Joe hadn’t made his scoring time in the third round, and Mike’s scores were as shitty as his personality. I had a decent chance of bringing this thing home. There were no guarantees, of course. Anything could happen out there. Joe’s disastrous ride was proof of that. Still, I imagined myself taking the whole damn thing.
And I could see it now: Vanessa standing proudly in front of her new gallery, welcoming guests. I tried to extend the picture a little further, tried to imagine us together in the future. Buying a home, building a life there in White Bluff. It wasn’t difficult to imagine at all.
I pictured Vanessa happy. That was what it really came down to. For the first time in my life, I felt I had a chance to make her truly happy. I had always wanted that, back when we were teenagers, but I hadn’t known how to make her happy then. And when she’d come back to town, we’d picked up where we’d left off, in some ways, but I still hadn’t known how to provide her with the kind of life she deserved.
Because she deserved the world. She deserved not to have to worry about finances. She deserved the kind of guy who could invest in her gallery and could make that dream a reality. I may not understand everything about the art that would go in the gallery, but I wanted to see her smile. I wanted to hear her talk excitedly about the plans for the place.
I wanted to know that she was going to stay there in White Bluff with me. And, the gallery was the ticket to that.
I smiled a little to myself as the buzzer sounded, and the bull flew out of the gate.
The first buck came, and I moved with it expertly. The other two riders made this bull look intimidating, but it was just like any other bull.
Or was it?
Doubts rushed through my thoughts. Surely, the other two riders, who had more experience than me when it came to riding, knew better, didn’t they? Was I tricking myself into believing this was going to be simple? Is that what happened to Joe? He got cocky and underestimated this bull?
A vision of my father swam into my mind’s eye. “You know you’re not going to win this,” the vision said. “You’re just the same good-for-nothing piece of shit that you’ve always been. And, Vanessa’s going to wake up and see that, one of these mornings. She’s going to realize that she deserves better than what you’re able to give her. You think a one-time payment of ten thousand dollars is going to make her yours? She deserves some guy who makes that much every month, doing honest work. Not someone like you, who can barely scrape together a living.”
The lack of focus cost me, just like it had when I’d first started riding the mechanical bull in the Roasted Bison.
I tumbled off the bull, bracing for impact. The bull was still going. I could see it coming for me even as I spun through the air, feeling as though the world moved in slow motion. Its hooves churned through the dirt violently, sending up clouds of dust. The impact with the ground was going to hurt, and the bull was coming for me.
The rodeo clowns raced toward me, but they were too far away. They’d never make it in time. I hit the ground hard, knocking the breath from my lungs. I willed my limbs to move, but they wouldn’t respond. All I could do was watch helplessly at the rushing bull.
My last thought before losing consciousness was that my father was right: Vanessa should never have to deal with something like this or someone like me.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Vanessa
I woke up a little as the doctor came into the room, even though he moved as quietly as he could. He smiled over at me. “You may want to go home and get some real sleep,” he said kindly.
I shook my head, wincing at how stiff my neck was after sleeping in various hospital chairs. “I’d hate to think that something might happen while I’m away,” I rasped hoarsely, aware of how dry my throat was.
The doctor, Mark, handed me a plastic bottle of water, but he didn’t suggest I leave again. “We’ve finished running some more of the scans,” he said, looking down at his clipboard. “He’s in stable condition, so that, at least, is good. Well, maybe not good, but at least it’s not bad.”
“What exactly is wrong with him?” I asked. “You must know by now, right? It’s been almost a week.”
The doctor sighed and perched on the arm of one of the other chairs, staring sympathetically down at me in a way that I was rapidly coming to hate, almost as much as I hated the smell of that room and the way the doctor’s scrubs crinkled every time he moved. “As I said, his condition is stable,” he repeated slowly. “But I’m afraid there’s been a lot of swelling around his brain.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So, you just need to, what, bring down the swelling around his brain, and he’ll be back to normal?”
“It’s not that simple, I’m afraid,” Mark said. I could tell he was about to deliver bad news from the way he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Head injuries are always tricky,” he continued. “And with an injury like this, we don’t know how long it could be before Trethan wakes up. To be perfectly frank with you, there’s a relatively high possibility that he may never wake up from this.”
I gasped, putting a hand up to my mouth. I had known that the possibility existed, of course, but to hear the doctor say it was another thing entirely. I stared down at Trethan, tears forming in the corners of my eyes.
Mark sighed. “The other thing to know is that even if he does wake up, we have no idea what kind of condition he’ll be in. He could be paralyzed or have developed amnesia or any number of other symptoms. Like I said, brain injuries are tricky. We’re going to do everything that we can to help him, but there’s a possibility that he’s never going to be fully back to who he was before the injury.”
I nodded, tears slipping down my face. “I understand,” I managed to whisper in response, even though it was difficult to even consider any of those things happening.
Mark reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “The best thing for him right now, though, is to be surrounded by his loved ones,” he said. “He may not be able to really hear you, but I’m sure that he knows that you’re here. He’ll respond to that.”
I nodded. “Is there anything else that we can do for him?”
“I’m afraid it’s just a waiting game now,” Mark said, shaking his head. “I wish I had some better news for you, but unfortunately, that’s where we’re at. If the swelling gets any worse, we’ll have no choice but to go i
n and operate, but that could make things worse for him. For now, we’re just going to observe and let the swelling go down on its own. The good thing is, apart from the head injury, he hasn’t sustained any serious injuries to his body, which means that his body can really focus on the one injury and repair it. You’d be surprised at what the human body is capable of.”