I'm staring at a line of jumps that should scare my Tailored Sportsman show breeches right off me.

But it doesn't. Ace and I know our jobs here. His is to read the combination, pick up his feet and calculate his take off spot all while adjusting his stride accordingly. Mine is to simply stay out of his way and let him jump.

We hit the first jump just right. He clears it with an effortless arc, my head low by his midnight colored braids. All I have to do is go through my mental checklist. Heels down. Back straight. Chin up. Smile!

"Good boy, Acey." One black ear flicks halfway back to acknowledge my comment, but not enough to make him lose focus. A strong, easy stride to jump two,and he's up, working for both of us, holding me perfectly balanced as we fly through the air.

He lands with extra momentum; normal at the end of a long, straight line. He self-corrects, shifting his weight back over his hocks. Next will come the urge from his muscled hind end; powering us both up, and over, the final oxer. The red and white ' FINISH ' flags practically urging us forward.

It doesn't come though. What? How? "Come on Ace!" I cluck, scuffing my polished boots against his sweating sides. No response from my rock solid jumper.

The rails are coming up quick, the rainbow inspired oxer now getting taller and taller as we approach. But I have no horse power - nothing - under me. Before I can even think about going for my stick, it's too late. We slam into the brightly colored rails topping a neon colored, rainbow arched gate. Oh god. Oh no. Shit. Be ready. Be ready. But how? There is no way to brace yourself when you come barreling down a two thousand pound animal going fifteen miles an hour. There are poles everywhere, and leather tangling and dirt flying. In my eyes, in my mouth.

There was no sound from my horse. Is he as winded as me? I can't speak, or cry or yell. Ace? Is that him on my leg? Is that why I can't feel it? People come, kneeling around me. I can't see past them, I can't sit up. The voices are cloudy, distant. Like I'm drowning in a pool of water. My ears rush and my head spins. I'm going to vomit. "I'm going to..."

******

I flush the toilet. Gurgle water and spit it out. Side glance at the mirror. The light hurts, my reflection hurts, everything hurts. At this time in the afternoon, this was the prime time my headache builds to its peak.

God, why did it have to be me?

I've never lost anyone close to me. My grandmother died before I was born and my single grandfather's still going strong at ninety-two. He has an eighty year old girlfriend. They go to the race track often: bet on the expensive yearlings.

If I had to predict who would die first in my life, I would never, not in a million years, have guessed it would be my fit, strong, six-year-old warmblood.

Never.

But he did. Gone in the blink of an eye.

Thinking about that day sharpens the headache, too much thinking for my bruised brain. I press a cold towel to my forehead and blink a few times into the soft cloth.

"You okay?" Tora's voice comes through the door. With my parents at work, Tora's been the one to spend the last week distracting me when I'm awake, and waking me up whenever I get into a sound sleep. Or that's what it feels like.

"Decent." I push the bathroom door open with my arms feeling weightless.

"Puke?"

I nod. Stupid move. It hurts. I whisper instead. "Yeah."

"Well, that's a big improvement. That's only once today!"

She follows me back to my room. She's not a pillow-plumper or quilt-smoother - I have to struggle into my unmade bed - but it's nice to have her around. "I'm glad you're here, Tor." I sniffle and taste the salt stuck to the back of my throat.

I've been close to tears all the time since my accident. "Normal," the doctor said. Apparently tears aren't unreasonable after suffering a knock to the head hard enough to split my Charles Ownen in two, with my horse dropping stone cold dead underneath me in the arena. I'm still sick of crying though. And puking. Very tired of puking.

"Don't be stupid, Jen; being here is literal heaven. My dad and his new super model of a wife are going completely over the top organizing the twin's sixteenth birthday, and all of their ice skating friends are always over giggling about it too. It's torture. You can only hear the cringey talk about boys for so long."

"Just as long as it's not about me. I don't want to owe you."

"'Course not; you're not that great of a best friend."

The way I know I've fallen asleep again, is that Tora's is violently shaking me awake. Again.

