Chapter 5 Weston
Weston
Five whole days of this bullshit, and I was about ready to scream.
I couldn’t do anything. I never realized how much stuff required the use of both arms until I couldn’t move one of them, and I was learning the hard way that I did a lot of shit that required two arms.
Putting on clothes? A nightmare that left both Beau and me pissed and cussing each other out. Showering? Humiliating beyond belief. Even something as simple as brushing my teeth took ten times longer than it should have.
I was sick of it.
And the headaches. Everything else would’ve been bearable if I could get past the mind-splitting headaches. It was unlike any concussion I’d ever experienced. The double vision, the light and sound sensitivity, the nausea. It was god-fucking-awful.
But even then, I needed to get out of this damn house before I started talking to the walls and they talked back. Or before Anna got here and stared at me as if I was about to disintegrate like one of Henry’s art projects held together by glitter glue and prayers.
I needed to move. To breathe. To get rid of all this anxious energy building up inside me. I wasn’t used to being this stagnant.
And I couldn’t stand being a burden to everyone.
While I knew logically I wasn’t, and that my siblings were happy to help in any way they could, I couldn’t help but feel like I was.
I’d grown up knowing I was a burden and being reminded of it constantly until I was left behind because of it.
I couldn’t put the family who took me in through that as well.
Beau already had enough on his plate with the merger and his new relationship.
Colt had his own shit with the police station.
And Anna was growing a human while chasing after another; she didn’t need to baby me on top of it.
Ignoring the blur in my vision as I stood, I grabbed my hat and went outside. The heat hit me like a wall of fire, the Texas sun hot and strong today. By the time I managed to make it down the porch steps and to the pasture where the horses were grazing, sweat was rolling down my back.
Apollo, the horse I used every time I was home, perked up as I approached, leaving his patch of grass to come say hello. He made a low huff in demand of a treat, but I didn’t have anything on me.
“Sorry, buddy. Nothing today,” I said as I ran a hand up and down his chestnut muzzle. He huffed again, his tail flicking. The little glutton was pissed at me.
I was pissed at myself, too.
I knew the risk that came with bull riding and accepted it fully, but I never imagined that I would become one of the guys who got hurt enough to be out for more than a week.
The old pros I grew up training under always told me my arrogance would catch up with me, and I hated that I proved them right.
Austin, my agent, wasn’t happy to get the news either. He was probably just as unhappy as I was. With me out, that meant no rodeos, no campaigns, no work of any kind. At least not for these next few weeks.
Just the thought made my skin crawl. I needed to be useful, to earn my keep.
I’d always been this way, especially after my parents left when I was thirteen.
Mount shelled out major cash for me growing up, from lawyer fees to rodeo lessons to basic needs, and that meant I worked my ass off for him, so it was worth it, or else I’d just end up feeling like a charity case.
Which was exactly how I felt now.
There were a few cowboys further out in the pastures, herding cattle into different pens. Probably for vaccines or something. If I were healthy, I would’ve been doing my part and helping.
“This is bullshit,” I murmured and stormed over to the barn. I was going to get on the back of my horse if it was the last thing I did.
Except when I got into the barn, I couldn’t even get the damn saddle down. My left arm was useless in my sling as I grabbed the saddle with my right hand and used my body as leverage to pull it down. It just slid off the post to the ground with a deafening smack that rang through my skull.
“Goddamnit,” I growled through gritted teeth, trying again, but I couldn’t get a good grasp with just one hand. I shoved it with my foot with an angry huff, sending it skidding along the floor. My balance wavered, and my vision swam, sending me staggering back into a stall.
I gripped onto the post next to me before I went falling like the saddle, my breathing ragged and energy zapped. I’d been tacking my own horse since I was nine; it was muscle memory at this point and was supposed to be easy.
I stormed back outside, burning heat simmering in my veins as I paced along the barn.
This was fucking ridiculous. I couldn’t ride.
Couldn’t dress myself. Couldn’t even take a shower alone.
Thank God I could wipe my ass. I let out a humorless laugh at the minuscule miracle.
Maybe Anna should come get me, since I was about as useless as four-year-old Henry.
I spotted a thick oak tree near the barn, and before I could even think about it, my fist was flying into the bark. Once. Twice. And again. Over and over until the pain in my shoulder was masked by splitting pain in my knuckles, until the nagging thoughts in my head went quiet.
“Now what’d that tree ever do to you, huh?” Beau’s voice came from behind me.
I turned, breathing hard, my vision spotty. “Go away.”
He scoffed, ignoring me and placing his hands on his hips. “You need to calm down before you hurt yourself more.”
“I’m not one of your ranch hands you can boss around,” I snapped, hating the way he was looking at me. Like I was a bird that got kicked from the nest too soon. It was the same way everyone stared when I was a kid and my parents ditched me.
Beau’s nostrils flared, his jaw tensing, as he took a step closer. “No, you’re just an idiot who can’t keep a lid on his temper.”
I looked at the ground, at the blood dripping from my hand. “I’m useless, Beau,” I said quietly, the shame I felt making it hard to speak. “I can’t get dressed by myself, can’t work, can’t tack a horse, can’t do anything. I hate being so reliant on y’all.”
