Page 38 of Colt
“So, we can’t go… At each other’s throats.”
Well, that has a different connotation now.
This feels bad. Like the air around us has changed. And our mouths didn’t even touch. What the hell would’ve happened if they had? We might’ve torn the space-time continuum. Might have caused the big one that Oregon’s been waiting for all this time, the kind of cataclysmic earthquake that brings down everything around it, knocks out the power grid, and flattens whole buildings.
All because I lost my grip on who I am and what matters. I want to keep reassuring her. I want to make her feel better. I’m not in the business of hurting women’s feelings. When I sleep with somebody, I want them to feel better about themselves when all is said and done. But I can’t keep reassuring her, because there are bone fragments of lies in all the reassurance I want to give.
The truth is, thingshavechanged.
I’ve changed.
My whole situation is upside down, and I can’t guarantee that those slivers of bone aren’t an even bigger deal than I think.
That they aren’t more of a damaging half-truth that I’d like to believe.
How much of it is about me?
The truth is, I’m kind of selfish. I cover all that up by being nice to everybody. Smiling at everybody. I make that selfishness palatable. I’m going to try not to do that here.
“I need a shower.”
“What if you pass out?”
“I’m not going to pass out.”
“You hurt yourself. I really do think we should maybe go get your leg looked at.”
“It doesn’t hurt anymore. I swear, if I have any kind of lingering pain, I’ll go get it looked at.”
“Drink a glass of water.”
There’s a wall up between us, and that’s fair. I drink a glass of water, and then I go to the shower. I know she’s still not happy about it, but I have the bench, and I don’t feel at all lightheaded. But the problem is, now I feel aware of better feelings in my body. More than just pain. As the water sluices over my skin, I think about her. About her lips. They’re plump, the color of raspberries, and I can’t recall ever wanting to taste something quite so much.
Am I that basic? So basic that something being out of reach grabs hold of me now because I’m bored? No. I don’t think that’s the case.
That’s really shitty, if so.
But I’m getting hard thinking about her, and that makes me really mad, because I decided that I didn’t want to feel it, so it should just be over.
I lost control of everything. Every aspect of my body seems to belong to some outside entity now. It’s infuriating.
Absolutely infuriating.
I switch the water to cold, and grit my teeth together, my hands braced on my thighs as it pounds down on my back. Penance. I’m not a big fan of penance. I’m not a martyr. Not at all. I don’t like to be uncomfortable. I don’t do resistance.
Maybe that’s why I don’t like forbidden. Normally.
If I were bigger into baseball, I could recite some stats. I start thinking about the NFL playoffs. And then I start thinking about my accident. That does it. Everything inside me shuts off quickly.
Unsurprisingly.
I get dressed in another pair of ruined Wranglers, and I think about how fucking absurd it would look if I didn’t have the brace on. It’s almost enough to make me laugh. But nothing much is funny right now. Still, the image of me with my whole leg out in a pair of jeans with a slit up the side is pretty funny. I’d look likea regular saloon girl at a much more progressive establishment than usually found in the wild west.
Hell. Maybe that’ll be how I make my money after this. Some cowboy OnlyFans where I give people a good taste of hairy thigh.
That’s a problem. I just can’t figure out how much my life is actually going to change. I don’t want to. Today was a sharp reminder that it has, though. I push it all away. Push it to the side. I need to put on a smile for dinner. I don’t want my mom to be worried. I don’t need Gentry to be worried.
Hell, I don’t even want Lily to be worried.
