Morgan Matson - Since You’ve Been Gone

“Of course I did,” I said, reaching out and giving his arm a small push. But it didn’t quite work out like I’d hoped, and my hand lingered a little too long on his arm before I got my thoughts working and pulled it back again. Somewhere in the more lucid part of my brain, I knew that was something I would have not ordinarily done, but it had already happened before that part of my brain could catch up to things.

Frank unwrapped the package slowly and carefully, and as he got closer to seeing what it was, I suddenly wondered if I’d chosen the wrong thing, or if he would think this was stupid. “No way,” he said as he pulled back the final corner and held up the CD I’d had to track down online. Curtis Anderson—Bootlegs and B-Sides. It was a comedy CD that had a tiny printing and hadn’t done well, but from everything I’d been able to glean, it was considered his best. I’d had to bid against anderfan2020 on eBay in a heated auction, but I’d gotten it in the end.

“I just thought,” I said, wishing I wasn’t so worried about his reaction, “that, you know, in a well-ordered universe, you would already have this. So . . .”

Frank shook his head and looked up at me. “I can’t believe you did this.”

“You can return it if you want,” I said, even as I said it, wondering if that would be possible. But I was pretty sure at the very least, I could probably sell it to anderfan2020.

“Are you kidding?” he said, turning it over to read the back. “This is fantastic. Thank you.”

I felt myself start to yawn, and Frank tucked the CD under his arm. “You should get some sleep,” he said, starting to head toward the road.

“I’ll walk you,” I insisted, falling into step next to him.

“Then I’m just going to have to walk you back,” he pointed out.

“Stop halfway?”

Frank looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “Deal,” he said, and we walked together down the driveway, and turned left onto the road. Since it was totally deserted out, we could walk down the middle of the road, each of us taking one side of the center yellow line. The moonlight was so bright that it was casting our shadows onto the asphalt, and we walked in silence that felt totally comfortable, like maybe we didn’t need to talk just then.

I yawned again, and Frank stopped walking. “I’m walking you home now,” he said, changing direction.

“What happened to halfway?” I asked, even as I turned around as well and started walking back toward my house.

“I was never going to actually do that,” he said. “I mean, there could be coyotes out here. Or vagrants.”

“Good point,” I said, trying to stop myself from smiling but not really succeeding. “Hey,” I said, suddenly thinking of something that I’d been wondering all night. “What do you think Wanda did?” When Frank just stared at me, looking baffled, I added, “Cake Wanda?”

“Oh,” he said, as understanding dawned. “I was wondering about that, myself. Maybe she broke out of prison.”

“Or she won the lottery,” I suggested. “And her friends realized she could afford a much better cake.”

He laughed. “She rid the town of its chronic vagrants-and-coyotes problem.”

I smiled at that, and we walked in silence for a moment before I said, “Maybe she didn’t do something big. Maybe she just told someone something.”

Frank looked over at me, more serious now. “Like what?”

I shrugged. “Something they’d been needing to hear,” I said. I thought it over for a moment, then added, “I don’t think you have to do something so big to be brave. And it’s the little things that are harder anyway.”

“And you usually don’t get cakes for doing them,” Frank pointed out. He stopped walking, and I realized we’d made it back to my house. I was about to protest, to offer to walk him halfway back, when I was suddenly hit with another wave of fatigue, and I yawned hugely.

“Thanks for walking me home,” I said, looking across the road at him. “And for, um, driving me home as well.”

“Of course,” he said. He lifted his CD. “Thank you for this.”

I just looked at him in the moonlight for a long moment—something I knew, even as I was doing it, that I never would have done if I’d been stone-cold sober. “Happy birthday, Frank.”

He smiled at me, looking tired but happy. “Good night, Emily.”

I walked down the driveway to my house, and I knew without looking back to check that Frank was still there, waiting to see that I got in okay. And sure enough, after I’d unlocked the door, I turned around and saw him, alone in the road, CD under his arm, moon shadow stretching out behind him. From the doorway, I raised a hand in a wave, and Frank waved back, then turned and started walking home himself.

“You’ve got this,” Frank assured me as I stared at the riding ring in front of me and tried to remember how to breathe.

“Totally,” Dawn said, giving my shoulders a squeeze. Collins’s mouth was full, but he gave me a thumbs-up.

