The Fall

In every good story there is a point of absolute failure, when things go from the worst possible situation into sheer chaos. I just did not realize that stories are based from reality.
I was no longer cooped up in a mental institution but that did not mean that I was healed or perfectly happy. If anything I regressed when I came out of UNI like a goldfish that has gone into shock after realizing that a little fish bowl can suddenly change and become a large tank. I was still very unhappy and my weight kept dropping. My mother drew the line, "until you reach 110 lbs." she said, "you cannot go horse back riding or even work with horses it's too dangerous." I screamed at her till my voice was harsh like gravel. She couldn't take it away from me, my one solitude since I had gotten home. Horses I could feel safe and normal around horses but now that refugee had been wrenched away from me.
  I became feral and a wanderer. Biking around down town Boise looking for a way to pass the time, something to take away the burning with drawls of want, the craving for Bishops, the mountain view, the sound of horse hooves cupping the gravel and dirt, even the bitter tang of fresh manure would have been better than this rabid circling of the town that did not hold much for me.
  I would go to the store Win co and look in the yellow pages for book stores around town, browsing from one to another listlessly and bored out of my mind. I started testing my memory for places I had been and a thought came to my mind, Gretchen's house. Technically she was renting the basement but,  it was still a home, I knew where she lived.
If I could not have horses I would get the next best thing, a woman who loved them as much as I did, maybe even more. I biked down to through the boulevard neighborhood's searching for familiar streets and houses, listening for the familiar deep throaty bwoof of Derek. I was very lucky to have biked past her house just as she was pulling up in her car. I jumped off my bike suddenly awkward, I had just barged in unannounced. "I brought you some flowers. . ." I said uncomfortably, and held out the white lilies I had picked up for her. Gretchen smiled at me putting me at easy, and invited me in.
She told me the lilies were beautiful and that they were one of her favorite flowers. I think she may had added something about them reminding her of her mother. We talked for a while, edging around the topic of horses.
My eyes took in her house, I loved it. It was a cozy collection of true western furniture and art. Stuffed animals were everywhere, beautiful carvings and works of Native Americans, feathers, clay pots, antlers of deer, thick woven carpets, old brass handled trunks, pictures of horses, comfortable chairs of cracked leather all covered in a fine layer of dust. It was a masterpiece of a home, as if Gretchen had opened up her soul and let the contense materialize and build itself into the room I saw before me.
We talked about her work for a while, she was a veterinarian tech. assistant so she always had interesting animal stories.
Suddenly she looked me in the eyes and asked why I was not coming up to the horse. I mumbled on about my mom and the fact I needed to gain weight, and how hard it was to be away from horses because they made me feel happier than any amount of Zoloft or any other type of antidepressants medication ever would, and at some point started crying. Gretchen sat silently while fat tears rolled down my face. After I had calmed down she explained how much she cared about me and how she had gone through a similar problems in the past. She had grappled with depression before, and she was familiar with eating disorders in the past she had been a model and had constantly watched her weight and what she ate to the point of obsession. Gretchen's emotions became obvious in her voice but, she was strong and held the tears back. Afterwards she said she was going to make us lunch, so we had thick peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with layers of crunchy peanut butter and thick globes of dark grape jelly topped off with a glass of milk and a banana on the side. We moved on to lighter topics of conversation and had a great time. I felt like I had a family member in Boise for the first time, outside of my family unit, Gretchen was now like a grandmother to me and a best friend.Gretchen told me I needed to eat meals like this all the time to put weight back on my frail frame, and to stop biking around so much, and to stay home get lazy and read books all day.  I stubbornly said I would go stir crazy if I stayed at home for that long. She then offered to call my mom and ask if just for today we could go up and just look at the horses. My heart leaped up my throat, so we called and asked but my mom was unrelenting. I could not go see the horses in my condition.
My spine broke right then, the world was just to heavy, and I was not going to cry in front of Gretchen again, I said a hurried goodbye choking on my words and rushed out the door and onto my bike, I speed away without ever stopping to look back.