by K. Bromberg
And the fact that I can’t pinpoint the why has my nerves dancing on edge.
Colton presses his hands to the side of his hat, and I can see the tension in his shoulders as he tries to brace for the pain radiating from his head. I walk toward him, unable to resist trying to help somehow although I know there’s nothing I can really do, and just place my hands on his shoulders to let him know I’m there.
That he’s not alone.
“I don’t need a fucking nurse watching over me. I’m fine. Really,” Colton says from his partially reclined position on the chaise lounge. Everyone left shortly after our arrival, everyone but Becks and me, realizing what a surly mood Colton was in. Colton’s parked himself on the upstairs patio for the last thirty minutes because, after being trapped in the hospital for so long, he just wants to sit in the sun in peace. A peace he’s not getting since he’s been arguing with everyone about how he’s perfectly fine and just wants to be left alone.
Becks folds his arms across his chest. “We know you’re hardheaded and all, but you took quite a hit. We’re not going to leave you—”
“Leave me the fuck alone, Daniels.” Colton barks, annoyance evident in his tone as Becks steps toward him. “If I wanted your two cents, I would’ve asked.”
“Well crack open the piggy bank because I’m going to give you a whole fucking dollar’s worth,” he says as he leans in closer to Colton. “Your head hurts? You want to be a prick because you’ve been locked up in a goddamn hospital? You want sympathy that you’re not getting? Well too fucking bad. You almost died, Colton—died—so shut the fuck up and quit being an asshole to the people that care about you the most.” Becks shakes his head at him in exasperation while Colton just pulls his hat down lower over his forehead and sulks.
When Becks speaks next, his voice is the quiet, calculating calm he used with me when we were in the hotel room the night before the accident.
“You don’t want sponge baths from Nurse Ratchet downstairs? I get that too. But you have a choice to make because it’s either her, me, or Rylee washing your balls every night ’til you’re cleared by the docs. I know who I’d choose and it sure as fuck isn’t me or the large, gruff, German woman in the kitchen. I love ya, dude, but my friendship draws the line when it comes to touching your junk.” Becks leans back, his arms still crossed and his eyebrows raised. He shrugs his shoulders to reiterate the question.
When Colton doesn’t speak, but rather remains ornery and stares Becks down from beneath the brim of his cap, I step up—tired, cranky, and wanting time alone with Colton—to try and right our world again.
“I’m staying, Colton. No questions asked. I’m not leaving you here by yourself.” I just hold up my hands when he starts to argue. Stubborn asshole. “If you want to keep acting like one of the boys when they throw a tantrum, then I’ll start treating you like one.”
For the first time since we’ve been out on the patio, Colton raises his eyes to meet mine. “I think it’s time everyone leaves.” His voice is low and full of spite.
I walk closer, wanting him to know that he can push all he wants but I’m not backing down. I throw his own words back in his face. Words I’m not even sure he remembers. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Ace, but rest assured it’s going to be my way.”
I make sure Becks locked the front door on his way out before grabbing the plate of cheese and crackers to head back upstairs. I find Colton in the same location on the chaise lounge but he’s taken his hat off, head leaned back, eyes closed. I stop in the doorway and watch him. I take in the shaved patch that’s starting to grow back over his nasty scar. I note the furrow in his forehead that tells me he’s anything but at peace.
I enter the patio quietly, the song Hard to Love is playing softly on the radio, and I’m grateful that it masks my footsteps so I don’t wake him as I set his pain meds and plate of food down on the table next to him.
“You can go now too.”
His gruff voice startles me. His unexpected words throw me. My temper simmers. I look over at him and can’t do anything other than shake my head in sputtering disbelief because his eyes are still closed. Everything over the past couple of days hits me like a kaleidoscope of memories. The distance and avoidance. This is about more than being irritated from being confined during his recovery. “Is there something you need to get off your chest?”
