Page 80 of Colt
Chapter Seventeen
Colt
Her words are like a knife straight through my chest. Or maybe more accurately, a bullhorn.
She loves me? There’s no way.
I can’t accept it.
Because I’m not good for her. I know that. I know it.
And someday she’s going to realize it. Someday she’ll realize that I’m nothing.
The strange twist in my thinking almost takes my breath away. I’m not good enough, because I might hurt her. I’m not good enough, and she might hurt me.
Two different things. Not good enough because I’m a narcissist. Or just not good enough because there’s something fundamentally wrong with me. My own dad doesn’t love me. He never did.
Is it me? Is there something wrong with me? Something fundamentally broken.
So that I have to shine brighter, burn faster, try harder than everybody else so that someone, anyone will love me. But I’ve inflicted myself on her, and that was never the idea.
“Allison… I think that’s… We can’t.”
“I know,” she says. “I know. For all the reasons we discussed. And I don’t care. So what if everyone knows? Let’s just let them know.”
“We can’t,” I say. “You know how everyone in town will react, and mom and your dad…”
“I don’t care. What if I don’t care? What if I feel like this is worth more than any of that? What if I feel like it’s more important for us to fight for this, to fight for each other, than it is to worry at all what anyone else thinks? We’ll deal with them later. Let’s deal with us first.”
“There’s nothing to deal with. I need to get back to the rodeo.”
“I thought you were going to… Deal with that. I thought you were going to get some therapy.”
“I am. I will. But God, I can’t go dragging you into all this.”
“Don’t I get a choice?”
“You had a choice,” I say. “From the beginning, you had a choice. I told you exactly what was going to happen. You agreed to it.”
She sits up, pulling her knees up to her chest. “Okay. But I want to change it.”
“No. I can’t.”
It’s the fear that’s roaring through me that I don’t understand. The abject terror. It’s like there’s a wind tunnel in my ears, and all I can hear is the screaming, deafening noise.
She loves me. But for how long? Why? It doesn’t make any sense to me. It doesn’t make any sense.
And the truth is, I can’t really believe it. Not in any lasting sense. Because it just doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t. It can’t.
Because I can’t.
I can’t be what she wants I can’t… My thoughts are a blur. I can’t say that I feel like I’m making much sense even in my own head. All I know. All I can even latch onto is the fear.
I’m letting it drive me. I’m letting it push me.
“I want us to still have what we can. I want us to still do what we talked about. To have this not… Ruin anything.”
“It’s too late. The thing is, Colt, I love you. And I have loved you. I’ve loved you since I was eleven. And I can’t pretend that I don’t. I can’t pretend that I didn’t. I’m not just going to accept half because you’re afraid.”
