Page 24 of Colt (The Bull Riders #2)

“No. I can. Yeah. I’m worried about not being able to go back to the rodeo. But I guess I’m worried about it… It’s not just the physical. It’s the mental stuff.”

“You didn’t even want the bull to be put down right after it happened.”

“I still don’t. But I also wonder if it’s a sign that I don’t need to be doing this anymore.

It also feels like unfinished business, and I hate that.

I want to go back. I want to be able to finish.

I want to be able to win. But I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do that.

I don’t know how things are going to change.

When I’m by myself, I just relive parts of the accident.

Over and over again.” Suddenly, I feel like I’ve been slugged in the gut. “I almost died, Allison.”

She reaches across the expanse of the car and puts her hand on my knee. “I know. Watching that happen to you was the single worst thing that I’ve ever experienced.”

She watched her mom die. Slowly. It was a tragedy. And she’s saying my accident was the worst thing she’s ever seen?

“It was so violent,” she says. And there was nothing we could do.

We were just so helpless. It was so fast and brutal.

Disease is a terrible thing. It can move fast, and it can move slow.

In my mom’s case, it took years. Years for it to finally be finished with her.

Years for it to all be over. That’s been my experience with loss.

But that… It was so violent. So sudden. I’ve seen you ride I don’t know how many times. Nothing like that. Ever.”

“I know. I mean, obviously I never expected that. You know that it’s possible.

They’re animals. In the minute you bring animals into anything you’ve brought in a variable that you can’t control.

You can’t predict it. You can anticipate it.

Probability goes right out the fucking window.

The odds are in your favor, I suppose. But the reality is, the next bull could have done the same thing to his rider, and the next, odds be damned.

Because animals are random. Just because it doesn’t often happen, doesn’t mean it couldn’t.

I was cocky. I was egotistical. And I thought that I was bulletproof.

But now I don’t think that I am.” I pause, trying to gather my thoughts, my emotions.

“I don’t know how to stand in front of the firing squad knowing that I can be killed. ”

We just sit there like that for a moment.

“If you don’t want to go back, you don’t have to.”

“I know. But I’m scared of being somebody that I don’t recognize.

I’m afraid of losing my edge. I’m afraid of…

It’s the one place that I put all of my intensity.

My ambition. Because I always had to be easy.

I always had to make things easy for my mom.

I just wanted to… Delight her, I guess. Make her happy.

I wanted to give her the kid she deserved to have.

For sticking with me. For being there for me when my dad wasn’t. ”

“You’re allowed to be unhappy. You’re allowed to have problems. You’re allowed to be difficult.”

“I’m not, though,” I say, the words torn from me. “I’m not.”

I take a deep breath. “You were really the only person I could ever be… You’re the only person that I tease, really. You’re the only person who sees that part of me. Because you’re the only one that I feel safe with.”

Those words sit strangely on my tongue. I feel like I’ve admitted some kind of weakness.

This deep fear that I have of being too difficult, of being abandoned.

This need. It’s not just about my mom, it’s about me.

I want everybody to look and see how special I am.

Because if they see how special I am then I’m somebody who didn’t deserve to be abandoned. And that means putting on a show.

A performance.

I’m not the Golden Boy of Gold Valley by accident.

I am very much that on purpose, and it’s hard-won.

And I don’t feel like I have it in me anymore.

I don’t feel like I have it in me right now.

I’m not sure that I ever will again. That’s why we had to come out here to go grocery shopping so that I didn’t feel like I was going to crush someone beneath the weight of their own disappointment for how I’m just normal.

“I’m a narcissist,” I say.

“No, you aren’t,” she says, finally pulling the car out of his parking space and heading out of the parking lot.

“I think so much about putting on performances for other people, but all that is is… Making myself really important to the story.”

“We’re all the main characters in our own story.”

“Yeah. But it’s not like there’s a spotlight on me all the time.”

“There actually is, Colt,” she says. “I don’t know if that really helps you right now.

That visual. But I’ve always felt like you had a spotlight on you.

