Fearless by Katy Grant

door. Fat, wet tears were rolling down my cheeks. I needed to be alone—lock myself in a bathroom stall and cry for hours.
    â€œJordan, wait! Don’t leave. Don’t get so upset about this,” Molly called after me.
    I pushed open the screen door and walked out. “I don’t care if I never ride a horse again!”

Wednesday, June 18
    â€œWow, Jordan! Your leg looks amazing,” Wayward called to me from across the ring. “Feel how you’re stepping down in your heel?”
    I smiled back at her. We were halfway through our second lesson, and amazingly, I wasn’t facing backward in the saddle, I hadn’t fallen off once, and so far Odie and I hadn’t gone cantering out of control across camp and ended up taking an unexpected swim in the lake. So far, anyway.
    Madison had made a point of telling me every single thing I’d done wrong during the first lesson, but now Wayward was keeping an eagle eye on me to tell me all the things I was doing right.
    It was working, though. I was twenty times more relaxed today than I’d been on Monday.
    â€œOkay, now let’s work on turns,” Wayward told us. We’d spent most of the lesson reviewing maneuvers like right and left turns. They were good exercises for helping us learn to coordinate using our hands and legs working together. Little by little, all my skills from last summer were coming back to me.
    â€œOkay, nice job, Amber. Remember to keep a little more tension on your inside rein,” Wayward told Amber as she made a turn.
    Madison wasn’t even watching our lesson today, thankfully. She was helping one of the other riding counselors, Cara Andrews, with a group of Juniors. Did Wayward plan that? Or did Cara need the extra help today? Either way, I didn’t care. It made a major difference for me not to have Madison breathing down my neck.
    Monday had been a slight meltdown day. I honestly thought I’d never go near the stables again after that disastrous first lesson. And it was a disaster; I didn’t care what Molly had said.
    Molly had left me alone for about fifteen minutes so I could go cry in Solitary, but then she’d come to the door of the bathroom stall I was hiding in and pounded on it until I’d come out.
    â€œI’m never going back there!” I’d told her. Crying in front of people wasn’t my favorite thing in the world,but if you can’t cry in front of your best friend, who can you cry in front of? “I’m going to stop taking lessons. You go without me. I’ll find something else to do while you’re at the stables. Like crafts.”
    Molly had talked to me practically nonstop that afternoon, reminding me that riding was our favorite activity, the main thing we came to camp for. “You can’t give it up, Jordan. You love it too much.”
    â€œI’m obviously no good, and I will never be able to learn to jump! It’s impossible! I can’t do it.”
    Molly had practically pulled her hair out over that comment. “Nothing is impossible. Listen, after the
Titanic
sank, a bunch of men pulled themselves out of the water and climbed up on a lifeboat.”
    â€œMolly, spare me a
Titanic
story right now, please?”
    â€œNo, now listen. So anyway, it was upside down, with nobody in it, obviously. They climbed on it and balanced themselves. It was really wobbly and unstable, and there was always a chance it would tip and they’d all fall off. One of them called out directions, and they’d move a little to the left or the right when the boat shifted. It was freezing cold, it was the middle of the night, and they had to balance on this overturned lifeboat for hours.”
    Molly held her hands out to her sides and rockedback and forth like she was on a tightrope, showing me what the men had done.
    â€œIf the boat shifted even a little bit, they could fall in. And then they would’ve died. The cold water was what