Thirty-Nine | Colson
Ipush my way through the sunflowers, trying to get back to Paisley. We were only playing hide-and-seek; she wasn’t supposed to get hurt. I feel bad because it’s my fault.
Dad always told me that when a man makes a mistake, he does whatever he can to fix it. My sister is injured and sad, and I want to do whatever I can to make her happy.
When I see her again, where I left her sitting in the field, she has one boot off, but her pink polka-dot sock is still on.
When she sees me with the flower, she smiles even though she’s still crying. “Wow! Where did you find that?”
“I saw it when I was trying to find you, and I thought it would make you smile.” I hold out the sunflower with only one red petal, looking like blood. It’s really cool, and I thought she would like it because she loves sunflowers, and this one is different than the others.
She takes it from me, brushing her fingers over the petals. I like making her feel better because she makes me feel better.
I take a seat next to her and take off my cowboy hat, setting it beside me. My forehead is sweaty from looking for her in the summer heat.
Paisley still has hers on. It’s the same color pink as her polka-dot socks. With her cowgirl hat, overalls, and pattern socks, she looks like a girly rodeo clown.
I look at her foot. “Can you walk?”
“Not yet. Will you wait with me?”
I don’t have to think about it. “Yes.”
“I wonder why this is the only petal that’s red. It’s weird,” she says, looking at the sunflower.
“Like you,” I say.
My sister leans over and punches me in the shoulder. “I thought you weren’t going to come back.”
My brows pull together. “I’ll always come back for you. You’re my other half.”
Paisley smiles. The sun peeking through the tall sunflowers makes her hat look like a halo.
“Even when we are really old, and I get hurt, do you promise to take care of me and make me smile?”
“If I get hurt, will you take care of me?” I ask back.
“You are too tough to get hurt.” She laughs.
I look at her foot. “When you’re hurt, I’m hurt.”
She puts the sunflower down; her eyes locked on mine as she holds out her pinkie finger. “I promise, even when we are really old, if you’re hurt, I’ll always be there to make you feel better.”
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
A steady beep interrupts my dream of that late summer day of Paisley and me in the sunflower field. For some reason, I always go back to that memory, like I’m supposed to remember it.
I lift my head off the side of the bed, the stark-white walls, chemical scent, and machines settling before me like a nightmare.
It’s been a week, and Paisley still isn’t conscious.
I sit up, my back aching from sleeping beside her all night in the chair with my head resting on the bed next to her.
Mom and Dad tried to get me to leave with them, but I wouldn’t go.
My truck has barely left the parking lot since the accident.
I glance down, seeing Paisley’s necklace still clutched in my hand. They had to take it off for her CT scan before they did her surgery, and I haven’t let it go.
I can’t.
My eyes find my twin, the side of her head above her ear shaved where they had made an incision so they could do surgery to stop her brain from bleeding.
They said she had a hemorrhage and major swelling, along with a fractured sternum that has been affecting her breathing.
Bile rises in my throat every time I see the breathing tube down her trachea, but it’s keeping her alive.
I keep asking her to wake up, but she won’t. The doctors said she would wake up when she was ready, but I didn’t miss the concern in their tones.
I swallow, trying to wet my dry mouth.
Reaching for her hand, with an IV and other tubes attached to the monitors and ventilator, I lightly stroke my thumb over her knuckles.
“This is my fault. I shouldn’t have let you convince me to let you ride.
” I shake my head, saying the words I’ve said repeatedly for the past week.
I don’t think she can hear them, but I say them anyway.
“Mom and Dad won’t look at me. And when they do, they blame me, as if I don’t already blame myself.
The doctors said when you wake up, you won’t be the same, and you’ll need a lot of help.
But you’re my sister—you will always be the same to me.
” She doesn’t say anything or move. It’s just the steady beep of the monitor that responds.
“If you can’t ride anymore, I won’t either. If you’re done, I’m done.”
Her fingers move against my palm. My heart leaps in my chest, my head snapping upward, watching as her sunken eyes flutter. They take in the room before they clash with mine.
“I’ll get the doctors,” I choke out through my heartbeat in my throat.
When I go to move, she grips my hand harder and shakes her head. Her movement is so slow that it makes me nervous. Why doesn’t she want me to get her help?
