Page 38 of Saving the Rain
All I’m good for is sitting around this house. Learned that the hard way when I tried to split kindling in an effort to actually do something useful with all this unwanted time on my hands. Discovered immediately that it was a shit show when swinging an ax above my head put so much pressure on my knee I was left doubled over in agony. I damn near bit my tongue in half trying not to holler with pain.
One positive, if you could call it that, is that I can shuffle around the house more easily now. At least these days all I gotta do is be careful not to twist my knee and remember to favor certain movements over others. It’s very much a walk in straight lines and make no sudden movements sort of existence.
A fact that doesn’t bode well for ranching, where the days are nothing but torque and pressure and brute strength for hours on end.
Underneath all of that... all the confronting ways that I’m unable to do anything more helpful than wash dishes, clean the refrigerator for the hundredth time, and defrost meals, are fears of what my future might hold.
I’m twenty-eight and certainly not getting any younger. It was already glaringly obvious to me that my body doesn’t bounce as well as it used to in both competition and training.
Researching my current injuries at two in the morning isn’t exactly helping my state of mind. I really need to stop going down rabbit holes on knee injury forums, masochistically reading up on worst-case scenarios. I gotta stop willingly doing that to myself.
Is this it? The acutely sharpened guillotine slamming down, severing me from the only good thing in my life? The moment when I have to accept my rodeo career has come to an undignified end?
Whenever those thoughts start to roll around my brain as I’m struggling to find a moment of sleep, there’s a deep-seated sense ofdread that rises. Blackened fingernails claw at me, tempt me, whispering promises that I can make it all go away real fucking easily. One drink would ease all this discomfort. It’d help me disappear into that place where nothing fucking matters and everything feels good, and I don’t have to worry about anything or anyone.
But I’m determined not to give in.
There’s enough shame in my current circumstances, and a catalog of stupid past mistakes still haunt me. Do I want to add a relapse into old habits and shitty coping mechanisms to the top of that list?
No.
I want to bebetter. I want to prove to myself that I’m not that asshole anymore.
I’ve also watched replays of my ride.The ride.
Part of our training—for anyone in the rodeo world, no matter their level—is to watch ourselves back on video. Eight seconds go by in a blink. You’re tossed around, doing your utmost to puteverythinginto the tiniest fragment of a second while you’re on the back of a bronc. All the micro-moments and infinitesimal details that contribute to a successful ride. That’s why we gotta spend a fuck load of downtime watching it back. Play-by-play. Lock that shit in. Slowing it all down to observe what we could have done better, cementing those specific points into our minds.
Seeing the way I got rag-dolled off the back of that bronc on the second buck is pretty goddamn brutal to witness. From multiple angles, in high-definition, I’ve seen myself hit the dirt and crumple. The side of my head colliding full force with the ground before my body goes limp.
Lights out.
Yeah, it’s no surprise I didn’t remember anything until much later at the hospital. The pickup riders were there within a heartbeat after I ate dirt. Medics rushed in, checked me over, got me upright and supported me to hobble out of the arena. Jesus, I even fucking waved to the crowd, which I have absolutely no memory of doing, but you can see it in the footage. My eyes were blank. Full space-cadet mode.
Apparently, I’d been awake and talking just about the whole time my knee was being assessed. I was knocked out cold at first, but hadgone through all the checks with the medical team and ambulance crew. Even had Chaos offering to ride with me to the hospital. To which I laughed, telling him to fuck off and win the event since I’d let him have a free ride to the top of the scoreboard this time round.
I don’t remember shit.
Chaos and the others check in as much as possible. I appreciate it, but also fucking hate it at the same time. What’s left for them to say? Sorry, you couldn’t hold on for eight measly seconds?
The mother hen that he is, Brad has told me I should consider coaching, depending on the outcome of my scans. Keeps reminding me that I’m apparently a natural with people and horses or some crap like that.
Which is all well and good, but honestly, I feel like I not only lost my place on tour that day but my sense of direction. The thing I’d been working toward and fighting so hard to get a second chance at, now seems to have slipped outta my fingers.
On top of all that, I lost my lucky stone. It feels like a sign.
It eats away at me, like some sort of bacteria decomposing leaves on the forest floor. Gradually wearing away the evidence that anything else was ever there, and now all that’s left is the hollow reality that Kayce Wilder is nothing without rodeo.
I’m still wallowingin my misery-for-company state when I limp my way into the bathroom and start filling the tub. As I wait for the water to take its sweet time, I make my way back along the hall to the kitchen to fetch my phone off its charger.
Every time I come in here, there’s a lingering imprint on my mind of that night. Unfortunately for me, I’m stuck inside this house, inside my head, and as much as I don’t need to be stewing on it, I’ve got a goddamn giant problem. I can’t stop thinking about that night. Can’t avoid the imprint on my brain and my body of how it felt to be pressed against Raine. To feel his chest muscles beneath my palms when I had to steady myself against him like that. The way his big hands wrappedmy forearms, supporting me, seeming content to let me linger there until I got my legs under me.
Raine didn’t shove me away, and I don’t know what to do with that information.
As I swipe up my phone and yank out the charger, I’m determined to keep my eyes off the spot where the midnight incident occurred. Except that doesn’t do jack shit to help me because my attention drifts to the windows overlooking the yard, and fuck my life, just as I glance up, Raine is walking across the gravel, leading one of the horses.
The sight of him—jeans, boots, weatherproof jacket, and horse reins in hand—is somehow arresting, like I’ve never truly stopped in my tracks and appreciated the sight of a cowboy at work before. And then I see it. My eyes lock on the tiniest of details, but it’s one that tips my world off its axis all the same.
He’s got his cap on backward. As soon as I notice it flipped around, my stomach swoops in a dramatic swan dive. A fluttering occupies my chest, and oh my fucking god, this cannot be happening.