Page 12 of Chaos

“Hey.” Cutting myself off mid-thought, I interrupt Eliza mid-sentence too, shifting to peer at her in the backseat. “You said Grace isgone?”

Unbothered by the interruption, my little sister practically vibrates with excitement as she blurts, “She got a contract.”

“With who?”

Eliza rattles off the name of a soccer team I know just about everything about.

“Huh.” Slumping against the window, I stare unseeingly at the passing scenery.

Grace got a contract. Not justacontract, butthecontract, with the women’s soccer team she’s been obsessed with since we were, like, five. My twin is doing exactly what she always wanted, what she worked like a dog to be able to do. She got her dream.

And I wasn't there to see it happen.

And I got… nothing.

I don’t say another word for the rest of the drive.

4

He wonders how many people have even seen that smile before.

He finds unfathomable, inexplicable, ridiculous pleasure in being one of them.

The first timemy parents split up, I wasn’t even born yet.

I don’t know when they got back together. I don’t know why. I just know that two-and-half-ish years later, Grace and I arrived. If the photos in our lone family album are anything to go by, our dad didn’t stick around much longer than our first birthday. I don’t think he made it any farther for Eliza—by the time she learned to walk, the last time she saw him had come and gone.

The last timewesaw him. Me and my sisters, at least. Jackson is another story—the sacred bond between father and son granted him at least half a dozen more meetings than the rest of us got combined.

I look like him, apparently. I have his hazel eyes and his lean, long build and I look more white than I do Japanese,more like him than I do Mom, but I can’t even conjure up a clear image of the man. I look like someone I don’t even know. I look like someone who got his parents to squirrel me and my siblings away like five dirty little secrets on the land they own in the middle of nowhere—owned, I should say, considering Jackson bought it from our grandparents a few years ago, the last time we ever saw them. The land our mom abandoned us on. The land our grandparents used as a hiding place for their son’s illegitimate brood—actual words I heard from my grandmother’s mouth once.

The land we crossed onto a few minutes ago, much to the disdain of my rolling stomach.

Serenity.

Horse rescue. Dude ranch.Home.

All of those things and so much more.

By the time a handful of achingly familiar structures come into view, I’m sweating. Breathing heavy. On the verge of suffering one of the panic attacks my twin has struggled with our entire lives.

I don’t want to do this. I can’t even remember why I’m doing it. I consider it a small miracle when, instead of pulling up outside the main house, Finn parks in front of the older of the two red barns I used to spend a whole lot of my time in. Before the engine even turns off, I slip out of the truck and dart through the ajar sliding door, breathing a ragged sigh of relief when no one follows me. Putting off the inevitable is probably a shitty idea, but I’ve always been rolling in those. No point turning a new leaf now.

The old barn looks the same as it always has. Old and airy and sectioned into a dozen stalls. As the familiar earthy scent fills my nostrils, the sound of soft whickering reaches my ears. Trepidation tightening my stomach, I limp towards the stall Ifrequented the most, my eyes all but closed as I half-expect to find it empty.

When I don’t, the relief is nothing short of immense. This, I can freely muster up a smile for—for the roan Appaloosa mare tossing her mane and nickering lowly, I always could.

“Daphne,” I croon, unlatching the stall door and tutting at her dramatics. “C’mon. I know you missed me.”

An indignant huff may disagree, but when I reach out a palm, a wet muzzle lands in it almost instantly.

My smile grows, wide and uninhibited. “Knew it. You’re not really mad at me, are you, girl?”

Giving up her act entirely, Daphne nuzzles my neck. As the heavy weight of my horse’s head drops to my shoulder, something in my chest settles. The girl who grew up surrounded by horses, loving them more than she loved her damn self, sparks to life and sighs contentedly, like she always has whenever in the presence of one of Serenity’s equine inhabitants.

For a long time—for as long as I can remember, really—I’ve preferred horses to people. There was a time when horses were all I could stand, when people made me mad and sad and confused and a hundred other shitty things that horses never did.

I get horses. Horses get me. Daphne gets me—she has since I was eight.

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