Page 38

Maverick

F or the first time in months, I walk through the front door to an empty house.

An empty and eerily quiet house. The only sound filling the space is the raindrops on the roof.

The dark, gloomy clouds match my mood. Ava kept true to her word, every trace of her is gone except for the lingering scent of her fucking candle.

No shoes by the door, no blanket thrown over the futon, no books piled up on the back; it’s all gone.

Anger rises through me, not really at her, but at myself.

I handled that whole thing wrong, and now she won’t talk to me.

My calls have been going straight to voicemail.

Luckily, it’s cowboy Christmas and I’ll be busy as hell working my ass off all the way until our scheduled court date. But even I wonder if that will be enough to keep her off my mind.

I throw my hat off my head and onto the empty futon.

Looking over where she spent so many afternoons and nights curled up with a book makes my stomach drop.

I have been through a lot of painful things, broken almost every bone in my damn body, but nothing hurts quite as much as losing her.

She was too good for me from the start, but that didn’t stop me from falling hard.

Tears fill my eyes as I look around the cabin, really study it. It no longer feels like home without her. Cowboys may not cry, but then what does that make me ?

“FUCK!” I yell, throwing my bag onto the floor. Sinking into the futon, my head lands in my hands.

My body still feels sore from the last damn rodeo. I get to be home one night before I’m back on the road for the next week. The last one will be a hometown show, more for publicity than anything. Should have just stayed on the road and skipped this because the silence in this cabin is torture.

Three taps rattle the outside of my front door, but the last thing I want right now is company. Dragging my feet across the room, I whip open the door with more force than necessary.

“What?” I say to Weston. I love the guy, but I might punch him straight in the fucking jaw if he tries his bullshit with me today.

“Oh, just checking up on you. I heard you had a pretty tough ride.” He has his classic smile on his face, and he’s ditched the cowboy hat for a ballcap. Little watermarks stain the top of it from the pouring rain.

“That’s all you heard?” I know good and well the news has probably spread through all of town that my wife left me in the injured tent. There’s no hiding from your secrets around here.

“I mean, there was the part about you getting into it with your woman.” He leans against the wooden door frame, crossing his arms. The covered porch keeps him protected from the rain, but the cool air rushes into the cabin.

Keeping my hand gripped on the door in case I need to slam it on him, I reply, “That’s the real reason you’re over here.”

“The real reason I’m here is because it sounds like my best friend had a really shitty weekend and I wanted to make sure he was doing alright. Asshole.” I do feel like an asshole. An asshole about the whole thing, not just this .

Running the hand not on the door through my hair, I shake my head, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I blew it.” My head hangs down like my mood.

“Care to tell me what the hell happened?” He pushes off the door a little to stand straight and shoves his hands into his pocket, rocking on his toes.

I open the door a little wider, inviting him in. “Yeah, you want a beer?”

“Sure.” He waltzes in like he owns the place, straight to the fridge. I hear a can crack open.

“Well, she was there with your sister and her friend from her hometown. And I got stuck on a bull and kind of got my shit rocked.” Meaning, I for sure got my shit rocked. “It definitely looked worse than it was. And then she walked in on me in the medic’s station and…she wanted me to quit riding.”

Cold beer in hand, he flops down on the futon. “And you told her no.” He says it like a statement, like he has no doubt about which one I would pick.

Walking to the fridge, I grab my own beer, already knowing I’m not going to like this conversation. “I can’t quit rodeo.”

He looks at me like I am a complete idiot. “Why? Honestly, it seems like you enjoy the work here on the ranch more than you do being on the road all the damn time.”

“It’s just not my time to be done.” My voice comes out with more bite than I intend. At this point, with the amount of times I’ve said this, I’m starting to feel like a broken record.

“What more could you possibly need to prove?” He leans forward, rests his forearms on his knees, and holds on to his can with both hands. I lean against the wall closest to him, feeling too fidgety to sit .

“You know what I need to prove.” I look over to him, my voice quiet but firm.

“Mav, this can’t seriously still be about the shit with your dad anymore.” He rolls his head and his eyes all in one swoop motion. Clearly, annoyed with my response.

“You wouldn’t fucking get it.” I turn my head away from him. No one would. Dealing with this pressure, trying to beat the expectations of me. Trying to beat my expectations of me. It feels damn near impossible…

“Seriously?” His tone makes me look back at him.

His expression looks almost hurt, and I feel like an asshole.

Again. God, what the fuck is wrong with me?

“Do you know how many people think the only reason I get by is because of my parents' money? Not all the work I put into this place, or all the dreams I have for it. If anyone is going to understand being the kid of a great, it’s me. We may not get belt buckles, but it’s all the same feelings at the end of the day. ”

Trying my hardest to get him to understand, I respond, “I have to beat my dad’s records and get the one thing he never did. That’ll be the only way people will ever believe I earned this shit.”

“People, or you?” He points to me, and it feels like a shot fired.

My mind recoils at it like it was a shot.

“Because right now, it sounds like the only person you need to convince that this glory is yours alone is you.” His voice lacks his usual lackadaisical tone, and his words sound as harsh as they feel.

Grating on me and slowly wearing me down.

“It doesn’t feel like just me.” My bare hand taps my chest twice. “Doug likes to tell me every day how I’m only here because of my dad.”

“Doug can fuck right off. The only reason he doesn’t want you to retire is because you are his personal bankroller.

You quit competing and he loses the big fat checks from you.

He doesn’t care about your career. Doug has always been out for himself.

Why do you think he didn’t want you getting close to Ava?

” His words are an echo of what Ava said, making my heart thump in my chest, trying to fight off the reasoning because if the people closest to me can see it, it’s probably true.

“Because it would be a distraction,” I reason.

He shakes his head slowly, almost looking like he feels sad for me, and I hate the look of pity.