“I know, but you just had surgery. Nobody is expecting you to bounce back like nothin’ happened. You’re not invincible. No one is.”
“I was expecting it!” I yelled, his eyes widening with shock as I exploded on him. “If I’m not on the back of a bull, then what am I? Nothing!” The words cracked as they came out, just as broken as my shoulder was.
Beau’s head tilted, eyes soft with something that made me want to disappear. “You’re my brother. That’s what you are,” he said gently. “Our brother, and you’re too important to us to go wreckin’ yourself.”
His words touched that painfully raw part inside me. The part that was still a boy who got taken in by a family and treated like he was their own. I clenched my teeth, looking away from him.
And saw Savannah.
All the air left my lungs. She was standing on her porch, her eyes wide, frozen like she’d just walked in on something she shouldn’t have, that something being me.
Our eyes locked, and I was hit with the same rush of longing I had when I saw her at the rodeo. But she just turned around and went inside, and my stomach hollowed out with realization. “She saw all of that, didn’t she?” I asked, still staring at the now-empty porch.
“Yup.”
Fuck. My eyes drifted shut, head hanging as I let out a heavy sigh. I fought the need to go after her, to explain, to do something. But I was stuck in place, bleeding and broken.
Fucking coward, I scolded myself, just like I had in the weeks I hid from her after her mother died. But I just couldn’t face her. Not then. Not now.
“You talk to ‘er?”
I peered over at Beau out of the corner of my eye and scoffed. “Of course not. She doesn’t give a shit about me.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “God, you really are a dumbass, aren’t you?”
My eyes narrowed at him, confused. “What are you talking about?”
“What do you remember? From the accident and the rest of the night?”
I glanced around, thinking. It was such a blur. I remembered the shock of seeing Savannah, then flailing in the air, but not much else until I came home. “Bits and pieces, but it’s foggy,” I admitted quietly. “I thought I’d dreamt it all.”
His mouth went into a hard line. “You don’t remember it then.”
“Remember what?”
He gestured with his head towards the Hayes house. “Her.”
My brows shot up. “Savannah?” He nodded. “What about her?”
“She was there.”
What was he getting at? “I know she was there, Beau. I saw her across the arena. I didn’t hit my head that hard.”
I’d never say it out loud, but looking at her caused all this.
It was entirely my fault, though. I looked in the first place when I knew I shouldn’t have.
That was something that got drilled into me at the beginning of my training as a kid: never lose focus.
It was a cardinal rule, and breaking it put everything at risk.
But when Savannah Hayes was around, all my focus went to her. She was my true north. My sun. It was inevitable. I would’ve had to be dead not to look at her when she was near.
“No. Just listen to me,” Beau said, taking a step towards me. “She was there. At the hospital with us.”
The ground could’ve swallowed me whole. I staggered back. “What?” I whispered.
Beau nodded. “She was…” He let out a heavy breath, staring at the ground. “God, she was hysterical, Weston. She nearly jumped the fence to the arena once the bull cleared, screamin’ your name, sobbing uncontrollably. Emmett had to literally peel her away.”
My pulse thundered in my ears, and I looked back at the house where she just stood, my heart in my throat. My buttoned-up, always composed, always careful Sav was screaming?
“Claire and I were talking to the paramedic, and I had to keep her from jumpin’ into the ambulance. She fought me hard on that, and when I told her how banged up you were, she bent over and threw up right on my damn boots.”
“Bet that was your favorite part of the night,” I murmured, trying to cover the fact that I was hanging by a thread.
I felt like puking too after hearing how upset she was, my guilt twisting me up so tight I felt like a rung out rag.
I let out a shaky breath, running a hand over my mouth.
My chest ached, but my heart hurt even more.
To know that she was so worried over me gutted me to the point that I could hardly breathe.
When we were together, she’d always been so afraid I’d get hurt, always assumed the worst-case scenario would happen, and this time it did, and she’d been alone. I hadn’t been there to take care of her.
“She stayed at the hospital all night. Stayed when all the girls left, and it was just me, Colt, her, and Emmett. The surgeon came out and said you were okay, and she would’ve hit the ground if it hadn’t been for Colt catchin’ her. She was the first one back there to see you.”
I looked at Beau then. “What? She came back there?”
“Yeah, was with you for a while, too.”
“I thought I hallucinated that,” I admitted. So all of that actually happened. Her tears, her hand in mine, me telling her I never stopped loving her, the way she left.
Shit.
“Well, you weren’t.”
I blinked, lost somewhere in a daze. “Then why hasn’t she said anything to me? I thought she was avoiding me because we hadn’t seen each other yet.”
Beau shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, and I got no fuckin’ idea.” He came beside me, resting his hand on my good shoulder. “Maybe you said some off-the-wall shit because of the meds and overwhelmed her.”
If I had to guess, that was exactly what happened. Savannah always did spook easily. “Maybe,” I said distractedly, still watching the house as if I could summon her back outside with sheer will alone.
“C’mon, let’s get you inside before Anna sees your hand and tears into me for not watchin’ you closer.”
I followed after him without another word, not having anything to respond with for once.