Chapter Forty Six
Colt
Three months later.
The past three months have felt like I’m strapped into some fucked-up rollercoaster I never agreed to get on.
Some days I’m riding high, almost convincing myself I’ve got a handle on things.
Other days I come crashing straight back down, thrown into a spiral before I see it coming.
Those days usually feature seeing Wade on the ranch, or when I notice the empty spaces in my life again after having had everyone around me.
Jae is back on tour. Naomi and I have drifted apart again because avoidance remains my favourite coping mechanism. And Maeve… Well, she’s gone.
I try not to let myself think about her, but it’s hard when she brought so much happiness into our lives. And then the truth came out and took most of it with it, which is something I am still trying to untangle in my head.
I still have daily battles in my head, but now I have days where I win some of them.
It was around six weeks after everything fell apart when I got the official diagnosis. Confirmation that I have Borderline Personality Disorder.
The woman across the desk who completed my assessment said it so plainly, didn’t even give me a second to process before sending me on my way with the silly bit of paper that had the answer I was waiting for.
Instead, I had to drive back to the ranch sitting with it all and waiting to see how I actually felt.
Relief. That's what came eventually. Once I'd had the time to sit with it properly and let it become real. Relief that there is a reason. An understanding of how my brain works that isn't just you are too much, or you are difficult, or you simply need to try harder.
Not broken, I remind myself on the daily. Just wired differently.
And apparently there is a way to work on that.
Mentalisation Based Therapy. It’s draining and uncomfortable having to learn to sit with my feelings instead of running from them.
Being encouraged to understand not just what I feel, but why.
And the part I find hardest, the part that has taken up the most real estate in my sessions with Dr. Palmer—trying to do the same for the people around me.
That doesn’t come naturally, but Dr. Palmer keeps pushing me to do it, mainly taking me back to that night.
I've been reluctant to go there where Wade is concerned.
Reluctant to try to understand a man who kept something that fundamental from me, without even getting onto the Maeve thing.
But Dr. Palmer is persistent in a way that is quietly relentless, and with whatever brand of voodoo she pulls off in that room, she eventually got me there.
I thought about him.
Not through the lens of my own pain this time. Not as the man who hurt me or the man with the secrets. Just as a person. One who, despite knowing I wasn't his long before I was born, stayed. Then raised me alone when my own flesh and blood chose the life of drugs over me.
I’m not completely oblivious to all those facts. But the anger was always going to be there. That’s just the natural response, right? And just like I’ve done most of my life, I reverted straight back to misdirecting my hurt at Wade the second Mom opened her mouth all those weeks ago.
When I actually sit with it all and think about his feelings and everything he sacrificed for me… The anger fades and is replaced by something that, oddly and unexpectedly, feels like being loved.
This morning, though, after yesterday’s session, something Dr. Palmer said has been rattling in my brain all night.
“Put yourself in Wade's shoes. You've spent most of your adult life miserable, if we're being honest about it.
Carrying things alone, giving everything to everyone, never once asking for anything back.
And then something good finally comes along.
Something real. Are you honestly sitting there telling me you'd have turned that down?”
I didn't answer her in the session.
And the answer—the honest one, the one I've been sitting with since about two in the morning—is no.
No, I wouldn't have turned it down.
All that sacrificing, that’s bound to fuck up a person over time. Bound to make them give in when something good comes around.
And Maeve was good.
I know that better than most. She walked into this ranch and made everyone around her feel seen without even trying, without making a performance of it, just by being the kind of person who pays attention. Even I wanted her from the start, and I barely knew her.
I look out at the bare bones of the riding school site from across the yard, all metal frames and unfinished concrete.
Only the paddock extension has been completed from where the lessons used to take place.
We thought putting the school front and centre, not far from the main house, would be a good idea.
One of the first things you will see when driving down the long road toward the ranch.
Wade is there, standing on the edge of the site, watching the builders work. Except he looks like a shell of a man. Has done for the past three months.
He has been on autopilot. Not talking. Just completing the tasks. The only conversations we’ve had have been very brief and only when necessary. I'm tired of it.
We have both been through enough. What kind of life is this if it stays this way?
Enough is enough. We deserve more than this.
My boots on the dry ground give me away instantly, and he turns.
In the space of a second, the distant dazed look is gone, replaced by something cautious, like he’s scared to move too fast around me.
“Coming along,” I say as I close the remaining distance.
He lets out a hum of agreement, bobbing his head while scanning the site. The silence between us is heavy.
“I’m ready to talk, if you are.”
I keep my eyes on the riding school instead of him, fingers flexing at my side. Workers going about their business, getting the job done.
The November sun sits warm over the ranch, the hills gone from vast colours of spring to waves of gold grass and burnt orange leaves on the trees. A few wildflowers still linger if you know where to look.
“I get it now.”
Wade’s brows pull together.
“Or… I think I do.” I rub the back of my neck. “Everything you kept a secret; I can see how you thought it would protect me. And how being distant may have been easier when all I did was blame you for something I thought I knew.”
Wade doesn’t move, I’m not even sure if he has breathed since I started talking.
“I’m still hurt by it all, but I’m starting to look at it deeper. You know, thanks to therapy.” A short, awkward sound leaves me before I can stop it. “You’ve done a lot for me in the background; I was just blinded by the anger. I’m sorry for that.”
“Colt.” Something stern moves through his voice. “You don’t owe me an apology at all.”
“I think I do for some of it because, maybe, if I had allowed you in, then you could have felt like you could have told me sooner…”
He looks at me, his features now softened.
“But Maeve… I have tried to see it from your perspective, but it’s hard for me. I get parts of wanting something good, but you could have had anyone else. Why her?”
Wade looks at the building for a long moment. When he speaks, the careful composure has loosened, words coming out easily without any thought.
“I’ve never felt anything as close as I’ve felt with Maeve. I meant it when I said I tried to stop it before it became what it became. She just… caught me off guard. Then, before I knew it, I had fallen for her.”
I go still. Fallen for her.
I expect the anger to return, but it doesn’t.
Wade just said those words out loud, to me out of all people, without any guarantee of how they'll land. That’s stronger than I ever thought he felt towards her.
“Do you love her?” I ask.
“Yes,” he replies, without missing a beat. “But that doesn’t matter anymore. I want to focus on us, and our bond. As father and son again because you, Colt, are always going to be my son.”
“It's going to take time,” I say. “I'm not standing here telling you everything's fine, because it isn't, not fully. But I don't want to keep doing this distant hating thing either.” I look at him directly. “That's not what I want.”
“What do you want?” he asks.
“Exactly what you want too.” I nod at the riding school. “To have a relationship… as father and son.”
Something opens in his face that I haven't seen there in twenty-six years. Honest, raw and hopeful.
“She left because of me, didn’t she?” I say. “Because she didn't want to be in the way of us fixing this.” I gesture between us.
“Colt—”
“If you mean it when you say you love her, you should be allowed to be happy after everything you’ve been through. And truth be told, I miss her too.” He looks puzzled. “Not like that, but as my friend here. And yes, it will be very weird to see you two together, but I will get over it eventually.”
He stares at me. Lost for words.
“Go get her, Dad.”