“No, Mav. It’s because he was worried she’d be the reason for you to leave the sport.

Are you really okay with choosing something like this over a girl like that?

I’ve seen what you two have, Mav. You’d be a fucking idiot to throw that down the drain for something that will never last you forever.

At some point, you’ll have to retire. And then what will you have?

” He looks around my empty cabin, as if he notices how empty this place is without her too.

His questions leave me pissed off. Mad at Dad for leaving me here to deal with this shit alone, mad at my stupid fucking agent for putting shit into my head and mad at myself.

Mad because I know that Weston is right.

There will probably be nothing that will make it feel like it’s enough until I believe it was enough before it ever turned into this grand scheme.

There’s now a crack in the glass of my resolve because deep down, I know he’s right. Ava was right too.

Realizing just how bad I fucked up, I ask the only question I can. “Well, what the hell do I do now?” I’m feeling more lost than I ever have.

He shrugs his shoulders. “That’s up to you. Have you tried talking to Ava?”

“She won’t answer me. She doesn’t want to talk to me.” And I hate it. I hate that I put this distance between us. Hate that I ever made her think she wasn’t enough because she’s more than enough. She’s everything.

“Since when has that ever stopped you before? You have a couple weeks off after next week, right? If you want her, you have to prove it to her. You need to figure out what will make you happy. And if we are being blunt, you need to learn how to be happy and proud of yourself without either of them, Ava or the rodeo.” He keeps his eyes locked on mine.

There’s no cushioning his words. He’s saying it exactly the way I need to hear it.

And at this moment, I’m grateful for friends like him.

Friends who are honest, regardless of if it’s going to piss me off or hurt my feelings.

He’s telling me what I need to hear. “You’re a good person.

That’s what matters at the end of the day. ”

A few beers later, Weston leaves after completely uprooting every thought I’ve ever had. I sit back in the futon that smells way too much like Ava and close my eyes. A deep, longing ache makes my heart feel like it’s physically breaking.

Fuck, I wish my dad was here. He taught me how to do a lot: how to ride a bull, how to stack hay bales, and how to ride a horse.

But he never got the chance to teach me how to be a man.

To teach me what he learned from his failures.

How to own up to the mistakes you make. That’s where all the real lessons lie, in the failures and what comes after.

All I ever saw was my dad, the rodeo star.

But I wonder, if he was around now, what would he say? Would he have had any regrets? Or would he have been okay with the way he went out? I’ve asked myself that question more times than I care to admit. Would he have put me first if he had known it would be the rodeo or me?

My eyes dart to the closet against the wall.

There’s a box in there—a bunch of his personal belongings.

I was given all his belt buckles, and you can catch me wearing those every ride.

I’ve never worn any buckles I’ve won, only my old man’s.

It makes it feel like a piece of him is with me during every ride.

I’ve never seen half of what’s in that box.

It hurt too much to look at it when the accident happened.

And then after that, I was scared shitless of what I’d find.

So I kept the box hidden on the top shelf of my closet, trying to pretend it was not there.

Grief is an ugly beast; every time you think you’ve handled your demons, it comes back to haunt you.

Maybe it’s time I exorcise some of those. Chugging down the rest of my beer, I set the empty can on the side table and walk to the front of the door.

I stand there for a second, steeling my nerves.

My old man has been gone for fourteen years.

What’s in that box is all I have left of him.

I’ve shoved it all down, but if I ever want to be the kind of man that deserves a girl like Ava, it’s time I face what scares me the most. Grief. Loss. Being alone.

Placing my hand on the knob, I turn it and open the door.

Reaching up, I pull the string to turn the light on.

There it is, untouched on the top shelf.

I reach up and grab it. Dust falls down like snow, so I blow the top of it off and make my way back to the living room.

It looks like an old filing box. My dad never had a lot of belongings, kind of like me. He was always on the road.

Slowly, I lift things out of the box. His favorite denim jacket, straight from the 80s, sits on top. He always wore this alongside a trucker cap or a cowboy hat. I don’t think I ever really saw my dad without something on top of his head.

Underneath are letters from his fans. Beneath that, I find a stack of Polaroids that capture moments of him on bulls or with his riding buddies.

I can’t help but smile at these. It reminds me of Rhett and Weston.

Digging a little farther, I find pictures I had drawn my dad when I was little—usually of us on a horse, or somewhere here on this very ranch.

I laugh when I see my horrible rendition of him riding a bull.

It’s a good thing I followed his footsteps because art was not in the cards for me.

There’s a small box at the very bottom with a swivel closure.

I pull it open and find pictures of me and my dad.

There has to be at least forty pictures in here.

I thumb through them and get to see myself grow up through my dad’s eyes.

Technology had gotten better, but he must have been partial to the Polaroid camera.

When I get to the end, I see a picture of my dad holding me when I was what looks like about six.

At the bottom, he wrote, ‘My son, my greatest win.” And that’s when I know.

I know exactly what he would have chosen.

My hands shake with the picture in my hands, and I swallow hard against the lump rising in my throat. Tears threaten to fall, but I clear my throat.

Suddenly, I understand everything Ava was saying.

It hits me like a ton of bricks when I realize she is me.

Because I wish he would have quit, I wish he was here with me now.

That’s what she was trying to tell me. The way I feel right now could be her if I don’t make the right choice.

If I don’t choose her. My dad never had the chance to choose me, but I’ve been given the chance.

This will be one lesson I can learn from my old man: knowing when to quit.

Fuck, I’ve learned a lot tonight, but most of all, I learned that sometimes cowboys do cry. And I was dead wrong before, but I’ve got a chance to make it right, and I plan on doing just that. I refuse to live a life with regrets, and letting Ava walk away is a regret I can’t stand to live with.