Page 86 of Colt
He just won. I know he did. His score is going to come up any moment, and it’s going to show that he is the world champion.
He just got everything. Everything I’ve ever wanted. And he…
He’s not happy.
I watch him, and I don’t feel envy. That blows me away. Because I would’ve told you that I would feel nothing but an intense stab of envy for the man who won this. This thing that I’ve always believed was going to make me feel whole.
But I can see that he doesn’t. I can see that he’s not. Then they show his score. He’s the clear winner. One million. Bragging rights. An undisputed champion. One of the few to be declared the best. He is walking like a man who thinks he’s the best.
In fact, he walks right out of the arena. Yes, there will be a ceremony later, and yes, it just so happens he was the last ride and the top score, and he’ll probably come back but… It was theperfect opportunity. For a victory lap. To gloat. To bask in the fact that he is the very best. The very best.
And yet it doesn’t seem to have changed anything for them. Because his arms are empty.
Because whatever he had with Stella, he messed it up.
All that could be you. Yeah. It could be. Me. Basking in that glory, with absolutely nothing.
It didn’t make him good. It won’t make me good either.
With a horrible, hollow feeling in my stomach, I realize how right Sarah and Dallas are about me.
I really thought all this time it was going to fix something that was broken. Prove something that I’m not sure can be proven.
That I’m good. That I matter. That my dad made a mistake abandoning me. And I can’t believe that lives so deep inside of me, because I know that man is a narcissist. I do. But everything is twisted up inside of me. The shrapnel of a broken childhood. Trying to figure out whether I’m wrong or he’s wrong, or if it’s a little bit of both.
I stand up, and I walk silently away from the spectacle, heading toward the corridor, which is still mostly empty. I stand there, feeling like my legs are about to collapse underneath me. It wouldn’t really be a shock, considering the one leg is still problematic.
“What’s up?”
I turn and see Dallas standing behind me. My closest friend. The person who maybe knows me the most of anyone. Except for Allison.
“This didn’t fix him,” I say. “He won, I’ve never seen anybody look so broken.”
“You’re feeling empathy for Maverick? This is a weird day.”
“Yeah. Because that would be me, wouldn’t it? I’d win, it wouldn’t matter. I’d win, but it wouldn’t fix anything. I’d win, and I still wouldn’t… I wouldn’t have her.”
“Yeah, Colt, that’s about the size of it.”
“But I needed to fix myself. I needed to make myself feel like I was good enough.”
Dallas clears his throat and moves toward me. “Nothing is going to do that. And I get that it doesn’t mean a lot coming from a guy who already won, because I guess it’s easy for me to say. But if you can’t be okay with who you are without all of that, you’re never going to be okay with it. Sarah is what makes it feel like I’m okay. Sarah is the one thing that makes me feel like I am right where I need to be, all the time.”
“My mom is a good mom, and she loves me. My stepdad is great. I’ve got good friends.”
“It doesn’t mean you don’t have wounds. I have the best family. And still, there was just something that felt like it was missing inside of me. Something broken. She’s the one who fixed it. It’s not your body she was helping heal all this time, Colt. It was your soul. But you have to let it. You can’t be good enough unless you decide that you are. And if you can’t believe that, then look at yourself the way that she does. You know she never liked you because of that golden boy stuff. She just sees you. I think more people do than you realize. What would happen if you stepped off the stage? What would happen if you just lived?”
What would happen? If I just lived. I don’t even know. I don’t know what to do with this feeling of not being worthy of it that still rolls around inside of me. I don’t know what to do with all of this. But I know that I miss Allison. I know everything in my life has been worse since she left, that even as my body has healed, my heart has felt damaged. I know that.
And I need her. But I don’t know what I offer her. I just… She’s the most generous, beautiful, wonderful woman I’ve ever known. She calls me out, she makes me feel like I have a home. I’m always running, and with her, I don’t want to do that.
But then I think about the way she fought for us. Fought for me. The way that she saw me.
Yeah, the idea of her turning away from me fills me with dread. But if I don’t try, that’s what makes me my dad. Except worse. He can’t care about other people. I can. If I know better, and I don’t choose to do better, but I’m really not better than he is.
I can have a happier life. I just have to choose to be brave. Ironic for someone who does my job. But that’s not real bravery. Real bravery is being afraid and doing it.
And the real value of a man, I think, is his ability to do that. I haven’t been.
