I still don’t believe I deserve any of it.
***
We’re about an hour into our trip when the phone calls start. Every hour on the dot Veronika’s name flashes across my screen, and like the past two months, I ignore her calls. After that disastrous call when I first arrived in Montana, she didn’t call until after my whole world imploded, and I wasn’t ready to talk to her about her role in the destruction.
“Montana, you’ll have to talk to her eventually,” Bob says from the front seat.
“Can I just avoid it as long as possible?”
“You know it’s just going to get worse the longer you ignore her.”
I sigh, the dread I always feel whenever my mother calls filling the pit of my stomach. It’s been a blissful two months of not worrying about her antics too much. I know he’s right, but I’m just not ready to let her ruin my peaceful state of mind yet.
“I know. I’ll call her back once we get to Vegas.”
The rest of the trip to Las Vegas is uneventful. We stop for the night just past Salt Lake City at farm operated by a friend of Bob’s. He breeds horses himself and was willing to let us use his barn for Savannah and Silver, making the long trip easier for them.
It’s early afternoon by the time we arrive in Las Vegas the next day. It’s a beautiful day, but as soon as I step out of the car the heat assaults my senses. Coming from temperatures in the low twenties in Montana to the mid-sixties in Vegas is a shock to my system. I can only imagine how the horses must be feeling. Thankfully, Bob thought ahead and timed it so they have a few days to acclimate.
It’s Saturday, and the competition doesn’t start until Tuesday. Plenty of time to get them working in this heat without exhausting them too much.
It doesn’t take us long to have both horses situated at the barn all the athletes will be using. Every once in a while, I’m overcome by this feeling of failure, of not being good enough, even though I’ve been competing in equestrian jumping professionally since I was eighteen years old.
And walking past security today the impostor syndrome hits me hard. My gut tightens and my pulse starts to race. I’ve done this a too many times to count, stood in the place I’ll be competing against the best in the business, but it never becomes any less intimidating.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm my anxiety, while walking down the deserted hall of the barn toward the exit where Bob and Kota are waiting for me. My mind is on Kade and the phone call last night that became a little too hot since he wasn’t around to take care of the itch he caused.
I freeze and all the happiness I felt a second ago thinking of Kade vanishes when a voice whips through the corridor, reverberating off the mostly empty stalls.
“Montana Ivory Oakley, who the fuck do you think you are? You pick up the phone when I call you.”
Veronika is marching toward me, her face a mask of utter outrage, her gait slightly unsteady. I’ve never seen an expression like this before. She doesn’t usually care about me enough to become this enraged. I’m struck immobile by not only her presence in Vegas—even though I should have seen this one coming—but also by the intense fury radiating off her in waves.
I had planned to call her later, once I was settled and maybe had a bottle of wine.
Having spent the past two months in Montana made me forget. I forgot her unmatched ability to spew venom that always finds its target, no matter how much I try to avoid it.
I don’t even have time to brace before she’s in front of me and her hand connects with my cheek. The sound echoes through the empty space around us as my head snaps to the side, and I stumble into the wall next to me.
I’m stunned, unable to utter a sound, the shock of not only seeing her but the physical attack paralyzing me. I wish I could say the shock is from being slapped, but unfortunately this isn’t the first time we’ve been in this exact situation. Usually, her form of ‘discipline’—as she likes to call it—is done behind closed doors. It wouldn’t do for people to know she isn’t the perfect lady she wants them to see.
“You stupid, ungrateful, little cunt,” she hisses, her face contorted into an ugly mask even the Botox isn’t able to hide. “How dare you?” I can smell the vodka on her breath, her drink of choice since I was little, and know whatever this is, I can’t stop her from doing whatever she has planned.
“What the hell?” I whisper, my voice near gone not only from the effort to hold back tears but also from confusion.
“Don’t play dumb. That might work on your father and that guy you’re screwing up in Montana, but it won’t work on me. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Before I can reply, a stack of magazines is flung at my face. I manage to cover my face, blocking them with my forearms. One by one they drop to the floor, a sea of colorful pictures scattered around my feet. I know my mother; she doesn’t lose hold on her temper in public without a cause. And I have a feeling my carefully crafted life is about to implode at my mother’s hands.
With my cheek still throbbing, I bend down and pick up the first magazine. It’s a collection of gossip rags—not my preferred reading material—but something my mother reads religiously.
The headline catches my eyes. What little strength I have left in my body
