Every Wild Heart Read online

  Lila jumped up from a bench in the school’s foyer when Nic pulled open the front door. “Hey!” she called, and Nic knew that her friend had been waiting for her. “I’m so glad you’re back!” When they hugged, Nic felt Lila humming with the anxiety built up from having faced three full days of school without her.

  Nic squeezed her back, knowing just how awful it would have been for her if Lila had been the one who missed school and Nic the one left to walk the halls alone—those heart-pounding moments of wondering where to sit at lunch, if anyone would talk to you, if it were possible to go through an entire day without saying a single word.

  “Oh!” Lila said, pulling back. “Was it okay to hug you? Does it hurt— Wait, Nic! What are you wearing?”

  “No, I’m fine . . . and it’s called a dress. My mom got it for me. What do you think?”

  Lila blinked a few times as though she didn’t know what to say.

  Nic looked down. “It’s not that bad, is it?”

  “No, no. I love it. I’m just surprised.” She studied Nic, squinting. “You look different.”

  “I feel different,” Nic admitted. “I guess it’s the dress.” She knew this wasn’t true. She’d felt different before she’d even put on the dress; feeling different was what had allowed her to put on the dress in the first place. But she didn’t really know how to explain this to Lila. She couldn’t even explain it to herself.

  “Well,” Lila said. “You look amazing.” She sounded a little worried about this development.

  Nic linked her arm through Lila’s and steered her toward their lockers. “So what did I miss?”

  Lila perked up again. “Have you checked Instagram?”

  “Lila, you know my mom doesn’t let me have an account.”

  Her friend pulled her phone from her bag and began scrolling through the photographs and videos on her Instagram feed. They weren’t supposed to have their phones out at school but the teachers never seemed interested in busting girls like Lila and Nic on this rule. The adults of Kirke had bigger fish to fry—one of these bigger fish being the latest despicable Lurk, whose Instagram feed Lila was studying now. For a school so rampant with gossip, it was amazing that the student’s identity hadn’t yet been rooted out and publicized.

  “Here it is,” Lila said, passing her phone to Nic when they reached their lockers.

  Normally, Nic felt an uncomfortable twist in her gut when Lila insisted on sharing something from the Lurk’s Instagram account. She usually had to force herself to look at her friend’s phone, always worrying that the Lurk had posted something about her, something snarky and searing that would burn bright in her mind every time she turned out the lights to go to sleep.

  And there had always been another edge to Nic’s dislike of the Lurk. For as long as she could remember, she’d felt strongly affected when something struck her as unfair. Who was this person, writing while wearing a coward’s cloak of anonymity, skewering unsuspecting schoolmates with furtively taken photographs and cruel remarks? It didn’t matter to Nic that most of her peers found the account funny; she thought only of the kids who were strung up for entertainment. What right did someone have to do this to others? She felt each of her classmates’ humiliations nearly as deeply as her own.

  Now, a sense of indignation outweighed her trepidation. She nearly snatched the phone that Lila offered her. On the screen was a photograph posted on Friday of a dark-haired boy with his head bent toward Jasmine Cane, his arm around her back. The photograph was blurry, taken surreptitiously and on the fly like all of the Lurk’s work, but the boy, Nic realized as something clamped around her heart, was clearly Lucas Holt. Below the photograph of Lucas and Jasmine (gorgeous, popular, captain of the swim team), the Lurk had posted a red heart emoji followed by the words “HASHTAG BARF” in capital letters.

  Nic gave a choked laugh, half-relieved that the Lurk’s comment was more funny than mean, and half-crushed by what she’d seen in the photograph.

  Dr. Clay came into view down the hall. “Phone!” she trilled.

  Lila grabbed the phone from Nic’s hand, tossed it in her locker, and slammed the door.

  “Get to class, ladies,” Dr. Clay murmured as she walked by.

  Nic and Lila headed toward math class.

  “You know, Lucas and I had a moment,” Lila reminded her.

