Page 12 of Colt
But still, I don’t need to be a bitch like that.
“Because we’re family.” Those words feel dragged out of the center of my throat. I don’t especially want to be family to that man. I never have. I can’t leave that clunky, awful sentence lingering in the air between us. Because it’s just terrible. It’s just way too mean.
“Yeah,” he says.
He’s spacing out a little bit, which is actually good. His morphine drip must have given him another dose. And I don’t need to keep talking. I don’t need to keep trying to dig myself out of this pit. In fact, what I really need is to just let it all go. I need to rest, because I also have a head injury.
Of all the stupid things.
Maybe that’s why I said that. Maybe it wasn’t me just being desperate. Maybe it wasn’t actually about all my complicated feelings that I shouldn’t have for my stepbrother.
But as he drifts off to sleep, and I look at the expression on his face, I worry very much that it’s exactly that.
Chapter Five
Colt
The first thing I remember when I wake up is that Allison got a concussion. My eyes open, and I look around the hospital room, which is empty.
Instantly, I’m worried that something worse happened to her. That her condition deteriorated, or something.
If her brain turns to jelly because I had a bull riding accident that’s really going to affect the family holidays. Plus, I’ll feel guilty. I’ve never really felt guilty before, and I don’t think it would be a good look for me.
I’m joking in my own mind for about thirty seconds before I actually start getting scared something is wrong with her. I’m examining all the lines I’m hooked up to and trying to decide if I can make an escape when she appears in the doorway.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
I’m holding onto my IV pole, and I guess I look like I’m about to unplug from everything – which I was absolutely about to do.
“Nothing.” I relax back into the bed.
“I was just grabbing a snack and seeing if I’m feeling okay.”
“Well. I thought you died.”
She wrinkles her nose. “No, you didn’t.”
“I thought something happened.”
Her brows knit together, and she’s staring at me like she doesn’t know what to do with me. Fair enough, in this hospital bed hooked up to all this shit I don’t even know what to do with me.
“I don’t really need you to worry about me. Considering I’m not the one who just about got torn to pieces in front of an audience.”
I grimace. “Don’t downgrade me. I wastorn to pieces.” I wave my hand up and down over my midsection. “I’m stitched back together.”
She looks at me with a measure of something that might actually be compassion. Hard to imagine on Allison, if I’m honest.
The moment between us is broken by the arrival of my mom and Jim.
“I hear they’re going to try and help you stand today,” my mom says upon entry.
“News to me,” I say.
But I’m ready for that. I’m tired of being in this bed. Hell, I’m tired of being in the hospital. I can’t do anything. I feel helpless, and I hate that. My ass is rotting as I sit here, melding into one flesh with the hospital bed.
The worst thought ever, and I hate myself for having it.
I’m ready to get moving. I’m ready to get out of here.