A lone seagull squawks overhead as I wait for the answer, trying to prepare for whatever he’s going to say to me. He’s gone from crying without explanation to telling me to leave—not a good sign at all.
“I don’t need your goddamn pity. Don’t you have a house full of little boys that need you to help fulfill that inherent trait of yours to hover and smother?”
He could’ve called me every horrible name in the book and it wouldn’t sting as much as those words he just slapped me with. I’m dumbfounded, mouth opening and closing as I stare at him, face angled to the sun, eyes still closed. “Excuse me?” It’s no match for what he’s just said, but it’s all I’ve got.
“You heard me.” He lifts his chin up almost in dismissal but still keeps his eyes closed. “You know where the door is, sweetheart.”
Maybe my lack of sleep has dimmed my usual reaction, but those words just flicked the switch to one hundred percent. I feel like we’ve time warped back to weeks ago and I immediately have my protective guard back up. The fact that he won’t look at me is like kerosene to my flame. “What the fuck’s going on, Donavan? If you’re going to blow me off, the least you can do is give me the courtesy of looking at me.”
He squints open an eye as if it’s irritating him to have to pay attention to me and I’ve had it. He’s managed to hurt me in the whole five minutes we’ve had alone together, and the fact that my emotional stability is being held together by frayed strings doesn’t help either. He watches me and a ghost of a smirk appears, as if he’s enjoying my reaction, enjoying toying with me.
Unspoken words flicker through my mind and whisper to me, call on me to look closer. But what am I missing here?
“Rylee, it’s just probably best if we call it like we see it.”
“Probably best?” My voice escalates and I realize that maybe we’re both a whole lot exhausted and overwhelmed with everything that’s occurred, but I’m still not getting what the hell is going on. Panic starts burgeoning inside me because you can only hold on so tight to someone who doesn’t want to be held on to. “What the hell, Colton? What’s going on?”
I push off the chair and walk to the ledge and look out over the water for a moment, needing a minute to shove down the frustration so patience can resurface, but I’m just plain worn out from the whiplash of emotions. “You don’t get to push me away, Colton. You don’t get to need me one minute and then shove me away as hard as you can the next.” I try to keep the hurt out of my voice but it’s virtually impossible.
“I can do whatever the hell I want!” he shouts at me.
I whirl back around, jaw clenched, the taste of rejection fresh in my mouth. “Not when you’re with me you can’t!” My voice echoes across the concrete of the patio as we stare at each other, the silence slowly smothering possibilities.
“Then maybe I shouldn’t be with you.” The quiet steel to his words knocks the wind out of me. Pain radiates in my chest as I draw in air. What the hell? Did I read this all wrong? What am I missing?
I want to tear into him. I want to unleash on him the fury I feel reverberating through me.
Colton deflects his eyes momentarily and in that moment, everything finally clicks. All of the puzzle pieces that seemed amiss over the past week finally fit together.
And it’s all so transparent now, I feel like an idiot that I didn’t put it together sooner.
It’s time to call his bluff.
But what if I call it and I’m wrong? My heart lurches into my throat at the thought, but what other option do I have? I smooth my hands down the thighs of my jeans, hating that I’m nervous.
“Fine,” I resign as I take a few steps toward him. “You know what? You’re right. I don’t need this shit from you or anyone else.” I shake my head and stare at him as he grabs his hat, places it on his head, lowering the bill so I can just barely see his eyes that are now open and watching me with guarded intensity. “Non-negotiable, remember?” I throw my threat back at him from our bathtub agreement weeks ago, and with those words I see a sliver of emotion flicker through his otherwise stoic eyes.
He just shrugs his shoulder nonchalantly, but I’m onto his game now. I may not know what it is, but something’s wrong and frankly this been here, done that bullshit is getting old. “Didn’t you learn fucking anything? Did they remove the common sense part of your brain when they cut it open?”