  Nic realized that her friend was talking about the moment when Lucas had first walked into the cafeteria—the moment when Nic had been sure he’d looked at Nic, and Lila had been sure he’d looked at Lila. Nic hadn’t had a chance to tell her friend that he’d turned out to be her senior buddy, or that she’d made a fool of herself in front of him, stuttering and running away in tears. Now she told Lila the whole story, but in the telling it became funny, and when Lila laughed Nic found that she didn’t mind at all, and even laughed along with her. Neither of them stood a chance with a guy like Lucas when girls like Jasmine Cane existed, and they might as well laugh about it.

  “Oh my God, Nic, stop. You didn’t really run away, did you?” Lila asked.

  “Hashtag barf,” Nic said, nodding, and they both burst into laughter again.

  NIC WAS EXHAUSTED by the time she dropped into her usual seat in the last row of desks in Mr. Hylan’s classroom. Her body ached, and though she did not like to admit this even to herself, the steady thump of her headache had grown with each passing hour of the day. At least she’d see Tru soon. She hoped her excitement about going to the barn would be enough to keep her awake for the next fifty minutes.

  Mr. Hylan loved Shakespeare, lived and breathed Shakespeare, drank coffee out of a mug with the words “To caffeinate or not to caffeinate, that is never the question.” Nic once saw him walking around the school grounds early in the morning with headphones on, gesticulating dramatically, and she assumed he was listening to a Shakespeare play, probably read by Patrick Stewart. Mr. Hylan looked a little like Patrick Stewart, come to think of it; he was bald with glittering eyes that vacillated from kind to stern seemingly on a whim. Nic suspected that Mr. Hylan believed he could have been a fantastic Shakespearean actor, and that somewhere along the way the world had disagreed, landing him at Kirke.

  It seemed to Nic that if Mr. Hylan had been allowed to perform onstage, he wouldn’t have tormented his fourteen-year-old students by making them perform Shakespeare in front of their whole class. They were being punished for their teacher’s failure.

  “Does anyone,” he asked, a sigh in his voice, “have any idea why I’m asking you to memorize Shakespeare?”

  “To torture us?” Nic speculated. She didn’t realize she’d said the words out loud; when everyone in the classroom looked at her in surprise, she looked in surprise right back at them. She’d never made a room full of people laugh before—unless you counted a room filled with her mom and Simone, which she didn’t.

  Lila looked at Nic in the way she’d been looking at Nic all day—worried, and curious. Nic wanted to reassure her friend that she was okay, she was still Nic, she was still her best friend, but she’d never gotten a laugh before, and she found herself caught up in the feeling.

  “No, not to torture you—to enlighten you!” Mr. Hylan said, but his rich tenor was no match for the laughter that Nic had created.

  AFTER CLASS, SHE stepped into the hall and almost bumped right into Lucas Holt.

  “Hey,” he said. “You’re back.” He didn’t seem startled to see her. In fact, if she didn’t know better, she might have thought he was waiting for her.

  “Hey,” she said. When Lucas took a step back as though to let her pass, she slung her backpack onto her shoulder and started down the hall. To her surprise, he fell into step beside her.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked. “I heard you were in the hospital last week.”

  “Oh. Yeah, but I’m fine. It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

  “That’s not what I heard. I heard you were in a coma. But I’m also learning that the Kirke grapevine has a way of exaggerating things.”
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  “Well . . .”

  Lucas put his hand on Nic’s arm, stopping her. His eyes searched her face, his expression sharper now, newly alert. “Seriously? It’s true? You tried to jump your horse over some huge wall or something?”

  How could he possibly know this? How did anyone at Kirke? Lila, she supposed. But how many people at the school even knew who Nic was? She guessed a coma story was dark enough to spread quickly even if the key player was an unknown freshman.

  “I don’t remember what happened. The owner of the barn found me out in the woods after my horse turned up at the barn without me. I was lying near a tree that had fallen across the riding path, so yeah, I guess I tried to jump it.”

  “Holy shit.” Lucas studied her, impressed.

  Something within Nic leapt to life, a flame lit. This was who she could be, if she wanted: someone surprising. Nic realized why Lucas’s expression seemed familiar: she’d seen it on the faces of people speaking to her mother.

