Midnight rider

Part 5

I have decided not to tell Donne about vore. From attempting to teach him about real life, I have realized that he is far too pure to be tainted by the monstrosity that is vore I'm walking into the hallway to get ready for breakfast, and I see Donne walking out of his room at the same time as me.

"What a crazy random happenstance," I say, nodding to him. He looks pretty good in the morning, I have to admit. With his hair all messed up, and his golden eyes half closed with tiredness.   Then I stop myself. Why am I thinking these things? Don't I like Noel?

Then again, it's not like I'm ever going to see him again. Like, ever again. Or at least for several years, and won't he have moved on by then anyway? Also, he hasn't been responding to my texts. I know that it's stupid and petty for me to care about, but he said that he wouldn't forget about me. Right? I haven't forgotten about him. I still think about him, I still wish.  . . not that it matters anyway. Nothing will change the fact that I live in the country with my crazy, horse-obsessed parents and an isolated country boy.   

"Well, you're just a joy in the morning, aren't you?" I say to Donne when he doesn't respond.

"Not a morning person," he mumbles, slowly heading down the stairs.

"Couldn't sleep?" I could hear him tossing and turning last night. And talking in his sleep. The walls in this house are annoyingly thin.

He nods, and I follow him downstairs. My parents have already prepared breakfast, and they're sitting down. They look up as Donne and I walk in.

"Come join us, kids," they say in unison. Ugh. A family breakfast. I don't know why my parents are pretending that our fight never happened, but I'm cool with it. As long as I don't get further punished, I suppose a breakfast with both Donne and my parents is surviveable.

Of course, the moment we sit down, my parents strike up a conversation with Donne about horses. I zone out for a while until I hear Donne mention my name.

"Huh?" I glance up from my cereal. 

"Donne was just telling us about how you two were working with Midnight," says my Dad. "That's wonderful!"

I force a smile. "Yeah, I'm. . . looking forward to it." 

Then my parents and Donne continue chatting about country things that i couldn't care less about, and I sort of stare into my space as i eat, occasionally adding in a "yeah," or "sure" to satisfy my parents. I've been doing it for the past  two years. My parents are smart, but they're pretty oblivious to when I'm not engaged in a conversation. 

Eventually we've all eaten and my parents have run out of things to talk about, so my mom says cheerfully, "well, why don't you guys go work with Midnight for a little while. We can come down to check on you later."

Check on me? What am I, 6 years old? The stables are like, 20 feet away.  But at this point I'm honestly grateful to have a excuse to get away. 

"Right then, let's go," I say to Donne. I tug at his arm and he follows me out to see the horses. 

"I don't know how you do that," I say to him as we walk. "Talk to my parents for so long about all that stuff."

"Pretty easy, really," he replies. "I just bring up some subject, they talk about it with each other for like 10 minutes, and then I casually segue into something else horse-related."

I laugh. "I'll take that into consideration." We reach the stables. I open the door with a creak, and more light streams into the room. It could really use some fixing up, I think as I examine the peeling red paint on the door.