Like you were the sort of magical being that everybody wanted to be around.

You were always half of the conversations in the halls at school.

And you weren’t even at my school half the time.

People were obsessed with getting information about you.

Girls would harass me all the time. In fact, I had to worry about girls becoming friends with me so that they could have sleepovers at my house, just so they could have sleepovers at your house. You’re one-of-a-kind. You are special.”

“But everyone is.”

She looks over at me. “Not in the same way.”

“That’s not true. I’m not… I’m just performing. That’s what everyone likes. Always a joke. Always a smile. Always a new win. Captain of the football team, whatever. It’s just a tap dance routine. And when the tap dance routine is over who’s going to stay?”

“Me.”

I look over at her, our eyes meet for a moment before she turns her focus back to the road.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

She takes me to a restaurant with hamburgers – no argument – and I order a cheeseburger while she goes with salad.

“I’m making you a salad tonight,” I say.

“I know. But we are also making pasta with cream sauce. So, I’m going to pace myself. Also, we have that cake.” The cake at least, is a pretty cheery addition to things.

We head out of the restaurant, and I breathe in the warm air. It’s beautiful, this place. It’s not going to be too hard being home more. Being in Oregon. I do love it here.

“You okay?” She bumps up beside me, and her palm presses to mine, and before I can think about it, I’m lacing my fingers through hers, and we are holding hands.

Neither of us speaks, and we walk to the car together like that.

I open her door for her, managing to do all that while still walking on crutches.

It is possible. I feel better. More in control of my body.

As the wound in my midsection heals, my ability to maneuver gets easier.

I don’t need to rely on my still-injured leg quite as much.

I don’t default to putting weight on that side of my body.

But mainly, I just like feeling functional.

For her. With her. I like not feeling like I need everything done for me.

I know what she said is true. That I would feel differently if it were somebody else.

That I wouldn’t think that they only had value if their body went back to the way it had always been.

Of course I wouldn’t think that. But I just feel differently about myself.

And I hate the idea that I might have to change my thinking.

I don’t want to change. I get into the car, and buckle myself in.

“I might have to change.” It’s not even a fully formed thought, and I said it out loud to her.

“Your clothes? Or philosophically.”

“Philosophically. I don’t want to.”

“I don’t know that anybody wants to.”

“Yeah. It’s just hard.”

“I know. I mean, I don’t know, because it’s not something that really happened to me.

But my mom – I hate to keep comparing you, it’s just I see parallels.

After she did treatment the first time, she always got tired a little bit easier.

It just changed things for her. And there were always new medications and new treatments, and they had responses in her body.

Some affected her terribly, and some made it so she could pretty much go about her daily life.

It all just depended on where she was in the remission cycle.

But I loved her just the same. No matter what.

We all did. And sometimes we had to change what we did.

What we didn’t do. But it didn’t change how we felt about her. ”

“I get that. I do.” Except all my relationships feel more tentative than that, and I have a feeling that’s on me. I have a feeling that’s about my own stuff. My own baggage. What I feel and don’t feel in those relationships.

“I’m just saying. Having to face down change is kind of a terrible thing. But eventually, you’re just living it. And everything will fall into place.”

I hope that’s true. I really do.

I take a nap when we get home, because it’s actually been kind of a long, weird day. And when I get up, she’s in the kitchen putting a pot of pasta on the stovetop.

“I’ll get to making that salad.”

I fetch a cutting board, and a knife. I find a good way to brace myself against the counter, and start chopping vegetables methodically.

“I really don’t want you to lose your balance while you’re holding that knife.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “If there’s one thing I’m pretty confident with… Well, it’s sex. But if there’s another thing, it’s that I do know my way around the kitchen.”

“I guess you do.” Her forehead creases. “That’s kind of a weird skill for you to have.”

I notice she ignores my comment about sex. “Not really. I used to cook when I was a kid.”

“You did?”

“Oh, when my mom was getting her real estate business up and running she would have really long days. I got good at cooking. I got good at… Making things easier for her.”