  “Holt!” The crowd in the hall swiftly parted to reveal Hunter Nolan, the boy Nic thought of as Angel Bully, striding toward them. His blond curls bounced slightly with each step; his skin was creamy and unflawed. Simon Pinelli trailed after him. Still halfway down the hall, Angel Bully lifted a set of keys over his head and jangled them. “Holt! You want a ride?”

  Lila had told Nic that Angel Bully’s black Jeep Wrangler was always parked in the prime spot of the student lot. There were no assigned student parking spots at Kirke, but day after day no one but Angel Bully parked in the spot closest to the school.

  “Sure,” Lucas called. “I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

  “Cool,” Angel Bully said. “You know where to find me.” He eyed Nic as though trying to place her. When he turned away, he bumped into one of Nic’s classmates, a quiet boy named Jack, who just that morning had given Nic a pencil when she couldn’t find her own. Jack winced as Angel Bully’s shoulder collided with his ear.

  “Nice shirt,” barked Angel Bully, plucking at Jack’s white polo.

  The sight of Jack’s stricken, reddening face made Nic so angry that her fingers began to shake. She almost said something—the word “jerk” was sour on her tongue, begging to be spit out—but she stopped herself. Would saying something make Jack feel better? Unlikely. Would it shame Angel Bully? She doubted it. She’d do something, she decided, but not now. Angel Bully’s behavior had always bothered her, but in this moment it made her furious.

  Abruptly, she turned away from Lucas and pushed the front door of the school so hard that it flew open. Lucas followed. Outside, Roy leaned against the hood of his black sedan on the far side of the circular driveway. He broke into a smile and waved when he saw Nic. She waved back.

  “Who is that?” Lucas asked.

  “Our driver, Roy.”

  “Oh,” said Lucas, squinting at Roy. “Cool. Are you heading home already?”

  Was that disappointment in his voice? “I’m going to the barn. My doctor said I’m not allowed to ride, so I’ll just visit with my horse. I haven’t seen him since the accident.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “I think so. I’ll know more once I see him.”

  “Will you let me know?” Lucas asked. “Tomorrow?”

  Nic nodded, baffled and flattered by his interest. She wondered how Jasmine Cane would feel if she saw them talking.

  “Cool,” Lucas said again. He had a smile that did not linger—it flashed and then was gone, leaving Nic unsure if it had really been there at all. “See you later.”

  Nic jogged toward the car, her yellow dress swishing lightly against her bare legs.

  DENNY WAS WAITING for her as she walked up to the barn from Roy’s car. Bear sat beside him, panting and beating the ground with his tail as Nic approached. Denny hugged her. He smelled like a horse. He let go pretty quickly and she wasn’t sure if it was because he wasn’t much of a hugger or he was worried that she was still in pain from the fall.

  “I’m fine,” she told him preemptively.

  “Good,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Don’t scare me like that again, kid.”

  It was hard for her to imagine Denny being scared. She might, she realized, be alive because of him. “Thanks for finding me out there,” she said, glancing over her shoulder toward the dark line of woods that ran along the far edge of the paddocks.

  Denny followed her gaze and was quiet for a moment. “You don’t have anything to thank me for, but I sure am glad to see you.”

  She thought he might ask her why she’d done it, but he didn’t. Maybe her mother had already told him that she still didn’t remember riding that day. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and leaned back on his heels. “Come on, I’ll take you to see Tru.”

  She smiled. “I think I can find him.”

  “I know you can, but I’m not letting you out of my sight.” He gestured toward the barn’s open door. “After you.”

  Nic rolled her eyes. She didn’t like feeling irritated with Denny, but she didn’t need a babysitter here, too—her mother had already told her that her old babysitter, Irene, would be waiting for her when Roy dropped her off at home.

  “I’m not going to ride,” she muttered, stepping into the barn aisle.

  “Nope,” he said. “You’re not.” Denny walked a few steps behind her, his boots loud against the stone floor.

  Tru heard them approaching and swung his head over his stall door, and Nic jogged the last few steps to him. His eyes were bright and shiny and his dark coat gleamed. Denny had taken good care of him. Nic breathed out, relieved. How would she ever have forgiven herself if he’d been injured by what she’d asked him to do?

