“Caroline put the pile of ribbons aside and came to the last item in the box. To this day, she didn’t know who had been kind enough to do this, to save the only part of Beau they could. She gently fingered the braided piece of black and gray tail that was tied together with maroon ribbon, and lifted it from the box. Maroon had been Beau’s color. She lifted the tail to her face and inhaled. Even after years of being in that box, it still smelled like her beloved partner.
The touch of his tail and the smell of Beau was too much to take. Caroline found herself sobbing again, crying for the horse she had loved and couldn’t save, but also for the girl she had been.
Minutes passed before she felt like she was all cried out. Her eyes were red and raw, and her heart was torn open. Exhausted and trembling, she put the ribbons, the letters, and the article back in the box. She clutched the braided tail to her chest and lay back down, turning off the light.
Caroline fell into a brief and restless sleep. The desperate whinnies of Beau and Edison in her dreams woke her up. Her pillow was damp with a mix of sweat and tears, and her heart was pounding. She rolled over on to her back and stared up at the ceiling. She watched the fan whirling above her head and thought about the part of her secret that no one knew, not even Connor.
That she blamed herself for Beau’s death.
If she’d ridden him to that jump differently, or hadn’t been trapped under him after he fell, she could have saved him. If she’d put up a stronger fight as the paramedics loaded her into the ambulance, she could have begged the vet to try something, anything, besides putting him down. Or if there was truly nothing that could have been done for him, she could have at least been there to say goodbye. To ask him for forgiveness. And now another horse would lose his life because she was trapped…”
Caroline’s Purpose is available on Amazon and wherever you order books! https://www.amazon.com/Carolines-Purpose-Erica-Zaborac/dp/1611533929/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=DRAQ2EDNJVR7&dchild=1&keywords=carolines+purpose&qid=1630895240&sprefix=caroline’s+purp&sr=8-3
One Word at a Time 