jared, soreness happens! I’m not mad or anything, I just wanted to let you know I couldn’t ride tomorrow,” After a short pause, I shyly added, “You still up for that pizza, though?” I figured it would still be nice to hang out after I left the barn tomorrow, I always loved having things to do. “Yea! That sounds awesome! Just drive over after you get done at Trina’s, maybe we can catch a movie or something with the extra time. See ya then, Kat!” I laughed, and said my goodbyes, before doing the same with Trina, and also telling her my plans with Kiro. “Okay then,” she started, “Since Kiro will be off, that gives you some space to get some of the other horses worked. No worries, I’ll turn you loose early enough to hang out with your boyfr- I mean, guy friend.” She smiled cunningly and winked, and all I could do was smile and shake my head. “Will do, Trina. I’ll be here right after school!”

It was then that my eyes grew twice their size, and I snapped my watch up to my face. 9:30. “Oh crap!” I bolted out the door, with Trina’s, “what’s wrong?!” falling behind me. As I ran out the door, I barely had time to make out, “homework! I still haven’t done it,” before jumping in the truck to get home. My mom was going to kill me.