Ground Training by Bonnie Bryant

Author:Bonnie Bryant
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497654082
Publisher: Open Road Media Teen & Tween

TEN

“This isn’t funny, A.J.!” Stevie exclaimed. “What were you thinking?”

A.J. shrugged and leaned back on their picnic blanket. Just in the nick of time, Stevie reached beneath his back and grabbed the sharp Swiss Army knife she’d brought to slice cheese and apples. In his condition, A.J. could easily have leaned on it and hurt himself without even noticing. She moved a little too fast, though, and the knife caught on the long tails of his flannel shirt, ripping a small slash in the fabric. “Oops,” she muttered.

“Why think?” A.J. murmured, paying no attention to what she’d done. Tucking his hands behind his head, he gazed up peacefully at the tree branches far above. “Too much trouble.”

Shooting a guilty glance at Phil, who also hadn’t noticed the accident, Stevie flipped the blade closed and tucked it in the front pocket of her jeans. Then she returned her attention to A.J. She and Phil had been trying to talk to him for the past few minutes, but he refused to take anything they said seriously. The initial giddiness was wearing off a little, and he seemed to be getting sleepy and distracted. What are we going to do now? she wondered. Instead of helping him by bringing him out here, I’m starting to think we just made things worse!

Phil gave A.J. a hard shove on the shoulder. “Wake up,” he said sharply. “Stevie’s right. This is serious. You’ve got to get a grip.”

A.J. closed his eyes. “Don’t be such a spoilsport,” he said with a heavy sigh.

Stevie took a deep breath, reminding herself to be patient. It was like Max was always telling them—when a horse made a mistake during a lesson, it was usually because it didn’t understand what it was supposed to be doing. A rider wouldn’t accomplish anything positive by yelling at the animal or hitting it. By the same token, she couldn’t just let herself blow up at A.J., as tempted as she was to do so. That might scare him off from ever talking to her about his problems.

“Look,” she said as gently as she could. “I know this is a tough time for you, A.J. You just found out your whole family, your whole past, everything is different from what you thought it was. You just realized that the people you trusted most in the world have been lying to you—maybe they didn’t really see it that way, but still, there it is. So now you have to figure out how to act and how to handle it all. I can’t even imagine what that would be like.”

“No,” A.J. said quietly. “You can’t.” He was still looking up at the trees, but now his expression was more remote, as if he were actually staring at something far, far above them. “But I can tell you, it really sucks.”

Stevie held her breath. I think that’s one of the most honest things A.J. has said to anyone since this whole mess started, she thought.

“We hear you,” Phil told his friend.

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