“Is a bitch.” I sigh. “Has been for years, Dad.”
“Yes, but you shouldn’t be around such a toxic person if you can avoid it.”
“It’s not like she’s in Seattle all that often. It’s easy to avoid her in person.” I shrug, not sure what to say to this. “My life is in Seattle. It’s where all the training facilities are. I’ve already missed some of the important events in February and March being hurt, I can’t afford to fall behind on my training too.”
“Are you still worried about qualifying for the Olympics? I checked the ranking earlier, and you’re still ranked in the top ten and on the shortlist. You and Whisky are the best team we have, there’s no way they won’t nominate you to go compete,” Kade says with conviction, and I wish I could share his confidence.
“But what if—”
“Stop doubting yourself,” Kade commands and leans in close, making sure I can understand his seriousness. “You’re the best rider we have. You wouldn’t be ranked where you are if you weren’t. Simple as that. This injury might set you back some, but you’ve trained too hard for the past year to not make it. They know that too. Trust me.”
“I don’t know.”
“Think about it,” Lizzie interrupts.
I look at each of them. They all wear varying degrees of hopefulness on their faces. They mean it, they want me to stay past necessity. They actually like having me around.
“I know this might be a lot to take in, but think about it,” Dad says, and when I look at him it’s clear to see he wants me to stay. With everything that’s been revealed today, that’s the one thing I know is the truth, he wants me around. Not to gain anything, but because he loves me.
“I will. Though, I have responsibilities in Seattle. I made promises to both Dakota and Bob. I can’t just bail on them.”
Lizzie pushes back from the table and casually mentions, “They can always come here too. It’s not like we don’t have a hotel in town. Or space in this house and barn.” The generous offer doesn’t catch me off guard, that’s Lizzie after all, but I’m still not used to someone be generous without an agenda.
“Okay, I’ll think about it,” I concede. “It’s not like I can start training with Whisky until the beginning of May any way, right?” I look at Kade to see him nod. “Shit, he’ll miss the Finals in April. I hate competing on someone else.”
“I know it’s going to be weird competing on another horse, but everyone else does it. You might as well start getting used to it. Whisky will appreciate the rest.”
I stare at Kade and roll my eyes. “No, he won’t. He hates when I compete on someone else. He pouts for a week, he’s worse than any man.”
The table is quite for a minute, probably calling me crazy in their heads. “That’s ridiculous.” Dad is the first one to break the silence.
“It’s not,” I counter, not surprised they don’t believe me. “Whisky is sensitive. I already have to bribe him with cookies after every session with Lucifer.” I get up as well, not willing to argue about how peculiar my horse is, and start helping Lizzie.
“Your horse is a weirdo,” Lauren says through a chuckle.
“He sure is,” Kade says in resignation, knowing full well how true that is.
Lauren and I end up helping Lizzie clean the table and kitchen while the men move to the living room.
I’m about to grab the last place mat from the table when I hear Lizzie call my name from behind me. When I turn, the look on her face has my breath stall in my chest and fear grips my stomach. It’s a combination of anger and pain, but I’m not sure who she’s directing those emotions at.
“I need you to know one thing,” she says in a tone that makes me brace for whatever is coming next. “We invited you to our wedding. Neither one of us felt right getting married without you present. But…” she trails off, her eyes avoiding mine, and I realize what happened. Just like with every other attempt at getting in touch with me, someone interfered.
“Veronika.”
“After today, I’d say so. We got the invitation sent back to us with a rather nasty note attached. I’m sorry we all thought you’d actually say something like—”
“It’s okay,” I interrupt while walking up to her and grabbing her hand. “I understand. She has a tendency to crash through my life and leave chaos behind for me to try and clean up. Haven’t been very good at that until lately.”
“We should have known better. Wayne didn’t believe it, but I made him stop reaching out because it hurt him. And I hate seeing him hurt. I didn’t know she would do that. I’m so sorry.”
“I get it, Lizzie.” I squeeze her hand. “I wish I would have known any of this, as I’m sure you do. But as my therapist would tell me, you can’t change the past. Now we just have to deal with it and move on. We all lost enough years to her manipulations.”
When I look into her eyes, I notice tears are shimmering behind the hazel. It’s refreshing to see she’s not afraid to show genuine emotions for no other reason than because that’s her truth. I’m glad Dad found someone like her, without the manipulations and deceit—something I’ve come to recognize in my mother. Especially looking back on my childhood, even before we left this place, it was something she liked to do. Usually though, it was me she used to manipulate my father.
“I’m glad he found you. Am I sad I missed your wedding? Of course. But at the end of the
