“Ben won’t care which horse you ride.”
“What about that one?” he said, pointing to Micah.
“Uh, no. That’s my mom’s horse and nobody rides him but her and…”
“Who?”
“She lets Billy ride him.”
“Why him? Not you?”
“I’m sure she’d let me if I wanted to, but I don’t. And the reason Billy gets to ride him is because he took care of him after my mom’s accident.”
“Your lives are entwined.”
“You have no idea.”
They rode out over the hills of the Rice Ranch, quiet at first.
“Why don’t you tell me about him? Forget who I am, just talk about him.”
“Seriously, Jace. I can’t do that.”
“No, I’m serious. Tell me what you feel. I won’t lie and tell you hearing about him won’t hurt, because I know you love him. On the other hand, you need somebody to talk to. I’m here, and I’m offering.”
“We already did this.”
“No, we didn’t. You told me about him, not about you and him. Tell me what’s got you so tied up in knots.”
“If only it was that easy.”
“It is. Start talking. Try a pros and cons list. Here’s the good stuff, and here’s the bad stuff.”
“I can probably handle that.”
Once she started it was easy to talk about the good things about Billy. There was so much she loved about him. She talked about the Billy she knew when she was a little girl, and how kind he was to her. Sometimes she felt as though Billy was the only person who really saw her. When she thought no one was paying attention, she’d look at him, and he’d be watching her. Studying her.
She told Jace about the day she rode Pooh out into the meadow the first time, and how Billy didn’t tease her about giving a girl horse a boy’s name. He told her that day to listen to her horse as much as she talked to him, and now she realized that was what Billy did with everybody. He listened more than he talked. He paid attention.
“Confidence,” she said. “That’s another thing. Until I met you, I’d never met anybody as confident as Billy Patterson.” That had been a deal-breaker, she told him.
“When my mom got hurt, I don’t know what I would’ve done without Billy. My mom was impossible to deal with.” She laughed. “Between trying to hide her condition from Ben, to being the biggest pain in the ass in the world, she was also very depressed. I’d never seen my mom that way. Billy helped so much. He was there every step of the way. No one else thought about me, everyone was worried about my mom. And rightly so. But not Billy. He worried about me.”
“What else?” Jace asked.
Renie talked about how much fun Billy was. He made her smile, he made her laugh. He was the first person she felt like a woman with, instead of a kid.
If Renie ever needed anything, she knew Billy would do everything in his power to make sure she got it. Everyone else had given in to her about school. When she said she wasn’t going back, no one argued with her. Not Ben, not her mom, but Billy had. He pushed her to at least consider going back.
“Is there more to this superhero, or is that it?”
“There’s more, but I don’t think I feel comfortable talking about it.”
“Door’s open, pretend I’m a priest or something.”
“Jace—”
“I’m not kidding, Irene. You have this one opportunity to talk about whatever you want. It may not come again. And I’m not watching a clock trying to hurry you along.”