Page 16 of Holding On

As I turn around, my heart does a double flip, or maybe even a triple. I can’t even count. I only know that it’s flipping and beating so hard and so fast, I almost have to catch my breath.

It’s her.

I swallow. “Come up on my side of him and stay about four feet away so you don’t spook him.”

I feel her moving up, coming around, and then we keep walking.

“Were you back in the cave?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I had to go see it. I wanted to see it earlier, but the tide was always in, and I never got a chance.” She pauses. “And I couldn’t sleep. This is Salty, right?”

The horse startles, and Maya hangs back. Hanging on to the halter, I pull his head down and whisper in his ear for moment, then catch his face and breathe into his nostrils. The three of us have stopped. I lower my voice to an even, authoritative tone and speak to her.

“Come up my right side slowly. He’s going to catch you out of the corner of his eye, and we have to make sure he sees you clearly. He’s really skittish.”

“Maybe I should just stay way behind you.”

“No, it’s fine.” I’m stroking him and he’s trusting my touch. “Let me turn him for a moment so he can see you.” This way he can catch her.

In the moonlight, the beautiful branching pupil in his eye widens as he sees her fully. She comes up with a hand out and he nickers.

“Don’t touch him,” I say. “I’m trying to get him acclimated. He had a real bad scare this spring with the fire. We’ll just walk along together.” I put a hand on his mane and stroke the firm arch of his neck. He shakes himself and paws the sand. “Let’s move up away from the water.”

I want him on firm ground. I think I need to be on firm ground too. I don’t want to feel the earth shifting under my feet right now. I already feel like my legs have been knocked out from under me. There’s too much going on with Maya, and I’m almost afraid to look at her.

“Those caves are tricky. At night? With the tide coming in?” I’m trying to keep judgment out of my voice, for her and for Salty. Suddenly, she lays a hand on my shoulder, and my nipples prick about the same time there’s a feral churning in my abdomen. Just from her touch. Her voice.

“I wanted to see the caves,” she says. “It’s been such a long time. I remember them being very beautiful. And your whale rock. I remember it too—shaped like a blue whale about three feet up, sticking out from the wall, right? Full of fossils. It’s still there?”

I nod, slaphappy she remembers a stupid rock.

“The next low tide is at lunch tomorrow, but I’m going to be at work. Why are you even out here tonight?”

I smell a faint whisper of perfume. Jasmine. Vanilla. I picture a Venn diagram where they overlap. I’m a fucking nerd.

Then she turns and walks backward in the sand, her thin arms swinging, her smile flashing. Her skin shimmers, her braids long and loose, released from a bun. My groin flashes with an urgent longing I didn’t know I could feel. How can I feel so much for someone I didn’t realize was missing?

“I couldn’t sleep either. Too revved up from a call.” I sound so professional.

Her voice is soft and she’s still facing me, trudging backward. “I’m sorry. I remember you sleeping like a log. Once, the fire alarm went off, and I had to practically carry you out because I couldn’t wake you up.”

“I still sleep like that.”

“What was the call?”

“Breech calf. I had to turn it, but the cow and calf are fine.” I slip into an accent almost by accident. “When I got home, I was . . . I was a shocking mess.”

“When did you go British?” she says.

“It’s from Geo. He and Dad used to do this weird British guy thing back and forth. They’d speak with an English accent and…”

Maya starts to laugh. “George Hamilton speaks in an English accent?”

I nod. “He’d also do this old-Black-Liverpool-man routine when we were all out in public.”

Now she puts a hand over her mouth. “Are you kidding me?”

I suddenly feel like I can tell her anything. Anything. “We’d be out in public, and he’d yell in an English accent something like, ‘Come to your uncle, children,’ and we’d drop what we were doing and race to him. Everyone would stare at us. They couldn’t put it together. It was so funny.”