"Wha-?" I crack an eye. Squinting. The sunlight doesn't hurt. In fact, it feels kind of nice. I open both eyes.

"Spencer's here."

Tora is nodding quickly, hazel eyes wide.

"Like our Spencer?"

"Yes!"

First my mom canceled her trip to New York scheduled for the day after the accident, now our one hundred and fifty-dollar an hour, level three riding coach is at my house. "Are you sure I'm not dying, and you just haven't told me yet?"

"I was wondering the same thing."

"What am I supposed to wear?" I blinked at the baggy t-shirt I'm wearing and shorts that barely cover my upper thigh. It doesn't really matter - I've never seen Spencer when I'm not wearing breeches and tall boots; never seen, or imagined him in the city - changing clothes is hardly going to make a difference.

"What you're wearing is fine, it's not like he's picking you up for a date." She said sarcastically.

Tora leads the way down the carpeted stairs, through the breezeway and into the kitchen, where Spencer is shifting from foot to foot, reading the calendar with prancing horses as the picture for May. He must be bored out of his mind if he's interested in the dates of my father's business trips and my mother's night shifts.

"What a dad." Tora whispers just before Spencer turns to me. And technically, she's right. His eyes are just the right shade of blue, matching the cloudless sky out our small kitchen window. Surrounded by lashes long enough to make any cover girl jealous. His cheekbones are high and pronounced, just like his jaw bone. And his broad, tan shoulders, and narrow hips holding up his jeans are the natural trademarks of somebody who works hard, in the heat, for a living.

But he's our riding coach. Spencer and our older than dirt principal are the two men in the world Tora won't flirt with. I don't flirt with him, mostly because I've never met a guy I like more than my horse. Ace ...

"Hey Jen." Spencer's low voice is quiet at first. The bone crushing hug comes next. He steps back, eyes searching my head. "Do you have a bump? You hit the ground pretty hard."

I take a deep breath and throw my shoulders back. "Nope." Knock my knuckles on my temples. Bad idea. "All the damage is internal."

Spencer's ginger brows furrow. "Jen, you can tell me how you really feel." No, I really can't. Of course I can't. Even if I could explain the emptiness of losing my three-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week champion, the guilt of "saving" him from the kill buyers only to kill him in the jumper ring, and the take-it-or-leave-it feeling I have about showing again, none of that is conversation for a sunny summer afternoon.

Still, I can offer a bit of show and tell. "I have tonnes of bruises. And I've thrown up every day so far. And, this is weird but, look." I use my index finger to push my earlobe forward. "My earring caught on something and tore right through."

Those studded earrings I wore during my round were a present my mother gave me. The earrings were handed down for generations. My grandmother wore them when she competed and she won gold for the 1975 Olympic Games in dressage. Yet, I got the opposite of luck when I wore them. Now the diamonds were lost somewhere in the sand of the Spruce Meadows indoor arena.

The color drained from Spencer's usual tanned face, and now I think he might puke.

"Jen!" Tora pokes me in the back with a ringed pointer finger. "Sit down with Spencer and I'll make lemonade."

Spencer pulls something out of his back pocket, places it on the table. A rusted brass name plate reading "Devil's Ace". The one that was nailed to his stall door. "We have the rest of his things in the tack room. We put them all together for you."

'Because we want to rent out his stall.' I finished in my head. I can't blame him though. There's a massive waitlist the size of Santa's naughty and nice list combined to train with Spencer Oak. And my horse had the consideration to die right at the beginning of the show season. Some new boarder had her summer dream come true.

I reach out; turn the plaque around to face me. Spencer's trained me too well - tears in one of his lessons resulted in dismissal from the arena - so now, even with a concussion, I can't cry in front of him. In and out. I try to steady my breathing. My thumb rubs the engraved black letters D - E - V - I - L - 'S A - C - E. "There was nothing that horse couldn't do."

Spencer sighs. "You're right. He was one in a million. Have you thought about replacing him?"