Living in Threes Read Online Free PDF

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    Kristen kept on talking about the amazing, incredible, fantastic Devon and the fantastic, incredible, amazing date. I sneaked a look at my phone. You Have No New Messages .
    Well, not on the phone. In my head…
    Two dreams so real they were like living two whole new and completely different lives, worrying about mothers. I got it. I did.
    I sucked it up enough to pop off a text to my mom. Vet @930. Don’t forget.
    I didn’t expect an answer. Didn’t get one.
    With Kristen’s voice rising and falling in my ear, I watched the road unroll. Mom and I lived on a narrow sandspit between the ocean and the river. Kristen turned off it onto the causeway, up and over and into the sand and the palmettos and the long empty roads that the developers hadn’t raped and pillaged yet.
    Mangrove Farm used to be out in the middle of nowhere, but an RV park and a Seven-Eleven had popped up at the intersection, and there was a sign threatening a new condo development. COMING SOON! it screamed.
    It had been screaming at us for the past three years. Maybe we’d get lucky and soon would never come at all.
    Kristen shut up when we left the pavement and got onto the dirt road. You had to pay attention to where the ruts were to keep from bouncing off into the palmettos.
    “It helps to drive a little bit fast,” I said. “Skim the ruts.”
    “Thank you for your expert advice,” Kristen said through clenched teeth. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the steering wheel.
    My phone whinnied. Text from Mom.
    Honey, I’m sorry. I got called in to work. The lawyers want to settle, and the meeting is at 9. I’ll come as soon after that as I can. Give Bonnie a smooch from me.
    Speaking of soon, and never happening. Maybe the vet would never show up, either. Maybe Bonnie wasn’t pregnant at all.
    The car lurched. Kristen swore. She almost overshot the farm gate, but swerved just in time.

    After that much adventure, poop-scooping was restful. Hardly anybody was there yet, but Cat came stumbling in while I was halfway through my third stall. She had a serious case of bed head, half of the short spiky neopunk crop standing straight up and half mashed flat. She’d touched up the purple: it was the exact shade I get when I leave the bluing in Bonnie’s mane too long after a bath.
    Rick was already out in the arena, schooling over jumps before the heat came up. I stopped to watch him clear an in-and-out, collect into a beautiful almost-pirouette, and aim at the Wall of Death, which was set at five feet. For Rick that was just a pop-over.
    Rick’s not my type and I’m definitely not his, but Rick on a horse is a thing of beauty. He’s a middle-sized guy, mostly legs—on foot he’s kind of ordinary, you know, brown floppy hair, geek glasses. But get him in a saddle and you can’t tell where the horse starts and he leaves off.
    I stopped to give him the admiration he deserved, and to crunch down on the jealous part. You’d never catch me dead jumping five feet, let alone six. I’d probably be dead if I tried.
    It was all perfectly peaceful and ordinary. The part that wasn’t was me holding off on visiting Bonnie in the pasture. I could see her out there, a stocky white shape in the middle of all the big leggy brown ones.
    She could see me, too, but she was busy being queen. Bonnie ruled the mare pasture with an iron hoof.
    Bonnie’s registered name is Bonamia. Most people think she’s some kind of fat white pony, because she’s short and she’s built like a brick and she’s got serious—I mean serious—opinions about how the world is supposed to work.
    Then she moves, and you know there’s something more going on. Bonnie in motion is pure magic. Then you can see she was born to dance in front of kings.
    Bonnie is a Lipizzaner. Yes, real people can own one of those. Lipizzaners are really rare, though not nearly as expensive as you might think, and it was our duty to posterity, Mom said, to make sure Bonnie made another