Watching Shane is an unforgettable experience. Apollo is beautiful, of course. Strong and so fucking fast, his golden coat catching the sun, making him look like the physical embodiment of his namesake. But Shane…

Shane is a god, his body barely touching the saddle once they get going, his powerful thighs the only thing controlling the horse below him. His face is held in concentration, his profile cut from marble, his hair windswept. There’s a smile on his lips as he blazes by, and it’s one of absolute, pure joy.

I could watch him like this forever. I want to watch him like this forever. I want to be there the first time he takes Apollo to the track. I want to see how happy he is when he crosses that finish line again—when he wins again. I want to be the proud boyfriend watching from the stands. Maybe someday the proud husband.

And right now, it doesn’t matter that our schedules might conflict. It doesn’t matter that I’ll most likely have to settle for Skype calls—if he can even get Skype to work out here. Right now, watching him with Apollo, it feels like we can do anything.

But then I see the stallion stumble. The great golden horse seems to miss a step, his back leg bending at an angle it shouldn’t. My stomach lurches as he lets out a pained sound. I run over, but Shane’s already jumping out of the saddle, his hands on Apollo to keep him still.

“Easy now,” he says, his voice low and soothing, even if it wavers a little.

“What can I do to help?” I ask, my own voice breathless.

I feel inadequate here. What do I know about caring for horses? I’ve been helping Shane, sure, but Apollo doesn’t need to be fed or watered or brushed. He needs actual, real help.

“Call Deacon.” He fumbles with his phone and hands it over to me, almost dropping it in the exchange.

I search through Shane’s contacts and find the vet’s number. It must be a personal line, because he picks up right away.

“Deacon.”

“Hey, this is Travis. We need you to come out to Shane’s ranch. Apollo, he’s…” My gaze flicks back to horse and rider. I don’t know what’s wrong, only that it’s bad. “He’s hurt.”

“Be there in twenty minutes,” he says, hanging up without another word.

I try to help Shane, try to comfort him because I can tell everything’s just falling apart for him right now, despite how calm he’s acting with Apollo. But I don’t know what to do, and my words are ignored, Shane’s focus completely on the horse.

So I just stand back, out of the way, and wait for the vet.

* * *

About forty-five minutes later, Deacon is running his hands over the horse’s leg for the third time. I watch as the horse reacts to even the lightest pressure, a pained whinny coming from him, his head swiveling around, large teeth just missing the vet.

Shane stands in front of the horse, his hand on the stallion’s nose. He speaks in hushed tones, and I feel even more useless as the two men work to make things better. But this is what they do. I can help Shane later. For now, I just need to watch and listen.

“I’m going to need to take him in for imaging,” Deacon says, and I see Shane’s shoulders tense, “but it feels like a tendon injury.”

I have no idea how bad that is for horses, but judging from the way Shane pales, it’s not good. It can’t be… fatal though, can it? They don’t do that to horses anymore, do they? I look at Apollo, into his dark eyes, and guilt grips my heart.

You made Shane push him. You did this.

“Let’s get him to the trailer.” Deacon stands carefully, mindful of Apollo’s agitation.

I walk with them, watching them load the horse into the trailer. When Deacon offers Shane a ride, something in me bristles stupidly. This is one thing I can do, at least, and I intend to do it.

“I can drive us,” I tell Shane.

He just nods, following me to my car. We don’t speak a single word to each other as we follow Deacon’s truck and trailer back to town. I drop Shane off in front of the vet’s office and find a parking space, but there’s still more waiting as Deacon gets the images taken.

He finally calls us back to a large, partially-covered room that we access from the outside. A portable ultrasound machine shows the inner-workings of Apollo’s leg. Nothing immediately jumps out to me, but I still hold my breath, and I can practically feel Shane doing the same.

“See this here? There’s a tear in the deep flexor tendon.” I wince at that. It sounds awful. “He’ll recover. I’m going to give him an injection here for some pain relief, keep him for a bit to monitor him, and send you home with anti-inflammatories and instructions for hot and cold compress which you’ll need to alternate. You know the drill.”

Shane nods absently, and when I look over at him, his gaze is hazy and unfocused.

“And his future?” he asks, his voice distant.

Deacon’s expression falls. “I’m sorry, Shane. I know you were looking forward to racing him, but I just don’t think he’ll see a track again. Not without being susceptible to worse injury.”

My heart catches in my throat and I feel that stab of guilt again, slicing even farther when Shane just nods once more, shakes Deacon’s hand, and then exits the room. It wouldn’t surprise me to find him outside, his back against the wall, his hands on his knees as he lets the tears come. I almost wish for that when I do find him, numb and seemingly unfeeling as he waits at my car.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell him, reaching to place my hand on his arm, just wanting to wrap him up.

He’s stiff and unyielding, not shrugging away from me but not responding at all, either. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

And we don’t. We don’t talk in the car going back to the ranch, and we don’t talk while Shane waits for Deacon’s call to tell him he can come pick Apollo up. I walk the ranch until it’s time to go, getting the other horses inside, and join Shane in his truck after he hitches up the trailer. Still we don’t talk, not even when we bring the horse back and settle him into the most spacious stall in the stable.

Shane immediately starts with the cold compresses as instructed, and I fidget in the doorway to the stall, my hand rubbing the back of my neck. “Can I help with anything?”

“I’ve got it.”

“Shane,” I say gently. “You can’t do everything alone. I’m here to help, just—"

“I was doing fine before you came along. I think I’ll manage.”

His words connect with more force than I was expecting. Like a lance driven just right of my heart, they open up wounds I’ve been trying hard to ignore.

“I’m sorry,” I say weakly, “I didn’t think…”

“Yeah, you don’t think. You just push.”

