I slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road by AJ's place.

Cause the man was out riding a horse like he really knew how to ride a horse. I'm telling you both manes flying. AJ leaning into it hard—shirt off, too. Happy birthday to me...

I trotted up to the fence and climbed up on the bottom rung to get a better look at both wild thangs comin' at me. And then I ran back to the Benz and beeped as they got closer.

He slowed down a little bit to make that approach. Danged horse was as pretty as AJ. No cap. Sort of...mahogany. With a cool diamond on his "forehead." I don't know dick about horse anatomy...

But this bad boy kept nodding like he was pissed that he'd had to stop running on account of some woman. AJ patted his neck and said, "Chillax, Butch..."

And I shaded my eyes to gaze up at AJ looking all buff. "When did you learn how to do all that?"

"Drama I did. Period piece, so there was lots of horseback stuff. I had to learn to fall off, even, because—wait, you take an early lunch or...?"

The sudden segue jerked me right back to the reason I'd done, like, 90 mph to get to him a few minutes before.

And the pain was so sharp I just started babbling all crazy and disjointed, like: "I just--I couldn't—ok, see..."

And then I barked out, "Dammit, I quit my job!"

He stared down at me for a few seconds like he was waiting for his mind to put all the little sentence fragments together. And then this big grin spread across his face.

So I frowned all up and said, "What kinda face is that?"

"Lemme take my boy back to the stables and I'll meet you at the house, okay?"

He'd blindsided me so bad that my needy soul sputtered out, "No wait—hang on! I mean, I like him. Butch."

Don't know where that came from. Cause I told you I don't know dick about horses. Even though I live in a part of the country where people ride them to Starbucks and the Walgreens drive-through sometimes.

But he was just so...majestic, this Butch. Looking down at me like he could feel all the turmoil I couldn't put into the right words.

AJ gave him a pat on the neck and asked, "You ride?"

"In my dreams, maybe."

So he got down, walked over to the fence and raised his arms to me. "Climb up some more."

"What—"

"Just come on up! I gotcha."

Dude lifted me up and over that fence like I weighed about two pounds. And then he helped me hop up on Butch's back pretty much the same way.

And Butch shook his mane a little bit but it didn't feel like he was threatening me or anything like that. In fact, it felt like a little, "Hello."

"He's a real good boy," AJ said. "They got him for some of the grandkids who got into the whole 4H thing at school. Remember that?"

My heart felt like a lead weight in my chest--yes, I remembered. There were stables and stuff out back of Whitman High. Where kids could learn to raise stock and do all kinds of rodeo stuff. "Cowboy School," we called it.

And I knew damned well they wouldn't be taking that to their new "campus."

A thought that set me to bawling my eyes out up there on Butch's back.

AJ put his hand on my leg and gave it a little rub as I tried to get myself together. And Butch stood still and let me act a fool like he understood English or something, right?

So I leaned down and put my arms around his neck—he kinda looked back but in this "Hey, girl, wuzzup?" sort of way like he was just as concerned as AJ was. And when I finally got down, I gave him a few more pats just to get some more love from him, to be honest.

And then AJ gathered me up in his arms like he does when I'm really happy or really sad or just getting up or just getting ready to leave or...all the time, really. Very handsy for a Korean boy.

So, I looked up at him looking down at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered to him, period, and I actually smiled.

And said, "Why are you like this?"

He ran a finger down the tear trail on one of my cheeks and said, "That's what I'm here for, isn't it? Let's go to the house now. I can ride him up there if you want to keep him for a while."

"No, I don't want him just standin' around waiting for me to get my act together."

"He'll just be goofing around in the corral all afternoon."

"Yeah, well I'll come and spend some time with him one day. We can go way out somewhere just...him and you and me, maybe."

"We'll make that happen for sure."

I gave Butch one more little hug and headed for the Benz. And at the house AJ made me my favorite breakfast thing: just rice and furikake with a couple of eggs fried sunny side up on top. Yolk runs all down in the rice—you hit it with a dash of soy sauce, some sesame oil and a pat of butter to make it even richer.

That day I wolfed it down while he sat sipping his Maxim. Korean instant coffee--tickled me that he went for that instead of one of those real expensive coffees men like to flex when they make you breakfast.

Came in these little packets—all kinds of different flavors. Tasty, too. I took a few to work every day.

But...that wouldn't be happening anymore, either...

I finally fell back against my chair after I'd consumed every kernel of that rice.

And saw something smoldering in those boba eyes--I think I told you what that means. How he was born with more pupil in the middle than most people have.

You fall into a whole 'nother universe when you look into them. And he was inviting me to jump.

So I sat back with the big red "DAEBAK" ("cool/awesome/lit") mug I stole from his studio room and let myself just slide on into the depths...

And he said, "So about that road trip..."

I tilted my head like a confused puppy. "You said what now?"

And he laughed. Shook his head. "Okay, let's sneak up on this slowly. Set the scene for me. How you quit. What you said, what made you say it..."

I stared...and then I said, "It wasn't any one thing he said. Jerrod. The Superintendent guy. It was this weird...I felt like I wanted to throw up, almost, all of a sudden. My body just...couldn't take anymore..."

"Can you remember what he was saying when..."

"God, I don't know! It was the general--oh my God, I forgot to tell you the worst part! They're closing the schools, AJ! Our school's gonna be gone."

The was a slight ripple in the dark pools I was staring into, finally. "They're going to knock them down?"

"He didn't say. But..."

He sat back, folded his arms, and said, "Well, we'll have to find that out."

"What...why?"

"Lemme think on that. For now—"

"No, what are you thinking already?"

"There's...I don't know. They should be used or...preserved in some way. But let's just...I'll give it some thought after we've talked through what happened to you."

He leaned forward on his arms then. Trained those bobas on me full force. "Don't you get it yet?

"Are we having a Zen moment here or what?"

He laughed and said, "Eboni, the sassy little girl I met in that school was never supposed to sit behind some desk. I saw her again today on Butch's back, by the way. It was beautiful."

It was so beautiful, that thought, that I couldn't talk back to him for a good long while.

But then...

I said, "Yeah, well that little girl never had to pay any overdraft fees. I've got maybe...three months' worth of savings if I budget very carefully. I can't even fall back on my catering business because of what just happened at that damned Food Fest."

"You sure?"

"Who's going to hire that woman whose truck got inspected for their big...reception dinner or whatever? I mean, the guests would act up worse than my aunties. Scrutinizing all the food like, 'Girl, wun she the one they shut down out there?'"

He took hold of my hand. "So, we're back to that road trip finally."

"AJ, what the hell—"

"You can do what Wally told you. In fact, Ronnie and Yoli told you, too."

I stared. And he gave my hand a squeeze. "I feel like I was meant to be here when all this went down—fate, you know?"

I squinted the way you do when some "Three Card Monty" guy is trying to slip one past you.

"Someone died, AJ. That's what brought you back here."

He retrieved the hand I'd taken away from him and said, "Something died today, too. Only it was time for it to die. And now it's time for you to step out on faith like Sadie did."

I got all still because I could almost feel her pulling strings from up there where she was. Putting words in his mouth. I mean, "step out on faith" wasn't an AJ sort of thing.

And he leaned in to add, "And she stepped out at a time when people like her weren't...well, they didn't consider her Main Street material for sure."

"Apparently I'm not Main Street material, either."

"Do you want to be? Now that Main Street's not even Main Street anymore?"

The sassy little girl he once knew...

Smiled.