New York? Kimmie thought. Nick never once mentioned he had lived there. Nick’s father told him the only thing he should be focused on right now was his sobriety. Nick swore over and over he wasn’t doing drugs, but his father must have found the wine cooler bottles in the kitchen because now they were fighting about that. The whole thing was awful and Kimmie was desperate to leave, but she knew she had no choice other than to wait it out. She tried to stop listening to them and think about something else, but it was hard to do so. Nick’s father kept saying he was done, and that if Nicholas didn’t come back with him now, he was going to wash his hands of him, that he could forget about calling for money or asking for help ever again. Nick told his father to fuck off, which was when Nick’s father really lost it and screamed at him that his last stint in rehab had cost one hundred thousand dollars that came out of his brother Dustin’s college fund, and “Do you know why?” he asked Nicholas, his voice nearly cracking. “Because your younger brother loves you, Nicholas. Dustin loves you so much that he’d rather waste his money trying to save you than go to college for free!”

Not only did this news shut Nick up, it made Kimmie gasp loud enough that she had to slap her hand over her mouth to keep herself quiet. Nick is Dustin’s older brother, Nicholas!

This revelation rocked Kimmie so hard, she knew she couldn’t wait around to see what happened. She needed to get out right now. She crawled out of the closet, opened the window in the bedroom, kicked out the screen, and climbed out. Her feet hit the pavement of the driveway and she took off running. And she didn’t look back.

X

When Anna arrived at the annual Greenwich Ride for Charity horse event and heard from Murf that Vronsky had signed up to be one of the Staugas Farms riders, she assumed he was joking. Vronsky had met her at their apple tree after her last three lessons, but four horse rides through a flat grassy field hardly made him qualified to race against riders who had been training for the event for months.

“It’s crazy. He can’t do it.” Anna looked at Murf, who was trying his best to fix a lopsided bow tied to the side of the metal bleachers. She nudged him out of the way and retied the blue satin ribbon perfectly.

“That’s what I told him!” Murf said. “And he’s not doing the track, oh no, not that crazy white boy. He had to be a baller and sign up for the timber race.”