To Be Flying Again (completed)

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE RESCUE PART 2

POV: JUAN

I had decided it...

I had decided that I was going to visit Calla in the hospital, something I hadn't found the confidence to do for the last two weeks. I still felt really guilty about the accident, despite Carl, Derreck, and Shila telling me otherwise.

I had a long talk with Shila, where she told me that Calla didn't blame me for the accident nor the death of Blaze, she was just happy that nothing happened to me or Castor. Shila also told me that Calla was extremely sad and crushed over Blaze's death, but that she was slowly healing like she was supposed to do.

But the truth is that she wasn't supposed to be grieving or healing. She was supposed to have fun training with Blaze and be getting ready for the outdoor competition season.

I had made sure that everything was ready yesterday so that I would have no excuse to back out of it. I had bought her favorite flowers, white roses, yesterday at the local florist and a little brown teddy bear, where it said "get well soon" on its stomach. I had checked the visiting hours at the hospital a least a few hundred times, note my sarcasm, and checked how long it would take me to drive there in my pickup truck.

And the most important thing of all. I have a plan. And that plan was following, I would arrive approximately forty-five minutes before visiting hours was over, and then I would find the room she was in, then I would give her the roses and apologize for not coming and visit her sooner, then I would give her the teddy bear, and tell her that I hoped that she would get well soon. Then I would have to leave since visiting hours would be over. And hopefully, in all that time I would still be alive and not eaten away by guilt.

I get into my car, turning the engine on and start my thirty minutes drive to the hospital. The scenery slowly changes from the grasslands on my right and the forest to my left to farmlands. The corn is growing and adding yellow color to the world and cows is grazing peacefully at the opposite side of the road. I jam to Bryan Adams Summer of 69 when I spot horses in the corner of my eye. I can't help but look when I see horses. Horse people call it horse-loving-syndrome, and all that loves horses have it. 

I slow down so I can look at them, which is something I do every time I see horses while I am driving. But this time I don't just slow down, no, I stop the car. The two horses that are standing in the bare small pen. There is no grass and from what I can see no water or a place for water, but that wanst what made me stop, no. The two horses are thin, too thin, even though I am about thirty yards away, I can see their ribs under the dull fur. 

I don't even think twice. I put my car in reverse and back to the driveway, so I can drive up to the house. I turn off my car, before going up to the front door, of a house that looks like it is on is last days. I knock on the door and wait when nothing happens I knock again a little harder. I know that there should be someone home since there is an old car parked beside the house.

I am startled when that front door is opened aggressively and a man, that is clearly angry,  yells at me "WHAT?"

There go a few seconds before I have regained my composure enough to answer him. "Sir, are the horses in the pen yours?" I try to sound friendly since I don't want him to get any more angry that he already is.

"Yea, and so what?" He answers me grumpy, now looking more annoyed than angry. 

"I was driving by and saw that they are very thin, and I was just wondering why." I smile at him.

"That is none of your business, they are my horses, not yours." he leaned in closer to me, so we are face to face and I could smell the alcohol on him like it was cologne, but since the stench also came out of his mouth I can easily tell that it is not cologne.

"Of course not." I step back to put some space between us.

He gave me a mocking smile "You bet it ain't"

"Would you be willing to sell your horses, to me?" I couldn't leave them with this man, that clearly didn't care for them. It was abuse, and no horse deserves that kind of fate.

"sell them?" He looked at me like I had lost it, and I had probably lost it, I couldn't afford to feet three horse, but I couldn't leave them with him either. "Why should I sell them to you?"

"Well if you sold them, you no longer had to take care of them, and you would earn some quick cash," I told him straight out. If he was drinking as much as his smell was telling me, he probably wanted to earn some quick cash so he could buy more alcohol. 

"I want one thousand for them," he gave me a sly smile. 

"Deal," I quickly said, so he wouldn't change his mind. I knew that I had a little over a thousand left in my bank account since it was the end of the month.

"Each."

"What?"

"I want a thousand dollars for each horse." My smile disappeared fast, I knew that I didn't have two thousand dollars, to pay him. But I couldn't live with my self if I didn't get them out of his care. 

"Okay, deal."

"Good. I want them in cash" 

"Sure" I knew that he wanted them in cash because you could use them faster that way. "I will come back in an hour, with your money and to take the horses with me." 

"That's fine, I just want my money." When he closed the door I walked back to my car and started driving back to the barn. I would talk to Carl about lending my the rest of the money to the horses and then I would pay him back when I got paid by my job.

While I was driving back to the barn I could only think: "So much for my plan, I had just wasted my chance to visit Calla in the hospital and my two weeks of nerves to visit her. But hopefully, she would understand that I couldn't leave the horses there. 

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A/N

So my original plan was two divided chapter seven into two parts, but it is going to be in three parts or the chapter would be 2000-3000 words and I thought that it would be bit much when my other chapters are a little over 1000 words each.