His eyes snap up to mine now and I know I’ve gotten his attention. Good. He doesn’t speak but I at least know his eyes are on me, his attention is focused. “I don’t need your condescending bullshit, Rylee.” He yanks the bill of his hat down over his eyes and lays his head back, dismissing me once again. “You know where the door is.”
I’m across the patio and have flipped his hat off of his head within seconds, my face lowered within inches of his. His eyes flash open, and I can see the wash of emotions within them from my unexpected actions. He works a swallow in his throat as I hold my stare, refusing to back down.
“Don’t push me away or I’m going to push back ten times as hard,” I tell him, beseeching him to look deep within and be honest with himself. To be honest about us. “You’ve hurt me on purpose before. I know you fight dirty, Colton … so what is it that you’re trying to protect me from?” I lower myself in the chaise lounge, our thighs brushing against each other’s, trying to make the connection so he can feel it, so he can’t deny it.
He looks out toward the ocean for a few moments and then looks back at me, clearly conflicted. “Everything. Nothing.” He shrugs, averting his eyes again. “From me.” The break in his voice unwinds the ball of tension knotted around my heart.
“What … what are you talking about?” I slide my hand into his and squeeze it, wondering what’s going on inside his head. “Protect me? You ordering me around and telling me to get the hell out is not you protecting me, Colton. It’s you hurting me. We’ve been through this and—”
“Just drop it, Ry.”
“I’m not dropping shit,” I tell him, my pitch escalating to get my point across. “You don’t get to—”
“Drop it!” he orders, jaw clenched, tension in his neck.
“No!”
“You said you couldn’t do this anymore.” His voice calls out to me across the calming sounds of the ocean below despite the turbulent waves crashing into my heart. The even keel of his tone warns me that he’s hurting, but it’s the words he says that have me searching my memory for what he’s talking about.
“What—?” I start to say but I stop when he holds his hand up, eyes squeezing shut as the cluster headache hits him momentarily. And of course I feel guilty for pushing him on this, but he’s crazy if he thinks I’m going anywhere. I want to reach out and soothe him, try to take the pain away but know that nothing I can do will help, so I sit and rub my thumb absently over the back of his tensing hand.
“When I was out … I heard you tell Becks that you couldn’t do this anymore … that you’d gladly walk out …” his voice drifts off as his eyes bore into mine, jaw muscle pulsing. The obstinate set to his jaw asking the question his words don’t.
“That’s what this is all about?” I ask dumbfounded and struck with realization all at once. “A snippet of a conversation I had with Becks when I said I would have gladly walked away from you—done something, anything differently—if it would’ve prevented you from being comatose in a hospital bed?” I can see how his mind has altered bits and pieces of my conversation with Beckett, but he’s never asked me about it. Never communicated. And that fact, more than the misunderstanding, upsets me.
“You said you’d gladly walk out.” His repeats, his voice resolute as if he doesn’t believe I’m telling him the truth. “Your pity’s not needed nor welcome.”
“You’ve been pulling away because you think I’m only here out of pity? That you got hurt and now I don’t want you anymore?” And now I’m pissed. “Glad you thought so highly of me. Such an asshole,” I mutter more to myself than to him. “Feel free to make assumptions, because in case you haven’t noticed, they’ve done wonders for our relationship so far, right?” I can’t help the sarcasm dripping from my voice, but after everything we’ve been through together—everything we always seem to come back to when all is said and done—I’m hurt that he even remotely thinks I’m going to want him any less because he’s not one hundred percent.
“Rylee.” He blows out a loud breath and reaches for my hand but I pull it back.
“Don’t Rylee me.” I can’t help the tears that swim in my eyes. “I almost lost you—”
“You’re goddamn fucking right you did, and that’s why I have to let you go!” he shouts before swearing out a muttered curse. He laces his fingers at the back of his neck and then pulls his elbows down, trying to staunch some of his anger. My eyes flash up to meet his, my breath choking on confusion. “I heard you on the phone with Haddie the other night when you thought I was asleep. Heard you tell her that you’re not sure you’ll be able to watch me get back in the car again. I can’t be made to choose between you and racing,” he says, anguish so palpable it rolls off him in waves and crashes into the desperation emanating off of me. “I need both of you, Rylee.” The desolation of his voice strikes chords deep within me, his fear transparent. “Both of you.”
