The Wake Up

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

“Okay.” He stared down at the hot sidewalk as he spoke. “Something changed in me just recently. And now it’s like . . . like when I’m near an animal . . . dog, horse, steer, buck, whatever . . . when they feel something unusual—really big or really sudden—if they’re scared, or in pain, I feel it too. I don’t want it. I don’t want this to be happening to me, but it just is. I can’t help it. I can’t make it stop.”

This little missing person, someone said in his head. It was something he remembered. Someone had said it, sometime. But he couldn’t remember when or who. But it was a thing. A real thing, that he knew. Like a belonging he had misplaced years ago and hadn’t thought about since, but recognized immediately when he saw it again.

“I’ve never met anybody who was mean for no reason,” Hannah said. “I’ve met some people who were mean for reasons I may never know.

But he learned something in that moment, something he would never forget: the difference between a horse and a person. A good old horse won’t hold your mistakes against you. The horse will let you have another chance.

That was how their new relationship became a two-way street. That was the moment when both their failings lay on full display, and it was up to each of them to decide what they would do with the vulnerability of the other.