Page 1 of The Pieces We've Lost

prologue

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: RODEOHOUSTON, HOUSTON, TX

Ladies and gentlemen, this is shaping up to be another great night of rodeo here in Houston. Up next, we’ve got a cowboy, who you know and love, from our great state of Texas! He was your world champion in steer wrestling last year. From your hometown of Houston, please welcome Levi Merritt!”

Thousands of people from all around the world had gathered to watch my dad compete, and the roar of the crowd filled the entire arena, drowning out the announcer’s sentence.

I bounced on my heels in excitement as I looked over at my mom, who watched the chute at the end of the arena intently. Anxiously. Nervously. We’d both seen him perform countless times before, but her expression would always remain the same until the event flew by in an instant. It never took long, and if you weren’t paying attention, those three to four seconds would be over before you even caught a glimpse of the action.

Most people would assume her reaction was out of fear, but it was truly because of the love she had for mydad. If you looked past the anticipation in her eyes, you would see the same love I had for rodeo, the love we all had for it.

I looked back just in time to see Dad flash me a confident smile like he always did before a performance. My heart filled with adoration as I watched him back his horse into the box. His horse was antsy, clearly more than ready to run. Dad’s attention focused on the task at hand, and he nodded his head ever so slightly to signal for them to open the chute and let the massive steer run free, giving it a head start to sprint down the length of the arena floor.

A memory of me at five years old flashed across my vision, and I smiled thinking about it.

Dad and I sat on the living room floor as I looked at the pictures in a program from one of the rodeos he had been to earlier that year. I flipped to a page with Dad’s picture and a bunch of words I couldn’t quite understand on it.

“Dad, what is steer…resting?” I pointed to the big words at the top of the page as I tried to sound them out.

“Steer wrestling?” he asked as he looked where I was pointing.

“Yeah, what does that mean?” I asked.

“It’s what I do when I go to rodeos. It’s my event that I compete in.”

“Oh.” I nodded my head enthusiastically, but after thinking for a moment, I tilted my head in confusion. “What exactly is a steer?”

“It’s the animal that I have to wrestle to the ground when I compete,” he explained as he scooted closer to me. “They’re like the cows we have on the ranch, except they’re only used for rodeos.”

My eyes went wide as I tried to picture Dad wrestling one of the huge cows we had on the ranch. “How big are they?” I asked him.

“They’re around five hundred pounds.” His response had been so nonchalant as he shrugged his shoulders. His attitude toward it was no doubt calming, yet a wave of anxiety still flowedover me.

“Is that as big as you? Or…bigger?” Dad was pretty big.

He laughed. “No, sweetie, they’realotbigger.”

I looked down and fidgeted with the page before looking back up at his big brown eyes. “Whoa, that is big.” With how big Dad was, they must have beenhuge. “Isn’t that scary, though? What if one…hurts you?”

“I’ve never been hurt by one before, Sunshine. You have nothing to worry about.” He took the program away to tickle me, and I squealed with laughter, already forgetting about my fear surrounding the steer wrestling. Dad was always right, and so I believed him.

Nothing could hurt him.

He was invincible.

Dad’s horse followed a split second after the steer was released, running up next to the animal my dad would take to the ground. Dropping from the horse, he grabbed the steer by its horns, intending to land and slow its movement so he could flip it onto its side. Except, his movement was slightly off, causing his feet to catch the ground too abruptly. A hazy cloud of dust rose to surround his body, and the audience strained to see what was happening.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away as I squinted and stood on my tiptoes to try to see what was happening over the heads of all the people in front of me. Within a split second—which felt suspended in time—he flipped over the top of the steer’s head, causing the animal to come crashing down on him. The crowd winced when its horn turned directly into his chest, piercing through his shirt. I gasped as red blossomed around the horn.

“I’ve never been hurt by one before, Sunshine. You have nothing to worry about.”Dad’s reassuring words repeated over and over in my head as my heart started racing.“You have nothing to worry about.”

I turned my head toward Mom, looking forreassurance, but she had shot up from her seat, her eyes wide with alarm. The color had drained from her face, like she’d seen a ghost, and I caught myself holding my breath, tears stinging my eyes as my vision blurred.

He’s going to be fine. He’s never been hurt by a steer before. He said nothing will ever happen to him. Hepromisedme.

The arena, once lively with the chatter and cheers of spectators, turned eerily silent as everyone waited to see if the hometown cowboy would get up. If he would move, even if just an inch.

Waiting to see if he would dosomething.

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