  “Hi, Tru,” she murmured. She pulled an apple from her bag and he chomped through half of it in one bite. She massaged the star on his forehead as he chewed. She ran her hands over his velvety ears and soft muzzle, feeling his whiskers move with each bite. When she turned, she noticed a sign handwritten in red hanging on the stall across the aisle from Tru’s.

  DO NOT OPEN DOOR!

  Nic recognized Denny’s handwriting from the monthly board bills he left in her tack trunk each month. Peach’s black eye glared at her from between the stall bars above the sign. She kicked a hoof against the wall and the sound echoed through the barn.

  “What did she do this time?” Nic asked Denny. He was leaning against the wall of the aisle. Bear looked up at her from where he lay at Denny’s side.

  “Bit Javi when he was turning her out. Spun around out in the field and took a chunk out of his stomach. He wound up with stitches and a tetanus shot. I’ve been taking too many people to the hospital lately.” He sighed. “She’s a beautiful mare, but she’s not long for this stable if she can’t learn to trust us. I don’t want anyone else getting hurt around here.”

  It made Nic sad to think of what might become of Georgia Peach now. Her reddish brown mane was a blur caught in glimpses through the stall door. Even the sound of her hooves moving through the straw bedding seemed to resonate with anger. Nic thought of how angry she’d been when Dr. Feldman and her mother had told her she couldn’t ride. The way she felt when she watched Angel Bully swagger through the halls of Kirke.

  Tru nudged her shoulder, looking for another apple. She moved to slide his door open, thinking she’d groom him.

  “Hey now,” Denny warned.

  She looked at him. “Are you serious?”

  “It’s safer this way. Your mom and I agree on this. You stay in the aisle; Tru stays in his stall. You can spend all the time you want with him, but there’s going to be a door between you.”

  “That’s crazy! What could possibly happen to me in Tru’s stall?”

  “This is my barn, Nic.” Denny’s voice had taken on the testy edge that she’d heard him use with other kids, but never her.

  There would be no convincing him to change his mind; he was as stubborn as her mother. Worse! At least her mother had a soft spot when it came to Nic’s happiness. “Fine,
” she muttered.

  Tru moved back to his flake of hay. Nic hung her arms over the stall door, rested her chin on her hands, and watched him. He seemed to be moving well. He didn’t have a single cut. She looked back over her shoulder. Peach shifted back and forth, her black eyes glittering.

  “Do you think she’ll ever let you ride her?” Nic asked Denny, nodding her head toward Peach.

  “Hard to say.” He thought for a moment. “But I don’t think so. She’s eating pretty well and she’s gained some weight. Her coat is in good shape now even if she hardly lets me groom her. She must know we’re trying to take care of her, but she still doesn’t trust anyone.”

  “Someone hurt her.”

  He nodded. “I’m guessing Peach was always hotheaded and wound up in the hands of someone with a temper to match. She has a scar on her face from someone jerking a chain across her nose. And more lines on her shoulders from something—maybe a whip, maybe worse. I guess none of that worked the way her owner hoped, though . . . Peach came to us so skinny that I’d say at some point he just started trying to starve her into submission.”

  Nic winced. She stared at the huge horse shifting and pawing in the stall across the aisle. The scars weren’t visible from where she stood, only a big, pissed-off horse with a lot of straw stuck in her mane. “You can’t just quit on her.”

  Denny’s jaw tightened. “Believe me, that’s the last thing I want to do. But this is a boarding and training facility. I can’t have a horse here that might injure other people’s horses or the people that work for me . . . or a kid who’s here for a lesson.”

  Nic turned back toward Tru’s stall so that Denny wouldn’t see the hot, angry tears that suddenly welled in her eyes. She thought of all the years she’d spent watching Denny work with horses, caring for them and riding them. She’d always been amazed that someone so short with people could be so soft with animals. She’d always hoped that someday she would know as much about horses as he did. But now he was giving up on the one horse that needed him more than any other Nic had ever seen him bring to Corcoran Stables.

  “And what kind of life will she have if she stays?” Denny said. “I have to think of that, too. Cooped up in that stall because we don’t trust her to be turned out with the others. Always by herself. Horses aren’t meant to live like that. No one is.”