Pas(sade) de Cheval

Collected Trot

Ryan was laying in his bunk on the trailer, getting more angry by the moment. They weren't parked anywhere near Brendon's tent; in fact, they were about as far away as possible, as per the instructions he'd given to Spencer. Despite all this, he could distinctly hear the laughing and singing that was coming from Brendon's impromptu party. 

Spencer's soft snoring drifted down to him from the bunk above, and he could see Shane and Zack sleeping across the aisle. It seemed he was the only one being kept up, but he still found it rude that they would be so loud when some people needed to be up bright and early. This wasn't any old show; the top places for the 3* level would qualify for the Olympics, and that had been Ryan's dream for as long as he could remember. 

He growled in the back of his throat, finally deciding he wouldn't put up with it for a second longer, and swung his legs out of the bunk. He quietly made his way to the front of the trailer, slipping the first pair of boots he could find on. They must have been Zack's based on the size, but it didn't seem important as he marched across the grass towards the sound, boots flopping on his feet. 

Weaving through parked cars, trailers, and tents, he was able to hear the voices before he could see the source. He was about to emerge from behind a truck when he realized it was Brendon's voice speaking, and when he heard his own name, he froze on the spot listening. 

"It's just complicated I guess." Brendon said a little more quietly.

"Duuude! Tell usss!" A fairly inebriated-sounding voice yelled. 

"I used to ride at Ryan's barn. Like six years ago. Haven't seen him since." Brendon said. There were sounds of laughing and jostling as people prompted him to continue.

"It's not like it's an interesting story." There was a moment of silence before he acquiesced. Ryan wasn't sure what made him open up, but he curiously hung off every word coming out of the man's mouth. "Look. I... always had a crush on Ryan. Like from the first moment I met him when we were 12, he was everything to me..." The silence that had taken over since he started speaking was somehow heavier than it had been before, as if everyone was holding their breaths. "I, of course, never told him this. What were the chances he was gay too? He'd never hinted at it in any way, and trust me when I say I was trying really hard to see even the slightest hint at it." 

Ryan was in shock. Not in a, oh wow I didn't know that, but now I do, kind of way. In the full blown, catatonic, could knock me over with a feather, kind of way. He had no clue that Brendon ever felt like that. Ryan had been too wrapped up with being a self-conscious, insecure teen to pick up on that at all.

"Anyway, cut forward a few years. I've been silently pining. He's been being a good friend to me, but, he's Ryan, you know?" There was a murmured chorus of agreement from the people listening, and while Ryan had no idea what that meant, he knew he felt offended by it. "One day, I decided obsessing about him was getting a little pathetic, so I vowed to move on. Until that point, riding had been a hobby for me. It allowed me to spend time with Ryan, and I enjoyed it, but I'd never seen it as the thing I was going to spend the rest of my life doing. 

"I threw myself into it wholly. I thought about nothing else, and eventually I started getting better. That really killed my friendship with Ryan. He hated being shown up, and now that I was actual competition for him... Well, I ended up switching barns, because we couldn't stop fighting. And I haven't really seen him since." His voice trailed off.

"Yeah, that sounds just like Ross." The drunken voice returned. "Has to be the bloody best at everything." 

"Gabe, that's not fair..." Brendon began, but another voice cut him off.

"No Bren, he's right. I've never talked to Ryan, but if your friendship blew up like that because he couldn't handle you being a good rider, then fuck that guy."

Ryan couldn't stand listening to another moment of the conversation. He stumbled backwards blindly, getting out of earshot before breaking into as fast of a run as he could manage with the oversized boots on. The flopping sounds of his feet on the ground would have been comical if his mind hadn't been overwhelmed with what he'd just heard. 

He wanted to wake Spencer and demand to be told if he'd known about Brendon's crush. He got to the door of the trailer and stopped, his hand resting on the handle. He trusted Spencer, and Spencer had known how Ryan felt back then during their fights. There was no way he would have kept a secret like that from Ryan. He dropped his hand, deciding it was unfair to wake him when he needed rest for tomorrow. There was no way Ryan could go to sleep anytime soon, so he turned and wandered in the direction of the stables. He needed someone to talk to, as his thoughts were coming too quickly and too jumbled to be made sense of. 

He entered the dark barn and made his way to Betty's stall, sliding the door open and going in. She was curled up in the corner, making soft huffing noises in her sleep. Ryan squated in front of her, running his hand along her neck and taking some deep breaths to calm himself. He eventually sat down against her, his head resting on her back as he whispered the words that wouldn't stop attacking him. "How is his side of the story so different to what I thought had happened? He says he liked me? He thinks we started fighting because he got better at riding?" 

He didn't know when he'd started crying, but suddenly there were drops falling steadily onto Betty's coat as his voice broke. Betty nuzzled Ryan's side with her nose, having woken up from the noise he was making. He gasped a ragged breath and softly stroked down the center of her face. "I'm okay." He said mostly to himself. "You can't change the past." He scratched behind her ear as she sleepily closed her eyes again. 

"I'm being stupid." He sighed, roughly wiping the remaining tears from his face with the back of his hand. "Tomorrow we get one step closer to our dreams." He pressed his face into her tear-damp coat, muffling his words that were really only meant for him anyway. "Nothing else matters." He stated with a complete lack of conviction.

He left Betty to sleep in her stall and snuck back into his bunk in the trailer. The party had ended since he'd left, and the hush left behind felt oppressive as he laid in the darkness feeling empty. His head had a sharp pain from crying, and he was struggling to picture anything other than Brendon's face when he closed his eyes. He saw him as he was now: older, confident, smiling. He saw him as he'd been when they first met: a young kid, timid, smiling. And he saw him as he'd been when they parted ways: defiant, hurt, and not smiling. 

He couldn't help feeling responsible for taking his smile away.