Paisley’s soft fingers draw lazily on the back of my hand. The kind of touch that should be a relief but isn’t. Not in the slightest. She watches me, those aqua eyes so similar to mine, watching me as I struggle to breathe. Which I shouldn’t be saying, considering her oxygen is coming from a tube.
Paisley blinks, her fingers starting to press harder into my skin now, but there are pauses—ones that seem too timed to be a coincidence.
My eyes drop to our conjoined hands. She pauses a little longer this time before she starts again, and that’s when I realize it’s not a pattern she’s drawing on the back of my hand. It’s a word.
Two words.
I watch closely, catching the letters.
D
Paisley pauses.
O
Pause.
N
Pause.
T
Longer pause.
S
Pause.
T
Pause.
O
Pause.
P
My heartbeat thunders in my ears, the two words splitting my heart. “I won’t let you go. I’m right here,” I reassure. “I won’t leave you.”
She struggles to shake her head again. Then she repeats the letters on the back of my hand, and what she’s asking me punches me straight in the gut.
Riding.
She doesn’t want me to stop riding.
Tears burn behind my eyes, my heart breaking for my sister. Splitting in half like the dream we had together because she won’t be a part of it anymore. “Paisley, I can’t. Not without you.”
She lets go of my hand, struggling as she tucks her fingers into a fist, all except her pinkie finger.
Paisley wants me to promise that I’ll still try to make it to the Pbr. Even if it’s without her.
I press my lips in a line and shake my head, the first few tears falling onto my cheeks. I can’t. Not without her.
Using what little strength she has, she juts her finger out farther, her blank eyes not straying from me.
But our promises when we were thirteen in the field on that summer day hang in the air.
If getting into the Pbr will make her happy, I’ll swallow my fear after her accident and push forward for her.
For her, I will always push forward.
Blowing out a breath, I hook my pinkie finger around hers. “I promise.”
Then, like my promise brings her peace, I watch as my twin’s eyes fall closed, her pinkie finger going limp around mine as the steady beep drowning the room shifts to a solid hum.
Don’t stop.
Don’t stop.
DON’T STOP.
“Please stop,” I mumble, closing my eyes, as I shovel more dirt and spread it across the ground. I don’t know if I’m talking to my sister or the painful memories that have been on repeat.
Everything fucking hurts.
“Colson.” Paisley walks toward me, her worry written all over her soft features. “I can’t watch you destroy yourself like this anymore. You’re so unhappy, and you have so much left to live for.”
Fresh dirt spills across the old arena around me like it always does this one day out of the year, before I plant the sunflower seeds. The one day I allow my grief to surface—to bleed through my barriers. But this is the worst it’s been. This is the worst it’s felt because I know she’s right.
“I told you I wouldn’t stop riding,” I mutter, bending down to reach for the whiskey bottle next to my feet. I take a swig of the liquor, the alcohol tasting like water on my tongue. It pools like a weight in my stomach. “I’ve kept my promise.”
Between the sun and the buzz, my body feels like it’s being engulfed in flames. Liquid fire drenches my muscles, my blood coursing through my veins like hot acid. Sweat drips down my temple, my body an inferno I can’t extinguish.
“You have kept it.” Paisley’s soft brown hair falls over her shoulders, her mouth pulling up into a genuine smile. It’s so pure it hurts, just like my head. “But do you remember the promise I made you?”
I swallow. She doesn’t have to remind me. It’s why she’s still here. I don’t speak.
“I told you all those years ago that when you got hurt, I’d be there to make you feel better.
Like you, I’ve kept my promise. But you’ve been hurting for seventeen years since we sat in that hospital room and said goodbye, Colson.
Since then, you’ve ignored your pain. You shoved back your fear of how much this sport can take because you had to push through it when I asked you to keep competing.
Your fear is surfacing, and it’s shifting into something you don’t recognize. ”
“You’re wrong,” I choke.
Gripping the neck of the whiskey, I growl, pulling my arm back before I throw the bottle across the ring. The glass hits one of the metal rails, shattering. The bang reverberates in my ears, muffling my sister’s voice in my head, which has always had a relentless grip on me.