Page 58 of Colt
“It’s just you and me for the next bit, okay?”
“Okay,” she says.
She looks at me just quickly again, and I see a slight smile on her face.
I’m rarely the reason Allison smiles. So I’ll take it.
“Do you have any favorite foods that you want to get?”
I actually eat pretty clean when I am in season on the rodeo. It would be nice to just drink a lot of beer and barbecue, but I take really good care of myself. Which is kind of hilarious now.
“Is it weird that I want vegetables. And also cake?”
“No,” she says. “Nothing is weird. I mean, because everything is weird, to be clear.”
“That’s the truth.”
Yeah. Everything was weird. So it’s best to just take a free fall into it, I guess.
When we arrive in Tolowa, she chooses one of the biggest grocery stores there. It has a lot of specialty foods, a lot of healthy, organic things, but also a big bakery, and some international goodies. It’s overpriced, and I’m thrilled, because I plan on indulging myself.
“I’ll make a salad tonight,” I say.
She wrinkles her nose. “You’ll make it?”
“Yeah. It’s getting easier for me to walk on the crutches. Nothing hurts quite as bad as it did a week ago. Let alone three weeks ago. I think I’ll be totally fine making part of dinner.”
“Well, I’ll take it.”
We end up deciding on some fresh pasta and lots of vegetables along with an Alfredo sauce. There’s great sourdough bread in the bakery, and also a cake that looks like it came straight from heaven. I want a little bit of normalcy, and a little bit of indulgence. That seems about right to me.
She’s pushing the cart, which I don’t love, but there really wouldn’t be an easy way for me to manage crutches and the cart. I could probably figure it out if I absolutely had to, but it’s easier to let her take the wheel. By the end, we got a little bit overkill, snacks, sweets, dressings, sauces, overfilling the cart. But there’s something easy about spending this time with her. Something cheerful about it. Maybe it’s just being up and out of the house. Somewhere other than my parents’ house. Maybe that’s what it is.
Or maybe it’s being with her.
She has insulated bags in the back of the car, with ice packs, and we fill those up before heading to lunch.
“Anywhere else you want to stop?”
“No.”
“You don’t want to get some new Wranglers cut up?”
“I’d like to not need any more than I have. Unless I do end up having to start that exhibitionist only fans.”
“Are you really worried about that?”
“Do I think I’m really going to have to start an OnlyFans?”
“No. I mean, are you really worried that you’re not going to be able to go back to the rodeo?”
I finish putting the last bag into the trunk. Then I get into the passenger seat. Her question is rattling around uncomfortably inside me, and I don’t know how to answer it. She gets in thecar, moments after I do, starting the ignition. “Sorry. I guess you probably can’t answer that right now.”
“No. I can. Yeah. I’m worried about not being able to go back to the rodeo. But I guess I’m worried about it… It’s not just the physical. It’s the mental stuff.”
“You didn’t even want the bull to be put down right after it happened.”
“I still don’t. But I also wonder if it’s a sign that I don’t need to be doing this anymore. It also feels like unfinished business, and I hate that. I want to go back. I want to be able to finish. I want to be able to win. But I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do that. I don’t know how things are going to change. When I’m by myself, I just relive parts of the accident. Over and over again.” Suddenly, I feel like I’ve been slugged in the gut. “I almost died, Allison.”
