Page 82 of Maverick
Nobody has managed to do that. Much to my chagrin.
But God, I miss her. She reminded me that life isn’t always terrible. But I’m afraid that I am. I’m afraid that her declaration only solidified that. She said exactly the kind of thing Sadie used to say to me. Why do you have to do that?
I don’t know why. That’s the thing. I don’t know why I do it. Stella seems to think it’s because I need to protect myself. But if I needed to protect myself, why would I be out here doing this? Why would I be a bull rider? I wouldn’t be. That simple.
And if breathing hurts now, how is that any different from my whole entire life?
It just is.
I stand in the back by the chutes and watch as the event begins.
The crowd is wild, the lights are bright. Adrenaline is hot and high. This isn’t like any other event. It’s big money. Big budget. Massive crowds.
And still, when I see a little blonde figure up in the stands, I stop. There’s no way that I’ve actually spotted her. Hell, there’s no way she’s actually here. Yes, I bought her those tickets, and I transferred them to her phone. But… She wouldn’t come to see me. She hates me. Or at least she should.
It makes no sense on earth that she would be here. But I know it’s her. I recognize the set of her shoulders. The way that she walks. And, if I’m not mistaken, she’s talking to Colt and Dallas.
My whole stomach feels hollow. She’s here. For me.
Except…
Somehow, instinctively, I know she’s really not here for me. She’s here to show me that she doesn’t give a fuck. That she’llbe here because she has tickets and she wants to be. If she were here for me, she would’ve texted me. But no, I torpedoed that. I really fucking did.
But it felt like the right thing to do. For her. For me.
I just need to win this. I need to win this so it can be over.
As I stand there, back behind the chutes, all her blonde beauty filling up my vision, I realize that nothing is over after this. Unless I decide to give up the ghost entirely, this isn’t over. And it isn’t going to be.
And I don’t know how to live. I had a tiny taste of it for the last two months. Living. Living in some kind of way that felt good, but there’s no way that’s real.
There is no way that I was able to open myself up to her, show her all the things that I am, and she didn’t run the other way. There’s no way that I was able to be this… fucked up guy and all my lack of glory, and she still wanted me.
That’s not real. It can’t be.
So what do you think, Maverick? You make yourself a champion? And then what?
Nothing. I’ve never believed that it would make me a good man. If I believed that it would make me a good man, then I wouldn’t have been able to see nothing beyond it. I don’t think it’ll make me a good man.
But she doesn’t seem to need me to be the kind of good that I thought I had to try to be.
And what even does it mean? Because she is right. I didn’t take advantage of her even though I wanted to. I don’t think that I should get accolades for it, but it definitely goes in the column that suggests I’m not the world’s most hideous villain.
Maybe.
And then it’s my turn to ride. I know what I have to do. And I wonder if I even care anymore.
You have to do it. You have to do it, because if you don’t, it’s going to be the unanswered question forever.
I get into the chute and drop down onto the back of the bull, big and fearsome, pissed off.
Me, not him. Though he doesn’t seem especially happy either.
I have to keep my head in the game. I know that I can’t think about anything else. But as the gate opens, and the bull bursts out into the arena, all I can think about is the real unanswered question.
Could I have had her if I tried?
Everything slows down. The bull is bucking, his hooves pounding hard in the dirt. The world is still. Quiet. It should be noisy. Raucous and rowdy as I claw my way to victory. But there is no victory. Because I lost Stella.