And now I get it. It’s not that he thinks I don’t want him because he’s hurt, it’s that I won’t want him in the future because I’ll fear for every minute of every second that he’s in that car, as well as the minutes leading up to it.
I had no idea he’d heard my conversation. A conversation with Haddie that was so candid, I cringe recalling some of the things I said, without the sugarcoating I’d use with most others.
I lift my hand to his face and bring it back to look at mine. “Talk to me, Colton. After everything we’ve been through, you can’t shut me out or push me away. You’ve got to talk to me or we can never move forward.”
I can see the transparent emotions in his eyes, and I hate watching him struggle with them. I hate knowing something has eaten at him over the past week when he should have been worried about recovering. Not about us. I hate that he’s even questioned anything that has to do with us.
He breathes out a shaky breath and closes his eyes momentarily. “I’m trying to do what’s best for you.” His voice is so soft the sound of the waves almost drowns it out.
“What’s best for me?” I ask in the same tone, confused but needing to understand this man so complicated and yet so childlike in many ways.
He opens his eyes and the pain is there, so raw and vulnerable they make my insides twist. “If we’re not together … then I can’t hurt you every time I get in the car.”
He swallows and I give him a moment to find the words I can see he’s searching for … and to regain my ability to breathe. He’s been pushing me away because he cares, because he’s putting me first and my heart swells at the thought.
He reaches up and takes the hand I have resting on his cheek, laces his fingers with it, and rests it in his lap. His eyes stay focused on our connection.
“I told you that you make me a better man … and I’m trying so fucking hard to be that for you, but I’m failing miserably. A better man would let you go so that you don’t have to relive what happened to Max and my crash every time I get in the car. He’d do what’s best for you.”
It takes a moment to find my voice because what Colton just said to me—those words—are equivalent to telling me he races me. They represent such an evolvement in him as a man, I can’t stop the tear that slides down my cheek.
I give in to necessity. I lean in and press
my lips to his. To taste and take just a small reassurance that he’s here and alive. That the man I thought and hoped he was underneath all of the scars and hurt, really is there, really is this beautifully damaged man whose lips are pressed against mine.
I withdraw a fraction and look into his eyes. “What’s best for me? Don’t you know what’s best for me is you, Colton? Every single part of you. The stubborn, the wild and reckless, the fun loving, the serious, and even the broken parts of you,” I tell him, pressing my lips to his between every word. “All of those parts of you I will never be able to find in someone else … those are what I need. What I want. You, baby. Only you.”
This is what love is, I want to scream at him. Shake him until he understands that this is real love. Not the unfettered pain and abuse of his past. Not his mom’s twisted version of it. This is love. Me and him, making it work. One being strong when the other is weak. Thinking of the other first when they know their partner is going to feel pain.
But I can’t say it.
I can’t scare him into remembering what he felt for me or said to me. And as much as it cripples me that I can’t say I race you to him, I can show him by standing by his side, by holding his hand, by being strong when he needs me the most. By being silent when all I want to do is tell him.
He just stares at me, teeth scraping over his bottom lip, and complete reverence in his eyes. He sniffs back the emotion and clears his throat as he nods his head, a silent acceptance of the pleading in my words. “What you told Haddie is true though. It’s going to kill you every time I get in the car …”
“I’m not going to lie. It is going to kill me, but I’ll figure out how to handle it when we get to that point,” I tell him, although I already feel the fear that stains the fringes of my psyche at the thought. “We’ll figure it out,” I correct myself and the most adorable smile curls one corner of his mouth, melting my heart.