Wade
You can ride again.
The words swirled around my mind in a constant loop, taunting me with the hope I’d spent the last two weeks keeping at bay. Had I heard the doctors right? I could ride again.
She moved her chair to sit closer, somehow using her psychologist’s sixth sense to know that I was likely spiraling.
I had no clue how long I’d been sitting here, zoned out, but my lungs felt like they were on fire, and I realized I’d been holding my breath.
Gasping, I pulled in a deep lungful of stagnant conference room air and focused on my breathing exercises again. I hated feeling like I was spiraling out of control with no brakes, and somehow, evening out my breathing into four-second increments calmed me enough to focus on my surroundings.
Dr. Langford kept her fingers on my pulse as I worked to slow my heart rate and calm my breathing, monitoring my ability to self-regulate.
Breathe in for four seconds.
Hold for four seconds.
Out for four seconds.
Hold for four seconds.
I repeated the motions until I could feel the tension that had wound itself through my muscles relax, and the sweat that had broken out across my skin had dried.
“Good. You’re doing fantastic, Wade,” she praised, removing her fingers from my wrist, clearly satisfied with the slowing of my heart rate to a more acceptable rhythm.
It was then that I noticed that the doctors were no longer on the large projector screen across the room. We had called them in virtually to read off the findings of all the tests and scans from the day prior.
Watching a team of world-renowned doctors and surgeons pore over my chart had left me feeling severely undeserving.
My brain kept screaming that I wasn’t worthy of all the attention I was getting and that I should just suck it up and accept that I wasn’t meant to ride anymore. I couldn’t rationalize why these important medical figureheads were so invested in me.
I hadn’t understood 90 percent of the medical jargon they read off the chart in front of them. I didn’t know the meaning of all the results of the scans. But what I did understand were the four words I’d been craving so desperately to hear since the night of the incident.
You can ride again.
“Do you feel calm enough to talk through things a little bit?” Dr. Langford asked, pulling out one of her notebooks and spreading it open on the conference table in front of us. She uncapped a pen and wrote the date at the top. I guess we were having an impromptu therapy session.
I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I nodded and pulled off my Stetson, setting it upside down on the table in front of me. I ran my fingers through my hair, realizing how long it had gotten. As soon as I got out of here, I was going to need a trim.
“So, while I am a healthcare professional, I am not a medical doctor. I don’t understand all the terminology that the team was using, but I did understand quite a bit. Were you able to understand the majority of what they discussed?”
“I can ride again,” I whispered, leaning forward so my elbows rested on my knees as I held my head in my hands, the weight of those words sinking in.
“Yes, Wade. You will be able to ride again. Not right away, but you will be able to get on a horse. How are you feeling about that?”
How was I feeling? I should feel on top of the fucking world.
When the doctor in Firefly Cove told me I couldn’t ride, it ripped everything I had known and worked for my entire life out from under me.
Knowing I could get back out there, even if it took a lifetime, should have filled me with so much happiness I could burst.
But truthfully, I was terrified. What if I got back on a horse and the doctors were wrong? What type of life would I live if I ended up as a paraplegic? How could Ray ever love me if I needed to be pushed around in a wheelchair for the rest of my life and my fucking dick didn’t work?
“Terrified,” I choked out, the word catching in my throat as I fought for each labored breath. I focused on my box breathing again, feeling yet another panic attack rising to the surface. I hated feeling like everything I’d built by coming here was slowly crumbling around me.
Dr. Langford and I had recently discussed the possibility of setbacks in my therapy. Healing from trauma was not linear.
The key to successful healing wasn’t curing the bad days so that they never showed up. It was about focusing on the good days when they came and taking the bad days one minute at a time.
Healing meant creating an environment where there were more good days than bad. The bad days would come, but knowing how to fight through them was the key.
“Feeling worried and scared about this is completely normal. What are you most scared of?” she prodded.
I hung my head as I whispered, “What happens if I get back on a horse and fuck my back up worse, ending up in a wheelchair for the rest of my life?”
“That is certainly a terrifying possibility. But how would you feel if you got back on a horse and nothing like that ever happened?”
I turned her challenge over in my mind. I could almost feel the wind whipping around me as I envisioned myself riding through the ranch, letting Joker take me out to the farthest parts of the property.
I could feel the strong muscles of his haunches extending and contracting as he pushed himself to his limits, running wild and free through the fields.
A sense of calm washed over me at the prospect of being able to feel the freedom I so desperately craved every time I was on the back of a horse.
“Free. I would feel free.”
