Николас Спаркс - The Longest Ride

He shifted slightly, no doubt surprised that she remembered. “There’s not really much to tell. Like I told you, it was just a high school thing.”

“Why did it end?”

He seemed to reflect on the question before answering. “I went on the tour the week after I graduated from high school,” he said. “Back then, I couldn’t afford to fly to the events, so I was on the road an awful lot. I’d leave on Thursday and wouldn’t get home until Monday or Tuesday. Some weeks, I never made it home at all, and I don’t blame her for wanting something different. Especially since it wasn’t likely to change.”

She digested this. “So how does it work?” she asked, shifting in her saddle. “If you want to be a bull rider, I mean? What do you have to do to get into it?”

“There’s not much to it, really,” he answered. “You buy your card with the PBR —”

“PBR?” she asked, cutting him off.

“Professional Bull Riders,” he said. “They run the events. Basically, you sign up and pay your entry fee. When you get to the event, you draw a bull and they let you ride.”

“You mean anyone can do it? Like if I had a brother and he decided that he wanted to start riding tomorrow, he could?”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s ridiculous. What if someone has no experience at all?”

“Then they’d probably get hurt.”

“Ya think?”

He grinned and scratched under the brim of his hat. “It’s always been like that. In rodeo, most of the prize money comes from the competitors themselves. Which means that people who are good at it like it when the other riders aren’t so good. It means they have a better chance to walk away from an event with cash in their pocket.”

“That seems kind of heartless.”

“How else would you do it? You can practice all you want, but there’s only one way to know whether you can ride and that’s to actually try it.”

Thinking back, she wondered how many of the riders last night were first timers. “Okay, someone enters an event and let’s say he’s like you and he happens to win. What happens next?”

He shrugged. “Bull riding is a little different than traditional rodeo. Bull riders have their own tour these days, but actually it’s two tours. You have the big one, which is the one on television all the time, and you have the little tour, which is kind of like the minor leagues. If you earn enough points in the minor leagues, you get promoted to the major leagues. In this sport, that’s where the real money is.”

“And last night?”

“Last night was an event on the little tour.”

“Have you ever ridden in the big tour?”

He reached down, patting Horse’s neck. “I rode in it for five years.”

“Were you good?”

“I did all right.”

She evaluated his answer, remembering that he’d said the same thing last night – when he’d won. “Why do I get the sense that you’re a lot better than you’re implying?”

“I don’t know.”

She scrutinized him. “You might as well tell me how good you were. I can always Google you, you know.”

He sat up straighter. “I made the PBR World Championships four years in a row. To do that, you have to be in the top thirty-five in the standings.”

“So you’re one of the best, in other words.”

“I was. Not so much anymore. I’m pretty much starting over again.”

By then, they’d reached a small clearing near the river and they brought the horses to a halt on the high bank. The river wasn’t wide, but Sophia had the sense that the slow-moving water was deeper than it appeared. Dragonflies flitted over the surface, breaking the stillness, causing tiny ripples that radiated to the edge. Dog lay down, panting from his exertions, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. Beyond him, in the shade of a gnarled oak tree, she noticed what seemed to be the remains of an old camp, with a decaying picnic table and an abandoned fire pit.

“What is this place?” she asked, adjusting her hat.

“My dad and I used to come fishing here. There’s a submerged tree under the water just over there, and it’s a great place to catch bass. We used to stay out here all day. It was kind of our place, just for the two of us. My mom hates the smell of fish, so we’d catch them and clean and cook them out here before bringing them back to the farmhouse. Other times, my dad would bring me out here after practice and we’d just stare at the stars. He never graduated from high school, but he could name every constellation in the sky. I had some of the best times of my life out here.”

She stroked Demon’s mane. “You miss him.”

“All the time,” he said. “Coming out here helps me remember him the right way. The way he should be remembered.”

She could hear the loss in his tone, sense the tightness in his posture. “How did he die?” she asked, her voice soft.

“We were coming home from an event in Greenville, South Carolina. It was late and he was tired and a deer suddenly tried to dart across the highway. He didn’t have time to even jerk the wheel, and the deer went through the windshield. The truck ended up rolling three times, but even before then, it was too late. The impact broke his neck.”

“You were with him?”

“I dragged him out of the wreckage,” he said. “I can remember holding him and frantically trying to get him to wake up until the paramedics got there.”

She paled. “I can’t even imagine something like that.”

“Neither could I,” he said. “One minute, we’re talking about my rides, and the next minute, he was gone. It didn’t seem real. It still doesn’t. Because he wasn’t just my dad. He was my coach and partner and friend, too. And…” He trailed off, lost in thought, then slowly shook his head. “And I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

“It’s okay,” she said, her voice soft. “I’m glad you did.”

He acknowledged her words with a grateful nod. “What are your parents like?” he asked.

“They’re… passionate,” she finally said. “About everything .”

“What do you mean?”

“You’d have to live with us to understand. They can be crazy about each other one minute and screaming at each other in the next, they have deep opinions on everything from politics to the environment to how many cookies we should have after dinner, even what language to speak that day —”

“Language?” he asked, breaking in.

“My parents wanted all of us to be multilingual, so on Mondays we spoke French, Tuesdays was Slovak, Wednesdays was Czech. It used to drive me and my sisters crazy, especially when we had friends come over, because they couldn’t understand anything that anyone was saying. And they were perfectionists when it came to grades. We had to study in the kitchen, and my mom would quiz us before every test. And let me tell you, if I ever brought home a score that wasn’t absolutely perfect, my mom and dad acted like it was the end of the world. My mom would wring her hands and my dad would tell me how disappointed he was and I’d end up feeling so guilty that I’d study again for a test that I’d already taken. I know it’s because they never wanted me to struggle like they did, but it could be a little oppressive at times. On top of that, all of us had to work in the deli, which meant that we were pretty much always together… let’s just say that by the time college rolled around, I was looking forward to making my own decisions.”

Luke lifted an eyebrow. “And you chose Brian.”

“Now you sound like my parents,” she said. “They didn’t like Brian from the beginning. As nuts as they are about some things, they’re actually pretty smart. I should have listened to them.”