Page 40 of Colt
I can’t do that to her. I can’t do that to us, to the family.
She made it all very clear earlier today. She was assertive about it.
She doesn’t want this.
And that’s just fine.
Neither of us should want it.
Stepsiblings.
My thoughts are interrupted when we pull onto the dirt road that leads to our parents’ place. She takes the dirt road a little bit quick, the tire slipping as she rounds the corners, but it’s what I would do.
We’ve both driven this road so many times we could practically drive it with our eyes closed. Her little car doesn’t have the traction my truck does, though.
“Speed demon,” I say.
“Like you aren’t,” she says.
I have nothing to say to that. She pulls up next to Gentry’s truck, right there in front of the house.
“I don’t need help,” I say, opening the door and managing to get my crutch planted in the gravel driveway.
“Don’t be stubborn,” she says.
“I’m stubborn. Deal with it.” I manage to maneuver myself out of the truck without having an incident. I’m grateful for that. I don’t need any more incidents today. I don’t need any more incidents ever. I’ve maxed out on those. For the rest of my life.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Yeah. I have to do it.” I guess she means that I don’t have to do it by myself. I don’t have to put distance between us. The answer to both of those things is that I do. She doesn’t get to make proclamations. I’m the one who screwed up earlier. I’m the one who hurt her. I don’t want to do that. Not again.
I take the stairs up the front porch slowly, but it’s not impossible. It’s just methodical. She’s standing behind me. Like if I fall backward, we can trust fall or something. I don’t say anything. I just grit my teeth and get myself up to the front door. My mom doesn’t even let me ring the doorbell before she’s flying halfway out onto the porch. “I’m so glad that you felt well enough to come tonight.”
I wrap her in my arms as best I can while bracing myself on the crutches. “Of course. Thanks for inviting me.”
“You know you’re welcome here anytime. But I figure that you needed to rest a little bit at home first.”
“Yeah. Probably.” Except the rest makes my skin itch and makes me feel like my brain’s on fire, but that’s fine.
“How’s he doing?”
My mom directs this question to Allison. I wait for her to tattle on me.
“Great. I mean, you know how he is. He wants to take things a little faster than he should, but other than that, he seems to be doing great. That’s my professional medical opinion.”
She’s being too nice. I don’t like it.
But she goes into the house, and my mom does too, so I just follow them in.
Gentry and Lily are sitting in the dining room already talking to Jim.
“Glad they let you off to come have dinner,” I say to my stepbrother.
“Yeah. We got the Trigger Fire 90% lined. Everything’s going great. I’m going to get moved to a different location in a couple of days, but I'll have some time off until then.”
“Yeah, we’re both getting sent to California,” Lily says.
Lily is one of the few women that I’ve ever known to fight wildland fires. She takes the job seriously, but then, she’s always been one of us. I half expected her to take up bull riding when Dallas and I started it, but she went with the firefighting.
