Fearless

by Katie Golding

  My lungs hurry to swallow the crisp night air, and I blink a little faster to calm my eyes in the wind. The rest of me is mostly worried about Taryn getting cold when she’s only wearing a long-sleeved shirt and no jacket. But she always gets pissed when I say stuff like that, so I stay quiet as she unhooks her arm from mine and nudges me toward the back of her truck.

  “Get your sorry ass up here,” she says, laying down the tailgate. “And let me see.”

  I hop up and scowl at her like I don’t wanna, even though I’ve wanted her to check it for a while. I just didn’t want to do it outside Up-Chuck Buck’s with a bunch of drunk cowboys snickering over their bottlenecks while they stand outside smoking.

  “Take that crappy old boot off.”

  “I’m going,” I tell her, not even bothering to hide my grimace as I slide it off.

  Taryn jerks back like she’s seen a snake. “The fuck is that?”

  Except she’s not staring at my battered old Ariats. She’s staring at the wooden paint stick duct-taped to my foot and up around my leg. For support.

  “You like it?” I’m nearly out of breath from the agony of just getting my boot off. Screw it. I collapse on her tailgate, exhausted from limping all damn day and acting like it’s fine when it’s not. Nothing is. “I’m thinking of making it into a patent.”

  “That’s the most irresponsible damn thing I have ever seen. Get it off your leg.”

  I roll my eyes at the stars above me but unhook my knife from my pocket, handing it over. I wait as Taryn carefully slices the tape up the edge of the paint stick until it peels back, unsticking from my sock. Wish they were cleaner. At least she won’t know they don’t match.

  Taryn throws my cobbled-together splint farther into the bed of her truck, the paint stick clanging off the toolbox and rattling to a stop by her spare tire. She snaps my knife closed, then holds it out to me. Still kinda threatening, though. “Don’t ever do that again. You hear me?”

  I nod, taking it from her and hooking it back where it goes, then pillowing my head with my hand so I can see her. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She sighs and swishes her long sheet of shiny blond hair over her shoulder, her hands impatiently planted backward on her waist. “Take off your sock.”

  “No way!”

  “Billy, I’ve seen you naked as the day you were born. Lose the sock.”

  I peek toward the bar, the bouncer still watching us from the door and probably seconds away from calling the cops on me “for harassing her.” Wouldn’t be the first time, since she loves yelling at me outside honky-tonks.

  “I promise I’ll be gentle,” she adds.

  I take one more glance around, but most people have started to ignore us since we’re not cussing or kissing. No sign of Mason and his big ol’ loves-to-gossip-to-the-press mouth, thank Christ. “Fine.”

  I groan and sit up, taking off my sock and stuffing it into my boot. Glad I can’t see the disappointment sure to be all over Taryn’s face when she sucks in a staggered breath, then quietly says, “Oh, Billy. What have you done?”

  I swallow thickly, my voice low with the shame rotting my gut. “You know what I done.”

  She doesn’t say anything else, and it takes all my courage to make myself look at her. But she’s not giving me the I-told-you-so I was sure was coming. She’s too busy frowning at my foot, her hands gently reaching out to my ankle—purple and bruised and swollen and hurting even worse thanks to what she’s done.

  “You insisting on a dance marathon in there probably didn’t help it,” I remind her, just because she’s always right, and sometimes, she needs to remember she can be wrong, too.

  This apparently was not the smartest moment to attempt that risky maneuver. Taryn straightens and glares at me, then pushes me square in the chest. Not hard, but still. “Jackass. How the hell was I supposed to know you’re walking around with a broken ankle? It is not my fault you’re always lying to me.”

  Broken…? Shit.

  “I don’t lie to you,” I counter. “I protect you. There’s a difference.”

  She huffs out a breath. “Lying about lying aside, do I look like I need protecting?”

  I know what she wants me to say. But I’m not saying it. Not tonight. “Sometimes.”

