running a hand over her hair.
“I hope it’s okay…”
A couple of days later when she was at her lesson, Gabe said, “Whoa, Courtney, that’s a new look for you. The hair. You’re getting almost hot.”
Her hand went to her hair and she blushed.
“Now, don’t flirt with me,” he said, laughing. “I have a girlfriend.”
“I know that,” she said. But of course she hadn’t known about the girlfriend. What she did know was that she had an impossible crush on him, and she absolutely knew he would never really notice her.
But he liked the way she looked. That made her feel beyond good.
There were a few things that, slowly but surely, she began to admit to Jerry Powell. Not because he was any good as a counselor or therapist, but because she was pretty sure he was even more capable of keeping her secrets than Amber was. So when he said, “Are you building some muscle there, Courtney? Or is it just the different clothes that make it look that way?” she didn’t snark back.
“I might be,” she said carefully. “I can’t really tell, except my muscles are all sore! All of them. Even my toe muscles are sore. And when I complained, Lilly said it was kind of amazing how many muscles you could use riding. Then she flexed her thigh and told me to punch it—it was like a rock! She said that right now I was likely building muscle, but one day I’d probably use riding to keep my weight down and my body toned.”
“Does it feel good?” Jerry asked.
“To build muscle? No—it hurts!”
“No,” he laughed. “Riding. Is riding fun?”
“Well…the riding part, sort of. A lot of it isn’t such fun…”
“Like?”
“Like it’s going to take me four more inches taller and twenty pounds heavier before I can get that saddle on by myself. But meanwhile, if Lilly is busy doing something else, sometimes Gabe helps. And watching Gabe put on a saddle…” She rolled her eyes heavenward.
“I take it Gabe is handsome?”
“They named handsome after Gabe!”
Jerry chuckled. “Are we thinking about naming boyfriend after him, as well?” he asked.
“I wish. He’s eighteen, in college and has a girlfriend. But,” she added, blushing slightly, “he said I was kind of cute.”
Jerry lifted a brow. “Is that a fact? Did that feel good to hear?”
“Now what do you think?” she asked him. “Of course, even though it doesn’t really mean anything…”
“It could mean he thinks you’re kind of cute…”
“Yeah, in a little girl way. We went on a short trail ride, a bunch of beginners. Lilly, Annie and Gabe took us, except all the other beginners were little girls like in fifth and sixth grade, and I’m in high school but look like I’m in sixth grade!”
“Well, what did your mom look like? Was she a small woman?”
“Sort of. Not too small, but she was thin. Not skinny—just thin. But she looked like a woman!”
“Are you worried about that?” he asked her. “About looking like a woman?”
“I’d settle for looking like a freshman!”
“You know that you’re not the only teenager who comes here for counseling, right?” Jerry asked her. “You know that’s my specialty, right?”
“Right,” she said.
“Well, I don’t think I’d be breaking any particular confidence if I told you that almost every teenager I know is unhappy with some aspect of their appearance, and also that between the ages of eleven and nineteen, sizes, shapes and other specifics vary widely. One year I had a sixth-grade client with five o’clock shadow and a sophomore client who could’ve been mistaken for a sixth grader. Almost to the last one, they lament that they just can’t ‘be like everyone else.’ And none of them is like everyone else. There doesn’t seem to be an everyone else.”
“Well, from where I’m sitting, there are lots of everyone elses! And why do you use words like lament with me?”
He smiled patiently. “Because you know what it means.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said. “Absolutely sure. Now, how are things going with your dad these days? The two of you getting along any better?”
She shrugged. “We do all right sometimes. I can tell he prays every day that I’ll disappear. We have to go have dinner at his girlfriend’s house tonight. He’s begging me to be nice to her.”
Jerry sat forward. “That statement, Courtney—he prays that you’ll disappear? What makes you say that?”
“Well, I’m not what he had in mind, you know.”
“Explain, please?”
She sighed heavily. “We did okay when my mom was alive. He loved my mom