Her tight-lipped smile was hard to miss as she jotted a couple of things down in her notebook. She wasn’t giving much away, trying to keep a professional demeanor, but I could tell she was proud, and that filled me with an effervescent sense of joy.
“Now, let’s talk about what is going to have to happen to make sure you can get back on a horse.”
I nodded, wishing I had something of my own to take notes on. I wanted to do this right so that the possibility of anything going wrong was minimal.
“The neurosurgeon and orthopedic specialist agreed that your lower spine and the surrounding muscles are going to need strengthening. They suggested some intense physical therapy over the next two weeks you’re with us, and additional sessions once you’re back home.
They brought up your past rodeo injury where you twisted wrong getting out of the saddle, is that right? ”
That had been the moment I knew it was time for me to retire from the rodeo. I had spent the majority of my adult life focusing on rodeo events. I wasn’t crazy enough to put myself on the back of a bucking horse or a pissed-off bull, but I knew rodeo was my calling.
Sterling’s dad had taught me how to rope, and I was damn good at it.
I’d used my skills time and time again to help wrangle cattle on their family ranch when they needed to move herds from one pasture to the next.
When his dad’s small-time sponsors caught wind of my ability to rope well, they funded my first big event.
One event turned into two, two turned into qualifying, qualifying turned into championships, and it all culminated with the NFR in Las Vegas when I was twenty-five. I had poured myself into training, telling myself I was going to bring home the championship buckle and winnings for the ranch.
That morning, something had felt off, but I ignored it, pushing back the thoughts and focusing on getting in my head for what I needed to do. For some reason, though, I couldn’t shake the gut feeling that something wasn’t right.
When Joker and I lined up in the chute on the timed end of the arena, waiting for the gate to open and the calf to cross over the scoreline, breaking the barrier rope to signal our predetermined go time, there was a weird tension in both of our movements.
We normally worked in tandem, feeding off each other’s energy. We had been training together for my entire career, so I knew something was off the moment we lined up and readied ourselves.
When the chute opened, our sights homed in on that calf, waiting for it to cross the barrier rope. Once it did, we shot out like a light, and I swung my lasso over the calf’s neck with ease.
Everything seemed to be lining up for a perfect score until I stepped out of the saddle and onto the ground to tie the calf down.
I twisted awkwardly when my boot got stuck in a rogue strap on Joker’s haunch, and I lunged forward, the speed and momentum of my movement twisting my lower back at an odd angle.
The doctors told me that, with consistent chiropractic care and a long stint of physical therapy, I could go back to riding professionally, but I knew in my heart that I was done.
“Yeah, that’s right. It was my last professional ride.”
She nodded again, writing something down in her notebook.
“They mentioned you were given the opportunity for scheduled chiropractic care and physical therapy that would have let you continue riding professionally. What made you decide to stop?”
“My family needed me. Pops and Max were working their asses off to keep things running around the ranch, trying to make ends meet. I knew it was my time to pull my weight instead of chasing buckles.”
“And so, you opened a training center on the ranch for up-and-coming rodeo stars.”
I nodded. Opening a training facility had been the best of both worlds. I got to continue doing what I loved—shaping the next generation of rodeo cowboys and cowgirls. I got to be around my family and still bring in a consistent income to the ranch.
“That’s absolutely something to be proud of. Taking the hand you were dealt, filled with adversity, and turning it into something beautiful to help not only yourself and your family, but the community you poured most of your adult life into.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, and she chuckled. I knew what she was doing. She somehow turned everything into a learning moment, and it hadn’t taken me long to catch on.
“I can see you get where I’m heading with this,” she said with a smile. She placed her pen down on top of her notebook and folded her hands in her lap.
“Life isn’t always going to be kind, but what you do with the hand you’re dealt is key to continued happiness.
You’ve been dealt blow after blow over the last couple of years.
Between your mom dying, losing your rodeo identity, and getting shot, you’ve lost sight of everything good that surrounds you.
You’ve forgotten who you are at your core.
Now that you’ve gotten the go-ahead to get back to riding, it’s almost as if you’re being reborn.
So, Wade Daniels, with this new lease on life, what are you going to do with it?
What type of man do you want to be when you leave here in two weeks? ”
Her words floated around me, swirling like a tempest of emotion as I grasped for a response. What type of man did I want to be when I left here? But deep down, I knew. I knew the type of man I was and the type of man I wanted to be.
“I want to be the type of man who looks the devil in the eyes when he’s standing across a field and laughs because I’ve seen hell, I’ve walked through it, and I won’t let myself go there again.”