I was back at Saddleback Ranch, figuring that at this point, so close to the end, I should follow Sloane’s list to the letter. And it didn’t say pony ride. When I’d told Frank I was ready to give it another shot, he’d booked the time, and then everyone else had decided to come along. They claimed it was for moral support, but I had a feeling it was to stop me from bailing again. And since Dawn was here—wielding my How Emily Sees the World disposable camera—it wasn’t like I’d be able to take a call from her and pretend it was urgent.

The horse that I was going to be riding was named Butterscotch, which seemed much better to me than Bucky, and Frank had assured me that he’d requested their smallest non-pony horse. The woman in charge had told me what to expect before she went to get the horse from the stables. She’d offered me a trail ride, which I had immediately turned down. When she finally seemed to get that I was only doing this to conquer a fear, she’d proposed just having the horse walk with me around the ring a few times.

“Aw, it’s so cute!” Dawn said. I turned to see where she was looking, and saw the Saddleback Ranch woman leading out a lumbering horse who looked half asleep. It didn’t put me at ease—it was still a horse, after all—but it was about half the size of Bucky, and the very sight of it didn’t terrify me.

“Not at all evil or scary,” Frank said, giving me a smile.

“Do you want to go make friends with it first?” Dawn asked. “Matthew, give Emily the snacks.”

Collins swallowed, looking alarmed. “Um . . . what do you mean?”

Dawn smiled at him. “So we can give them to the horse! The carrot sticks?”

“Oh,” Collins said, after a pause. “You see, you should have told me we were bringing snacks for the horse. I thought they were for us. My bad.”

“Wait, you ate all of them?” Dawn asked, taking her canvas bag back from Collins and peering inside. “The apple too? And where are the sugar cubes?”

“You’re telling me we brought the sugar for a horse?” Collins asked, incredulous. “What does a horse need sugar for?”

“I can’t believe you just ate raw sugar cubes,” Dawn said, shaking her head.

“They’re sugar cubes!” Collins said, his voice rising. “What else are you supposed to do with them? And since when do horses get snacks?”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Really.”  While I appreciated the thought, I didn’t want to put my hand anywhere near the horse’s mouth and give it an opportunity to bite me.

“Ready?” the woman called from the center of the ring.

I felt everyone’s eyes swivel over to me, and I nodded, and made myself walk toward the horse, even though the only thing I wanted to do was turn and run back to my car. The woman helped me get one foot into the stirrup, and I swung my other leg over the horse’s back. Once I was in the saddle, I gripped the reins, bracing myself for the worst—the horse would throw me off, or start running at a gallop, or drop to the ground and roll over me. But none of that happened. Butterscotch just stood there, her sides expanding slightly under my legs as she breathed in and out.

“You look great!” Dawn called, giving me a thumbs-up.

“Oh, you know what? It looks like Butterscotch fell asleep,” the woman said. “Just give her a gentle kick.”

That sounded like a terrible idea to me, but once I nudged her a little, Butterscotch woke up, shaking her head in a way that made me grab onto the saddle. But that was about as violent as she got. She started to lumber around the ring, and I didn’t have to do anything. It was like she’d done this hundreds of times and knew just where to go. I would occasionally feel myself start to panic as I felt the horse moving beneath me, but I tried just to keep breathing. After all, I had hugged gas station employees and almost gotten in fights and kissed strangers in pantries. I could do this.

And as she walked around the ring, not seeming at all like she had any desire to knock me off her back and make a run for it—and truly, if she did, it wasn’t that far to fall—I started to breathe a little easier. This wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t something I was going to start doing on a regular basis, but it was okay. I was okay.

“Smile!” Dawn yelled from the side of the ring, holding up my disposable camera. I gave her what I was sure was more like a grimace, but I was actually glad that she was documenting this. And as Butterscotch and I went around the ring one last time, I even felt myself relaxing just a little bit, trying to enjoy, if I could, what was left of the ride.

“So where are you with the list?” Collins asked as we all congregated around our cars. I think the woman had seemed surprised that I had only wanted to be on the horse for five minutes, but helped me down anyway, and I’d even given Butterscotch a tentative—very gentle—pat as she went back to the stables.