"Hey", is what the person said. It took me a moment to find out who was talking to me. "Tim?", I asked astonishedly. He smiled and nodded. I couldn't believe that he was standing right in front of me! I didn't expect him to know that I was here. I smiled at him, too. "Congratulations to your second place, you were really good!" I said. But he didn't look as happy as he should. I knew that he always had very high expectations and never appreciated himself enough. He always wanted to win and the fact that his father put a lot of pressure on him made his ambition even worse. Personally I didn't have a lot of pressure from my parents but only because my parents didn't care about horseriding at all. Nevertheless I was also under pressure, but all of it came from myself. That made me realise that he was a perfectonist like I was. We weren't as different as I thought.

I honestly didn't expect him to talk to me and I was very confused that he did. "Do you wanna drink a coke with me?" he asked then whilst his cheeks blushed. "Of course" I answered hectically because I was afraid that he would change his mind. I was so nervous and excited that I started to shake again but this time I knew why. And that was OK.

He bought us two cokes, and we sat down at a table that was a bit further away from all the people - but not too far away. Equestrians were really interested people and the fact that everyone knew everyone didn't make it better. There could easily be people listening to what we said and creating stupid rumors about us. It was important to stay inconspicuous and to not get a lot attention so nobody would think something about us. Tim explained all of this to me but I already knew this stuff. Still I said: "Well, it seems like you have a lot of experience with stuff like that. Do you always do this with girls?" I laughed however it wasn't my most honest laugh. But my question stayed unanswered. He started talking about an equestrian in the arena and changed the topic. That confused me. He evaded my question!

After talking about certain equestrians there happened to be an awkward silence. I didn't like that at all. It made me very nervous. Suddenly Tim started talking. "Why didn't you talk to me earlier whilst we were walking to the registration office?" he wanted to know "I wasn't sure if it was you." I laughed shyly. In this moment I wasn't sure what was more embarrassing – the awkward silence or his question. "Well, I was insecure, too and plus I didn't know what to say..." "I turned around three times or so", he remarked a little bit annoyed. I wasn't sure how I should react so I fake laughed whilst blushing awkwardly. Okay now I definitely wanted the silence back. "I wanted to talk to you on the way back", I told him. He observed me accurately and said then ice-cold: "I thought you were taller." "Are you serious?" I asked being very offended. Now Tim was laughing. Could anything even be more embarrassing than that? I wanted to sink into the ground for shame. "Calm down" he said ironicly. In that moment I never wanted to talk to him ever again. I turned away from him and playfully ignored him, even though I was totally serious. But my plan only worked out until he asked: "How long have you been riding for?" I slowly turned to him again. He was too charismatic to be ignored. "Wait let me think" I murmured and counted the years in my head. "Nine years, long time hm?" He laughed. His laugh was so melodic - I liked it. Then I started to tell him some things that happened in my past. I never talked about my past. It was unspoken and nobody, besides the involved persons, knew anything about it. My past was a secret kept very deep in my heart but I opened up to him. "I had a dangerous accident once and I fell really bad. I don't remember everything. After that I felt good, as if nothing had happened. But mentally I'm not over that. Sometimes my brain just blocks – it's horrible. These days I can't do anything because I am too scared of riding. It's horrible. Really. My neck and back are often still in pain. But I had luck. After a few weeks we went to the hospital to x-ray me because I was in pain from time to time. The doctor who had examined me that day said that I had so much luck. I almost got paralyzed!"

For a short moment I had to stop talking. There were tears in my eyes now. I looked awayand blinked some times and they went away. And I continued talking.

"This accident happened in 2013 or so. It was the day of a practical test and the weather wasn't the best. It was foggy and moisty but the riding teacher didn't cancel the test. She let us jump on a wet meadow. We were unexperienced little girls and didn't recognize the danger. And me and my horse fell. Luckily I was able to pull away my leg. I probably wouldn't have been here like this if I weren't able to" I told him. I looked to the ground depressivly. He looked on the ground, too and didn't say anything. I would have loved him saying something about it but he didn't. However the silence was probably the best thing he did. After a few seconds he started to disperse the situation by talking about his carrer as an equestrian. He didn't go as deep as I did but he also talked about his ups and down. He spoke with me about his mother who had been riding too, about his horse and about the first competition he won.

And with the time the topic changed to something completely random about which I was very glad, and we totally forgot the time.