Mestiza

Chapter 2- Emilia

To find solace in something as simple as a song or a movement is really a beautiful thing. For example, performing a pirouette with my horse while Dance Macabre (Camille Saint-Saens for violin and piano) plays in the indoor arena, dancing around the empty space at an extended trot and piaffe.

It is an elegant thing, and I expect no one who sees a horse and thinks riding is easy, or someone who hears classical music and finds it boring, to understand just how much so. However when a rider and mount can complete a dance so unitedly, there is more often than not, no doubt in even a simple minded person's head that it is truly beautiful.

"Emilia!" My name is called and the music in the arena is lowered. Without turning my head, I glance over at the person waiting at the entrance. Easing into the saddle, I slow my horse and practice flying lead changes on the outer edge, ignoring my aunt who is trying to get my attention. I can hear her sigh and I straighten my back, tipping my chin into the air defiantly as she makes her way to the center of the arena.

"Abril, ven a mi." She calls my horse to her in Spanish. Abril obeys, slowing against my will and walks over to Aunt Vivian. Curse my ridiculously trained horse.

"Traitor." I mumble, dropping the reins and folding my arms as she comes to a stop. Vivian gives me a sad smile.

"Come my love, everything is packed and ready for you. Your mother is waiting for you in New York already." She tells me. I stiffen, hardly meeting her eyes. She catches my gaze anyways with that expression that always makes me feel guilty. It's clear that she doesn't want me to go either, but since my father agreed to let me stay with my mother for a year, I have no choice in the matter.

My father is a wealthy man, just like my mom. I live with him. Well, not really. I live here in Chile where he is from and where he has a home, but really I live with my aunt, Vivian. He's left us to "travel." I think she and I both know it's only an excuse for the fact that he's left us. He pays for Vivian and I to live whatever lives we wish, and we live comfortably, but it really doesn't feel like I have a dad. In fact, I've only met the man twice.

I have met my mom before, she's a lovely woman and very kind. I can't help but feel like she somehow resents me. Probably because after she had me, she went and married another man for only two or three years. I have stayed with her before for, sometimes I go in the summer to visit for two to three weeks.

Guess she wants more time with me, asking me to come for an entire year.

"Emilia Petrov? Are you in there?" I snap out of it, looking down at my aunt. I had been looking down at the ground, rubbing Abril's neck while I was lost in thought. I frown at Vivian and hesitantly dismount.

"I don't want to leave Valdivia..." I say quietly. "I don't want to leave Abril." I say holding my horse's head in my arms. Her dapple gray fur is coated in a thin layer of sweat around her neck and shoulders.

"I know carina." She sighs.

"I don't want to leave you either." I look down at the ground and before she can say anything more, I lead Abril out of the barn to unsaddle her and release her into the paddock, which the car that would take me to the airport was next to.

I had hugged Vivian and said goodbye to her, promising to call her everyday and send her pictures of my family and the horse I would be riding while I was in Germany before I had gotten into the car, and it gave me no comfort to watch my beautiful Andalusian mare canter around the empty field, still so full of energy after our ride.

And to Germany I went.