Page 15 of Colt
But it’s the deal if I want to get out of the hospital, and I really need to get out of the hospital. The wound in my midsection is slowly getting better, but it is causing a huge part of the problem. If I twist wrong—and trying to maneuver on crutches, on that leg, means I twist wrong a lot— I am assaulted by shooting pains. My mom is there for all of it. My stepdad is there a lot too, along with Gentry and Allison.
It surprises me that Allison is dedicated to this. But I suppose it has to do with her being a nursing student. It makes sense when I think of it that way. She obviously finds it interesting. And she probably enjoys watching me be tortured a little bit. I can’t say that I blame her. I haven’t always been nice to her.
There is a sort of false hope blooming with my potential discharge day. Because part of me keeps hoping it’s a finish line of sorts. That it’s a sign things might get back to normal, and yet I can still feel how busted my body is.
I might be headed out of the hospital soon, but I’m not headed back to anything that looks like my life.
The little house in town is fine, and I don’t hate it, but it isn’t me. I’m not destined to live in a suburban cage. I want to have my own land. My own ranch. But right now, even if I had that, I wouldn’t be able to work it. Even if I had that, I wouldn’t have the capacity to do anything with it.
My frustration is like a boiling, burning thing in my already slashed-apart midsection.
But I know there’s nothing I can do about it, even as the anger builds inside of me.
I find out pretty quickly that there are no points for a good attitude. Anger doesn’t help, but it certainly doesn’t stop me from making progress. And if anything, it gives me an invisible enemy to fight, and that’s not the worst thing.
When I finally make it to discharge day, six full weeks after the accident, I feel a certain sense of triumph. But it’s limited.
Because the life that I have waiting for me out there is nothing like the life that I want. Nothing like the life I had before.
I might not be trapped in a hospital anymore, but I’m going to be trapped in Gold Valley.
I’m going to be trapped in a life I didn’t choose.
And other than flat out dying, that’s pretty much the worst thing I can imagine.
Chapter Six
Allison
“They’re discharging him today.”
My stomach jumps. Colt has worked so hard to get to this point. It’s been six weeks since his accident, since the surgery, and he’s come a long way from the man who was completely trapped in bed until only recently. The one who was clinging to his life when he was first brought to the hospital in Tolowa.
He got his rigid cast cut off, he’s in a flexible brace that allows him to bend his knee and lets his skin breathe a little – but he can’t take it off or get it wet.
He can walk with crutches now — sort of — after using a wheelchair for about a month.
I’m trying to imagine him alone in his house just a couple of doors down from mine, and it gives me a weird amount of anxiety. I can’t really say why.
“I need you to do me a favor,” my stepmom says, reaching out and grabbing my hand as we stand there in the hospital hallway. “Help take care of him. If I hover, he’s going to start to resent me.”
Shock is rolling through me. “But he already resents me.”
“He doesn’t,” she says. “I know you two haven’t had the most cordial relationship over the years, but you’re a nursing student. I think it will feel less like a family member thinking he can’t do things, and more like something valid.”
“Right.”
I can’t deny that she’s right, and I didn’t really like the idea of him being stuck there by himself anyway. It’s a good idea. It’s probably agreatidea. Because the man is stubborn and difficult, I know that. He’s got a lot going on beneath the surface, despite his laid-back exterior. If you were to ask anybody about Colt Campbell, they would say that he’s this wonderful, gregarious, likable guy, and that is certainly part of him.
But he’s tenacious and stubborn, because you don’t get to where he is in the rodeo without being that, and he hides it beneath that affable exterior.
All I can think is I’m going to be lucky if I don’t get my arm bitten off while trying to take care of him.
“If you don’t want to, I can have him come stay with us, or I can go stay with him in town, but I just think…”
I know he won’t like that. Her instincts about her son are right, of course. He’s going to have an attitude about anything that he doesn’t think gives him enough credit or independence. He’s going to take it as a challenge that he can’t do things, and I think that has the potential to make him attempt to do things he shouldn’t do. Because he’s Colt, and he’s too much of a risk-taker.
He always has been. He and Gentry and Dallas always wound each other up. It’s how they ended up where they are – two bull riders and a firefighter.
