Page 39 of Saving the Rain (Crimson Ridge #4)

T oday can go fuck itself.

Doctors and medical clinics and sitting around waiting for news that I don’t even know if I want to hear.

Yeah, I’m struggling to sit still or focus on anything other than the pressure ratcheting up inside my lungs.

My heart wants to burst out the front of my chest, to splatter a sweep of red across this waiting room as if it were a paintball gun going off.

They’re running late—of course the team here is behind.

So I’ve had to sit here for an eternity, and my foot is about to wear a divot in the floor, seeing as I can’t stop my good leg from bouncing uncontrollably.

Meanwhile, I’ve damn near chewed a hole in the side of my cheek, gnawing away at the frustration and stress of awaiting this scan result.

I’ve spent the better part of the afternoon in this room, and there’s no chance of being back to the ranch before late tonight.

That much I knew long before leaving earlier.

The horses and cattle just gotta put up and shut up with a change to their routine today, even if they all looked at me like I had three heads when I was rushing around to get everything done before midday.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, making my gut clench.

I hate that my first tiny balloon of hope is that it might be his name.

I’m sick in the head for having even the tiniest hint of butterfly wings kicking up inside me, hoping that Raine’s contact will be there on the screen when I check the notification.

He’s my stepbrother, for fuck’s sake, and loathes me.

I’ve had enough years of his disgust and disinterest to know that’s never gonna happen.

Unless we run into each other on the main street of Crimson Ridge, the odds are I won’t see him again.

I don’t want to acknowledge how itchy my skin feels at the prospect of never having a reason to cross paths in the future.

A lump forms in the back of my throat. I wish I could go back and fix my stupid, fumbling words.

I wish I could’ve been more eloquent. More confident.

To explain myself properly. To express things in a way that didn’t make it sound like I was a giant jerk—like I was ashamed of being gay, or bi, or demi, or what in the heck I am.

I’ve spent an awful lot of time living on the internet while wide awake in the middle of the night.

Fortunately for my sake, there are hundreds of thousands of places where guys just like me have been willing to open up and share.

Forums where people have generously talked about their moment of realizing everything they once thought about themselves was muddled.

It helped make me feel like less of a screw-up, and not so alone.

Thinking back on my words—my clunky, god-awful fumbling over myself—I regret not being able to properly say what I meant to say.

But then, what did I mean? Was I supposed to leap into my stepbrother’s arms, giddy on the high of accepting I’m attracted to men? To ask him if he’d like to become more than just heated rivals in the arena and two guys who made it their business to get on each other’s nerves?

Jesus. I drag my fingers through my hair and swipe open my phone.

What awaits me is the worst possible outcome. A name, and slew of texts that immediately set my nerves on edge.

Mom:

Please, Kayce. Honey, if you can just help. This is the last time I’ll ask.

I promise I won’ t do it again.

“Mr. Wilder, sorry to keep you waiting. If you could come this way.”

There’s numb hopelessness in the place where my blood should be.

Instead of replying to the rest of my mother’s illogical demands, I stuff my phone back in my hoodie.

With a heavy sigh, I follow the guy carrying my fate.

My future tucked in one of those folders amongst a stack of other files and papers he’s carrying.

He ushers me to take a seat once we reach a tiny room at the end of the hallway, and closes the door.

Everything from that point is just static. White noise. A chainsaw buzzing. Whirring that slices through my brain. Medical terms and complex phrases rocket around the room, bouncing off every surface in a pinball effect.

The secondary scan results are presented to me as if they’re something I’m interested in hearing or seeing.

My ass might be sitting in a chair, but it feels like being locked inside some sort of strobe lighting effect.

A hallucination. Things move so rapidly, I only connect vague points, brief flashes in between blinks.

High-grade tear. Blink. Surgery. Blink . Occupational therapy.

The specialist chatters on, but I’m struggling to comprehend anything over the ringing in my ears.

Limited mobility. Loss of functionality.

The torturous throb settled in behind my eyes only intensifies, and it’s not until I find myself seated on the driver’s side of my truck, knuckles clenched around the steering wheel, that I feel it settle into my bones.

I’m never going to compete in rodeo again.

Sure, I’ll be able to get on a horse—all indications point to being able to live the life of a rancher without too much difficulty.

But I can kiss my dreams of a championship, or to climb on the back of a bronc under spotlights, goodbye.

There won’t be any more chances to go after a winning buckle in my lifetime.

Bile races up the back of my throat.

On top of that, I’ve got a mother who is in deep shit and begging for me to bail her out of another round of feeding her addiction.

It’s too much. The blackness weaves a course through my veins, whispering at me to feed it, give in, let it sip from the bottle, and allow all of this to vanish, to be washed down with every hasty gulp.

I feel like I’m going to hurl.

The band wrapped around my lungs tightens, winding the devastation higher and higher until I feel like every bone is on the verge of shattering.

What am I supposed to fucking do now?

My fingers flex, and I thump down on the steering wheel with a heavy palm. Violent curses fly out of me, flecks of spit burst out. I have to ball my fists, stuffing them into my eye sockets.

This is a waking nightmare, a haunted theme park where every step is threatening to cut me to pieces. I’m already bruised and broken; this only wants to add to that and see me bleed.

Snarling in deep, agonized frustration, I start my truck and fly out of the parking lot, tires screeching. I don’t fucking care. Get me a million miles from that place, and those godforsaken scan results confirming the worst.

All the nagging fears I’d been attempting to keep at bay have lined up and taken over.

A conquering army come in to lay waste to my life as I knew it.

Everything I’d worked so hard to do, to turn my life around, to get my shit together.

.. what was it all for? I might as well have just stayed in my loser, waster state. That’s clearly all I’m good for.

My head is a snake pit. All I can think about is what it would be like to take the edge off, to escape for a while, and I’m just blindly freewheeling. I could be driving to Crimson Ridge, or halfway across the country.

I don’t know how to do this—how to pull my life back together again after having to do it once already. This is just another glaring example of how fucking useless I really am.

A waste of space. A mistake. You should have never been born.

My mom’s favorite insults. She used to love hurling them my way when she was off her face and mad as hell with me for some unknown reason.

They’re all carved into my psyche, like scratches grooved into wood.

I’ve tried to erase them, tried to scrub at those invisible scars until the surface is returned to a smooth, unblemished, untarnished canvas.

But the stained evidence is still there.

There’s no obliterating the memories. The only time I truly have ever felt like I could forget was when I was buzzed, veins brimming with liquor.

With my foot on the gas, I end up driving, driving, driving.

The whole time I’m fighting against every strangling urge to say screw it all.

To pull over in one of these shitty little service stations and drown in a bottle of something with the highest proof on the label.

I don’t care. It only needs to do one job, and that’s to knock me on my ass, to wipe my brain from functioning.

My phone lights up on the passenger seat with a text coming through. It’s from Chaos, and while I can’t make out everything, he’s telling me to hurry up and join them at the Hog.

He knows I was due to have my follow-up scan today.

If there’s anyone I can’t handle being around right now, it’s the rodeo crowd. I can’t fucking deal with the pitying looks they’ll have in their eyes. The pats on the shoulder telling me how sorry they are.

Just thinking about it turns my stomach sour.

Another ping comes through right on the heels of Chaos’ attempt to reach out, and it’s the final straw. I flip my phone into the backseat. I don’t want to see another fucking message. Not one from my mom meant to harass me. Not another pity text from a friend.

All I want to do is escape everything.