There’s a bitterness to his tone that shocks me, and my jaw clenches as I try to deflect the blow. He’s upset. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. I want to believe that. I know I should leave him be.

But I can’t. I can’t handle the thought of him being this mad at me.

“I thought it would help,” I tell him. “I never intended to push you, Shane.”

“I’m not like you, Travis. I can’t just bounce back after being completely humiliated.” The way he says it chills my bones. “I can’t put a smile on my face and bury my head in the sand and pretend the whole fucking world isn’t spinning out of control.”

Apollo’s ears flatten and he lets out an agitated snort, shifting his weight with his good legs. I look from him to Shane, who still isn’t actually looking at me.

“Why don’t we talk about this outside,” I suggest, every muscle in my body tense.

Shane pushes himself up and walks past me without saying a word. I follow, knowing I’m not going to get a calm, rational discussion from him right now. It’s going to be a fight. A bad one. The air is charged with it; I can practically feel the hairs at the nape of my neck standing on end.

We’re due for a fight, I tell myself. It’s natural. All couples do it.

But even as I try to reassure myself of that, I know this isn’t going to be the average fight over money or housework. There’s too much at stake here.

What I don’t expect is for Shane to come out raging like a firestorm.

“You knew what happened. You knew what happened on that track, and you made me race him anyway,” he says, his face pale, like he’s remembering even now.

But he’s throwing accusations at me that I just can’t let stand. I let Jeremy do that—let him walk all over me—and look where that got us.

“I didn’t make you do anything,” I tell him, trying to keep my voice even. “I thought it would help. If I’d had any idea Apollo could get hurt, I wouldn’t have even suggested it.”

“It’s not just today,” he says, pacing away from me, one hand tugging through his hair. “Ever since that damn picture got posted, it’s all I can think about. I never wanted this, Travis. I don’t want people calling me and texting me at all hours of the day. I don’t want them prying into my past, bringing up the worst fucking day of my life.”

His voice is raw, filled with emotion, and all I want is to make everything better. But I can’t. I can’t erase that picture; can’t order it taken down. Even if I could, the damage has already been done.

“I was under the minimum weight limit when I rode that day. I paid off the attendant so he’d record it higher,” he continues, and my brow furrows. “I starved myself for a week before the race, took every diet pill known to man, spent hours in the sauna. I’d lost my last ten races, my manager was threatening to walk on me, and it was the only thing I could control.”

My eyes widen and I feel tears prick at the corners. He told me he’d done some questionable things to come under weight, but this goes beyond what I imagined. And I can picture him, as much as I don’t want to. Shane, rail thin and still losing weight hand over fist. Sweating and shaking and not thinking he was enough because some asshole manager expected too much.

But I realize, too, that these are things he’s never told me before. And it hurts. It feels selfish to acknowledge that, but it hurts that he never felt comfortable telling me.

“I was shaking when they put me up on that horse. I knew I shouldn’t be racing. Something was going on, I felt like I was close to dropping dead on the spot. My vision was blurry, I’d already been sick twice that morning, and still all I could think about was that I was weighing down the horse too much. That he wouldn’t run for me the way he should.”

He’s shaking now, and I want to go to him and put my arms around him. I want to tell him he’s good enough. That he didn’t cause that horse to die, and he didn’t do this to Apollo.

“I almost got back to that place, Travis. Do you understand? I struggle with it every single day, and ever since that picture came out, all I’ve wanted to do is keep the world from fucking spinning. I could feel myself obsessing again. I was so fucking close to being right back in that moment, completely undoing five years of work.”

My breath catches in my throat and I have to force the words to come out. “Jesus, Shane, I had no idea. Why wouldn’t you talk to me?”

“And say what? You see a problem, and you throw yourself at it, even when there’s a brick wall there. The wall always moves for you, Travis, but some of us aren’t so lucky.”

“The wall moves for me? What the hell does that mean?”

“You’re an openly gay man in the most homophobic sport known to man,” he says, almost incredulously. “The whole world has seen you fucking your ex, and you’re still getting a new contract.”

A muscle twitches in my jaw as my teeth grind together. “I worked fucking hard for everything I have. I gave up my life to be what I am.”

“And you’re going to do it again, aren’t you?” he throws at me. “Come on, Trav. Just admit it: There isn’t a future for us. It doesn’t matter how much you wish for it, or how much you ignore the reality of it. Once you sign that contract, we’re done.”

His insistence staggers me. I try to tell myself, again, that he’s just upset. He doesn’t mean what he’s saying. But the truth of it is right there in front of me. He’s been suffering this whole time. Reverting back to his old habits because of me. He doesn’t trust me enough to let me in, and if me just being here is having this kind of effect on him, why should he?

That realization is what finally gets through to me. I swallow hard, trying to stand tall; to let his words break over me like harmless waves. But they’re not harmless. They’re a tsunami crashing over a coastal shore.

“Maybe you’re right,” I say, finally admitting the one thing I haven’t let myself think about.

And fuck, it hurts. More than Jeremy. More than any other pain I’ve experienced in my life.

“I can’t deal with this right now, Travis,” he says, and I can see wet streaks running down his face that weren’t there before. “I just can’t. I need… I need to focus on me. Or I’m just going to…”

I swallow again and nod. “I know. All I want is for you to be happy. For you to be good again.”

He doesn’t look at me, and it seems to me that he can’t. What started as an angry, mean argument has turned into something too emotional for either of us to bear. This is the end. I can feel it with everything in me. I want to beg and plead and try to get him to say he needs me, but I can’t do that to him.

I can’t do it to me, either.

“I’ll get my things,” I say softly.

There’s so much more I want to say.

I don’t want this to end.

I want to help you through this.

I love you.

I need you in my life.

But I don’t say any of it. Instead I head into the house, knowing this is the last time I’ll ever see Shane.