Page 33 of Colt (The Bull Riders #2)
Chapter Seventeen
Colt
Her words are like a knife straight through my chest. Or maybe more accurately, a bullhorn.
She loves me? There’s no way.
I can’t accept it.
Because I’m not good for her. I know that. I know it.
And someday she’s going to realize it. Someday she’ll realize that I’m nothing.
The strange twist in my thinking almost takes my breath away. I’m not good enough, because I might hurt her. I’m not good enough, and she might hurt me.
Two different things. Not good enough because I’m a narcissist. Or just not good enough because there’s something fundamentally wrong with me. My own dad doesn’t love me. He never did.
Is it me? Is there something wrong with me? Something fundamentally broken.
So that I have to shine brighter, burn faster, try harder than everybody else so that someone, anyone will love me. But I’ve inflicted myself on her, and that was never the idea.
“Allison… I think that’s… We can’t.”
“I know,” she says. “I know. For all the reasons we discussed. And I don’t care. So what if everyone knows? Let’s just let them know.”
“We can’t,” I say. “You know how everyone in town will react, and mom and your dad…”
“I don’t care. What if I don’t care? What if I feel like this is worth more than any of that? What if I feel like it’s more important for us to fight for this, to fight for each other, than it is to worry at all what anyone else thinks? We’ll deal with them later. Let’s deal with us first.”
“There’s nothing to deal with. I need to get back to the rodeo.”
“I thought you were going to… Deal with that. I thought you were going to get some therapy.”
“I am. I will. But God, I can’t go dragging you into all this.”
“Don’t I get a choice?”
“You had a choice,” I say. “From the beginning, you had a choice. I told you exactly what was going to happen. You agreed to it.”
She sits up, pulling her knees up to her chest. “Okay. But I want to change it.”
“No. I can’t.”
It’s the fear that’s roaring through me that I don’t understand. The abject terror. It’s like there’s a wind tunnel in my ears, and all I can hear is the screaming, deafening noise.
She loves me. But for how long? Why? It doesn’t make any sense to me. It doesn’t make any sense.
And the truth is, I can’t really believe it. Not in any lasting sense. Because it just doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t. It can’t.
Because I can’t.
I can’t be what she wants I can’t… My thoughts are a blur. I can’t say that I feel like I’m making much sense even in my own head. All I know. All I can even latch onto is the fear.
I’m letting it drive me. I’m letting it push me.
“I want us to still have what we can. I want us to still do what we talked about. To have this not… Ruin anything.”
“It’s too late. The thing is, Colt, I love you. And I have loved you. I’ve loved you since I was eleven. And I can’t pretend that I don’t. I can’t pretend that I didn’t. I’m not just going to accept half because you’re afraid.”
She stares at me. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re scared that I’m going to leave you.
Because when is it going to be good enough?
Do you think that you’re going to win the championship and then never feel shady about yourself ever again?
Because I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen, and you’re lying to yourself.
That there’s going to be some benchmark.
You were close when you said that you needed therapy.
But I don’t think it’s so you can be different than your dad.
I think you need therapy so you can accept that nothing you do is ever going to make him love you.
Nothing. And even if you did something that was so great it made him look at you, then what? Is that love?”
She lets out a hard, sharp breath. “That’s what you do, all around town, isn’t it?
You have to be the golden boy. You have to be him or you don’t know who you are or what you are.
So the idea of me just loving you while you’re like this freaks you out.
Because you don’t know what to do with that.
You don’t know how to earn it. You don’t know how to make yourself good enough for it.
Do you think you’re just going to push me away so that I can’t do it to you? Because that’s what you’re afraid of.”
Her words cut me deep. And I’m waiting for the measured Allison to show up. The one that talked so philosophically about life and loss.
But she’s not being philosophical about this. She’s not being measured. Her eyes are glittering with angry tears, and she’s looking at me like I’m a coward. But I guess I am.
“I’m not rejecting you,” I say. “It’s just that–”
“Do you love me or not?”
“I can’t do this with you right now.”
“Do you love me or not?”
“Allison…”
“Not. In which case, you are rejecting me.”
“You’re the one who changed things. It can still –“
“I’m not taking half,” she screams. “I’m not taking half.
I want everything. God dammit. Why don’t I get to have everything?
I want ecstatic love and sex and to be happy.
I’m tired of just accepting that life is hard.
I’m so fucking tired of hard. Great. Life can be this goddamn constant struggle.
Where you just put your head down and you try to take all the bad things with grace, and I’ve done that.
But I’m over it. When you want everything, when you want to stop just carrying it all on your shoulders, let me know.
Until then, I’m glad that you made enough progress to take the brace off sometimes.
I’m glad that you're healing. What I really hope is that someday you find the thing. The magic thing, that makes Colt Campbell good enough. I’m betting you won’t find it though. Somehow. I just bet.”
And then she storms out of the bedroom naked. I lay there, and I’m surprised when this pinprick of sensation in my chest becomes a deep, relentless stab. Worse than anything I’ve ever felt. Worse than any physical pain.
I don’t know what I just did.
Beyond screwup maybe the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I see myself again, as a little kid. My life flashing before my eyes, just like I’m bleeding out in the arena. Dying, this time without an audience.
Did you see me?
She does see me. She does.
I spent my whole life chasing the approval of a man who didn’t, who wouldn’t, who won’t.
And ran away from the only woman who ever did.