His breath left his chest, and he tucked her back into his embrace. “I got tested right before I came to New York. I’m sorry, Harper. That’s on me, I should’ve been more careful.”
The close call woke sleeping demons inside. All the reasons she never wanted children whispered in her ear, and she squeezed her eyes shut, shivering slightly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
The past and present shimmered together, merging in a blurred memory that demanded her attention. She hadn’t thought about it in so long. Buried the truth under so much rubble, she’d thought it was dead forever.
But it wasn’t. Her talk with Ophelia had stirred the monsters up. And they had never been far from the surface. Here in the dark, in his arms, feeling safer than she ever had before, she realized she wanted to tell one person what had happened.
Just one.
“I was bullied when I was young.”
His arms tightened around her. She waited for his questions, but he settled into a silence that told her he’d spend the whole night listening. She felt like a ravaged animal, not sure if she was ready to take the leap into trust, but his hand gently closed around hers, as if trying to give her his strength.
“I was always ridiculously tall for my age. At fourteen, I looked like a freak, towering over everyone in the school. I’d been teased for years because I was pretty shy and awkward. I never felt like I fit into any groups. There was one girl I hung out with who was supersmart, but she was a nerd and that didn’t really help my popularity.”
She forced a half laugh, desperately trying to lighten the mood. Her palms began to sweat, but when she tried to pull away, he held her tight, refusing to let her do it alone.
“A few new girls started at my school. They seemed to have everything—money, beauty, and an ability to dazzle any boy they wanted. Everyone loved them. Begged to be part of their group, or sit with them at lunch, or be invited to their after-school parties. It would have been fine, I think, if they hadn’t focused on me. This girl named Lyndsey was the leader of their crew. For some weird reason, she hated me immediately.”
Her heart beat off-key, and she dragged in a breath, trying to push through. Panic edged her nerves, but damned if she wasn’t going to finally say it aloud. Just this once.
“At first, they were really mean. They’d gather around my locker to taunt me and make fun of me in the cafeteria. I started to dread school. But then one day, they started being nice to me. Invited me to sit with them at lunch. Asked me to hang out after school. I was so damn relieved; I actually believed they liked me. Until they sprang this awful prank in front of everyone, and I realized the whole thing had been a setup.”
She clenched her fists but kept talking, desperate to get through it. “Then the torture really began. Every day, they did something to make my life miserable. They got the entire school in on the action, until I felt like every morning, I was entering a battlefield. I began to have anxiety attacks, so I isolated myself from my family to hide it. I spent most of my time around the horses and the barn to keep my distance. I was humiliated. Ophelia and Ethan loved school. They had friends and social lives and everything seemed so easy. They always hung out together with Kyle and did stuff. They were talented. I felt like . . . nothing.”
She paused. Took a few more moments to settle. Then finished.
“I knew I had two more years left of high school. Two years of isolation, and mocking, and pain. I didn’t think I could survive it. So, one day, I made my decision. My mom hated taking meds, so she’d shove her old bottles into her bathroom cabinet, unused. She’d had mouth surgery, and I knew there was a full bottle of Percocet. I took it as a sign, so one day after school, I swiped the bottle. Ethan and Ophelia were in after-school activities. My mom had gone to the horse auction. I’d have several hours before anyone would find me.
“I went to the barn. I decided it was the only place I ever felt good about myself, so it should be the place I say goodbye. We’d gotten a fairly new rescue called Jiminy Cricket. A white mottled gelding. He’d been quiet and withdrawn. Mom had been steadily working with him, but he wasn’t responsive. Anyway, for some reason, I decided to take the pills in his stall. Not really sure what I was thinking, but a part of me almost believed he’d understand. He had this look in his eyes, a look that said he’d met a lot of bad people in the world. I sat down in his stall, on a fresh pile of hay, and opened the bottle. I shook out the pills and stared at them for a long time. I thought about leaving a note, but I didn’t know what to say. I thought about how many pills would do the job and decided on all of them. I was sitting there, thinking through the details, and suddenly, Jiminy Cricket came over and began nudging me. I patted his nose, not really thinking about how it was the first time he seemed to respond to anybody, and then he got a bit crazy.”
The image of the horse was ingrained in her brain. The desperate glint sparking from his big brown eyes. The almost-panicked air as he butted and nudged her body, trying to get her to focus on him for attention. The soft whinnies from his mouth.
Harper cleared her throat. “He just started nipping at my hair and butting me like he was trying to tell me something. I petted him at first. Then tried to ignore him. Then pushed him away. But he kept getting worse, so I put the cap back on the bottle and laid it down beside me. And the strangest thing happened then. That horse just lay down right in his stall and put his head in my lap.” She shook her head. “Horses don’t do that. He acted like some oversize lap dog and just plopped himself as close as possible, and his neighing was like whimpering, and all I could do was stroke him and kiss his head and tell him everything was going to be okay.
“That’s when I realized he knew I was going to kill myself. And he didn’t want me to. I think Jiminy Cricket knew if I quit on life, there’d never be hope for him, either. In that moment, we were connected. He’d been sent to me with a message. And I made my decision not to let those girls win. That I was worth living a big, beautiful life. That I wasn’t ugly, and stupid, and useless. I cried for hours in the stall, with my arms wrapped around Jiminy Cricket, and he never moved. When I was done, I returned the bottle of pills to my mother’s cabinet. I told no one. But the next day, my mother told me Jiminy Cricket had become a different horse. He was responding to her, and had begun to eat, and play in the pasture with the other horses, and became happy again.”
A smile curved her lips. “He was adopted six months later by a family who fell in love with him at first sight. I visited him all the time, and he finally had the perfect home, just like he was meant to.”
“And you?” His voice came out like rough gravel. “What about you?”
Her smile grew bigger. “I decided I’d spend my days making sure as many animals as possible get their second chance. Just like Jiminy Cricket gave to me. I still had a tough two years. Not much changed about their behavior, but I had changed my reaction. I knew I was trapped in a tiny droplet of time, but there was a massive ocean of years out there, waiting for me. I just needed to do the best I could until things changed, and they did. I graduated high school, and I never looked back. I decided not to have children. The world is too painful, and I feel like I could do better taking care of animals who needed me. Maybe I lost a few things along the way. But overall? I love every moment of my life. And I owe it to that horse.”