Free The Black Stallion and the Girl by Walter Farley

know the reasons why. It just is. I say to myself, ‘I’ve been here long enough. I’ve done what I’ve wanted to do. I’ve made some money. What am I going to do with it? Save it? What for? To have what others have who’ve made it?’ So I move on to see something else.”
    “Maybe you’re running?” Alec put it as a question and did not say it harshly. He really wanted to know.
    “Running,” she repeated. “From what?”
    He was going to say
life
, but realized how wrong he’d be. If she were running, as he’d suggested, she was not running away from anything but
to
something, to find something else, to discover new things, new dreams.
    Alec shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe commitments, responsibilities.” He knew the words were not really his but had come from Henry and others; yet once he’d said them he couldn’t take them back.
    A look of proud anger spoiled the regularity of her features. “Are you so happy with
yours
?” she asked.
    “Enough,” he said, giving her a surface answer. “As much as one could expect.”
    She raised herself on an elbow and said, “You talk around it. You leave the essentials unsaid.”
    “Okay,” he answered, his anger mounting. “I’m one of those you despise for having made it.”
    She looked at him with a puzzled expression. “You’re crazy,” she said. “I don’t think about you that way at all.”
    “Then why are you looking at me that way?”
    “I’m not looking at you in any particular way,” she said. “It’s you who’s looking at yourself.”
    “You’re the one who’s crazy,” he answered.
    She shook her head. “You’re mad because you’re suddenly realizing you’ve become more involved with the racing industry than with horses as animals.”
    “You’re not being fair,” he said, rising to his feet. “They go together. Even so, what’s wrong with it?”
    “Nothing. If that’s the way you want it, it’s great. You’re doing your own thing, and that’s to be envied.”
    “Then why are you mad?”
    “I’m not mad at all. You started the whole thing by saying I was running away when I’m not. Honestly, Alec, I’ve got my own life to live, and I don’t want to copy yours or anyone else’s. Neither do I want you to copy mine. I’m not trying to solve any problems. I’ve had too many dreams broken, but I’ve found that I’m not alone.”
    “You’ll be hurt, Pam,” Alec said quietly. “You and those like you.”
    “Hurt?” she repeated, her eyes puzzled. “How?”
    “Let me tell you the way it is, the way I see it wherever I go. You’re part of a whole new minority group, a movement—”
    “But I don’t like movements,” she interrupted angrily. “What I’ve been talking about can only be handled by people like you and me understanding each other, not by
movements
.”
    “Others see it as a group thing nevertheless,” Alec continued. “Maybe it’s what you say it is but they see it as a revolution, one whose purpose they don’tunderstand, but a revolution anyway. They’ll put it down forcefully if necessary. Let me tell you how Henry feels about your working here, and even my parents. It’ll give you an idea what I mean.”
    When he had finished telling her how they felt, he concluded by saying, “It’s up to you. Do you want to stay?”
    “What about you?” she asked. “How do
you
feel? Do you want me to stay?” She swallowed noisily and her voice trembled. Alec realized she was very near to tears.
    “You know I want you here,” he said.
    “The funny thing is that I thought your mother and father liked me,” she said finally. “They’ve been so nice.”
    “They
are
nice people,” Alec said. “They just don’t understand the way it is with you. It’ll take time, but they’ll come around.”
    “And Henry? What about him?”
    “He’s something else again,” Alec admitted, “but he’ll be at the track, not here.”
    “On television he looks like one