Montana Wild

tapping sound her heels make on the linoleum floor. Her perfume reaches me before she even makes it two steps into the room, dragging up painful memories from my childhood. One of the worst was when she locked me in my closet for a weekend because she felt the need to entertain, and the gentleman wasn’t keen on having an eleven-year-old around. For two days, my senses were assaulted by her perfume, as well as the smell of sex permeating the small space. I kept trying to distract myself by dreaming my father would storm the house and rescue me, but the grunts and moans haunt me in my sleep to this day.
“Hello, sweetie,” she says, her voice filled with fake concern. It sets my teeth on edge, always has. I open my eyes to see her searching the room, and I know she’s looking for a doctor or a nurse. To no surprise, I notice her eyes glazed over, barely able to focus.
Once she realizes we’re alone, she drops her fake concern and the woman I know emerges. “What the hell, Montana Ivory Oakley,” she seethes. I work hard to keep my eyes from rolling. It used to be she only had to use my full name to scare me into doing whatever it was she wanted. But I’m not twelve anymore, trying to please her, so her efforts are wasted. “I could have gotten seriously hurt because you weren’t paying attention.”
I grow confused at her words, and not because I’m the one in a hospital bed while she doesn’t seem to have a scratch on her. “What are you talking about, Veronika? I wasn’t the one driving.”
She quickly glances at the door before her gaze fixes back on mine. “Yes, you were. You probably just don’t remember.” Her laugh is forced, something I’ve come to recognize since I was a teenager. “You were behind the wheel. Didn’t see the car coming our way and took the turn too fast. You’re lucky the other driver is uninjured. Who knows what would have happened then?” There it is again, her laugh, grating on my eardrums. “Oh, the scandal it would have caused. Maybe worse than last time. Now it’s just you being a silly girl not paying attention.”
Oh no, she isn’t going to do this again. “No, I remember what happened. You were driving, not me.” My voice is firm, letting her know I won’t fall for her manipulations this time, taking the fall for her irresponsibility and stupid decisions. “I told you last time I won’t cover for you anymore.”
Her face contorts as soon as I’m done speaking. Gone is the affable woman who everyone thinks of as poised and elegant. The beleaguered, upper class lady with the rebellious daughter. When nothing could be further from the truth.
“Listen here, you ungrateful brat, the police already think you were behind the wheel. And with your track record, who do you think they’ll believe? Me, the upstanding woman of society? Or you? The lowly daughter of a rancher who doesn’t care about her and has gotten in trouble with the law one too many times?”
She isn’t wrong about her assessment. To the world she’s a philanthropist who had to put up with a troubled child. Granted, I’ve had my fair share of trouble when I was younger, but it has been years since I’ve broken the law. I’ve worked hard to turn my life around and change, to stop being the bitch my mother raised me to be.
Before I can respond to the poison spewing from her mouth, she leans in, coming face-to-face with me. “Don’t try to fuck with me, Montana. You won’t win against me. Haven’t you learned this by now? Just shut your mouth about all of this, or I’ll destroy you and anything you hold dear. I’ll make sure you don’t go to the Olympics.”
The look in her eyes is pure evil, a look I’ve gotten used to over the years. When I was younger, it made me rebel and do anything I could to be taken away from her. I prayed my father would come to my rescue. And when he didn’t, I’d do something even more outrageous to get me in trouble. Hoping at some point he’d come for me. It took me years to realize the only person I was hurting was me—my mother sure as hell didn’t care—and the only person to save me was going to be me. So, I stopped acting out, stopped hoping someone would take me away. I kept my head down and avoided my mother as much as possible. This kept her manipulations to a minimum.
I spent most of my days at the stables after that realization. When I turned ten, shortly before my parents split, my father gave me Whisky, my beautiful red dun gelding. Letting me keep him was the only thing my mother ever did for me. I’ve been raising and training him for the last fourteen years. He was the one who helped me keep my sanity, and so I spend most of my free time with him. It was then I met Bob Barkley, my trainer, and one of two people in my life I’d trust with my life. The other one is my best friend, Dakota, who I met at my very first show jumping competition outside of Seattle. We bonded over the fact that we were named after the states we were born in.
My mother’s voice drags me back to the present. “Are you listening to me, Montana?”
Knowing when I’m beat, I look at the ceiling. “Yes, Veronika.” I used to wish for a different mother, for someone who’d tell me she loved me whenever I’d mess up, who’d hug me when I found out my boyfriend was cheating on me with one of my best friends, Danielle. A mom who was kind and would make me cookies