Every time I watched, I saw how perfect Sky had been, how cool she’d been running when I was the one blinded by the light. But it was only the preliminary, Gus had reminded me that morning. Tomorrow, he said, tomorrow was the main event.
I tried to watch a movie in English, couldn’t remember a thing that had happened or a thing anybody had said before I turned off the set and went to bed and somehow managed to fall asleep. Then didn’t stir until I heard Mom coming in. Checked my phone and saw that it was still just ten thirty.
I saw my door open slightly and Mom put her head in.
“You awake?” she said.
“Kind of,” I said.
I sat up. She walked over and sat at the end of my bed the way she used to when I was little.
“How was your night?” I asked.
“Snootiest restaurant yet,” she said.
“Low bar,” I said.
“Go back to sleep,” she said. “I heard somewhere we’ve both got a big day tomorrow.”
When she got to the door I said, “Mom?”
She stopped and turned around.
“Wish there was a way we could both win tomorrow,” I said.
“Get over it,” she said.
ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE
THERE WAS A PRETTY DECENT cloud cover over the ring when we were walking it the next morning. I told Gus and Mom it could stay there all afternoon as far as I was concerned.
“I don’t need no sunlight reflecting off that pool today,” I said.
As soon as I said it, as soon as I heard the words, I turned to Gus.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be,” he said. And grinned. “I don’t need no sun in anybody’s eyes today, either.”
Then he said, “What do you think of the course?”
“I’ll tell you in my bad French accent,” I said. “It eez, how we say, bru-tal.”
One rollback in the first part of the course and a combination. A double. Then another rollback in the second half, followed by a triple. Then the water. Then one more turn, and a spring to the last fence.
Yeah.
Bru-tal.
By the time Tyler was at the in-gate, Simon LaRouche had just made the crowd go wild by going clean. He was in the jump-off along with Matthew and Eric. Mom and I had come over from the schooling ring to watch Tyler. Both of us up on our horses.
“Good luck,” I said to him, and actually meant it. Still wasn’t giving him a pass on the things he’d done or tried to do. But he had been trying to get here as long as Mom had.
He gave me a quick, surprised, sideways glance and then said, “Thanks.”
His mistake, his false step, came at the water jump. It wasn’t the glare off the water. The afternoon had gotten a little darker, if anything.
It was rider error all the way.
I could see halfway to the fence that he’d given Galahad a bad distance, after what had been a flawless round until then. He was going to be short. For all of Tyler’s obsession with Coronado, Galahad was a pretty terrific horse himself, or they wouldn’t be here.
But when they got to the jump, Galahad was just too far away, and there wasn’t a damn thing Tyler Cullen could do about it. He tried to get his horse closer at the last second. Not even a second.
Just too late.
Galahad stopped.
This time it was Tyler Cullen coming out of the saddle and off his horse, going over Galahad’s head.
The horse didn’t clear the fence.
Tyler did.
And belly-flopped into the pool.
ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-TWO
Maggie
MAGGIE COULD BARELY WATCH from the in-gate as Tyler made the long walk of shame out of the ring, soaking wet, after his trainer had collected Galahad.
It had been a long time since Maggie and Tyler had thought of themselves as friends, or anything close. She still remembered the night at the Trophy Room when he’d basically told her she was washed up. But they were teammates now. This was the Olympics. More than anything, he was a fellow rider. She felt terrible about what had happened to him and happened here. At least he’d landed on his stomach and not his back. Or arm. Or shoulder. At least he hadn’t come down on the fence.
It reminded her of what had happened with Coronado on the trail that day, at the worst possible time.
They’d given her a few extra minutes while Tyler and his horse had left the ring, to warm applause from the crowd. All in attendance were show-jumping fans who understood how much Tyler had lost, even with the team competition still to come.
But Maggie needed to forget that, and forget him, unsee what had just happened and do that right now. She had to get her mind right, and quickly, and stop thinking about what could go wrong, and just go.