  Her temper flares in her eyes, and she turns away, growling curse words. I hold my breath. She’s fuming real good now, in the way only I seem to be able to get her to do. But I swore I’d never take for granted that she shows me the real her, imperfect and demanding and flawed, and I won’t disrespect that trust by using it against her.

  When she comes back, she sticks her finger in my face, her voice strained with trying to keep from yelling. “That is an argument for another night. And we’re gonna have it. So you remember you’ve got that coming.”

  Future anything? I’m there. “Fine,” I snap like I’m upset.

  She blows out a breath and goes back to looking at my ankle, her touch still careful as she inspects every part of it: following from my leg where the color is fine, then fades and deepens to purples and reds like the worst parts of a storm blowing in, clouding up the Doppler.

  But it’s not her hands that have me so mesmerized; I barely feel what she’s doing. It’s the focus in her eyes, her mind asking a thousand questions about what’s wrong with me and looking through all the files in all her memories of all the endless stuff she knows for some kind of answer.

  I’ve never known anyone as smart as Taryn, and it’s saved our asses more times than I want to admit. Usually because I was doing something that she told me not to do in the first place. But she’s always forgiven me for it afterward, especially if I had a good reason. Always.

  The wind picks up a little, swirling peaches and lavender around us, and I can’t keep the question inside me anymore. “Why are you leaving me, Taryn?” The words hang between us like we’re the only two people in the parking lot. In the country. In the whole world. “How are you just gonna…go?”

  She doesn’t answer. Not right away at least.

  Her eyes flash up to mine, then down to her hands, hovering over the darkest spot. “Does this hurt?”

  Pain rips through my ankle, and I hiss through my teeth.

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry!”

  She quickly moves her hands higher up my leg where it’s safe, giving me a second to blow out a breath and stare at the stars to get the nausea under control. Then she softly sniffles.

  Must be allergies. She’s got a problem with mold, and sometimes cedar. Got a problem with gluten, too, but that makes her yack, not sniffle.

  “Stay here.”

  I nod, watching her over my shoulder as she walks around to the passenger side of her truck and opens the back door. Where she keeps her first aid kit. It doesn’t take her but a second to grab it, slamming the door once she’s got it, and I wince and keep my mouth shut when she comes around to my side.

  Back to Plan A: act like it didn’t happen, and maybe it didn’t.

  She sets the kit next to me on the tailgate, popping it open and taking out a whole bunch of stuff that doesn’t seem necessary. But I still let her press a big cotton pad the size of a diaper over my ankle. It also covers most of my foot and the bottom part of my leg. “Hold that there. Don’t move.”

  I do as she says, Taryn switching to wrapping an ACE bandage over the top of the pad. Which isn’t so bad and starts to make my ankle feel a little better, until I realize just how damn bulky it is. “How am I supposed to get my boot on?”

  “You’re not.” She taps the top of my hand, and I sigh and let go of the pad, getting out of her way. “When you get home tonight, I want you to ice it for twenty minutes and keep it elevated.”

  I bite the inside of my lip, kinda wanting to ask about the chances of us going home together and her icing it for me while I list off all the ways I’m sorry. But I’m not pus
hing it. At least I got to dance with her.

  When she finishes, she tilts her head at it, then hmpfs like she guesses it’s okay. “Any better?”

  “Yeah.” She’s not yelling at me. Things are a lot better.

  “All right.” She crosses her arms and stares me down. “This isn’t good, Billy. You need to see a doctor.”

  I grin from ear to ear, firmly on Plan A. “Just saw my favorite one.”

  She doesn’t crack a bit. “I’ve told you: I’m not a doctor, and it’s not the same. You need X-rays. Maybe surgery. Yesterday.”

  I swallow at the fateful words I’ve heard before, looking down and loathing how I can’t even get her to smile now. “It’ll be fine. Just needs some rest. And I’ll ice it and prop it up like you said, I swear.”

  “Billy, what is wrong with you? It’s not just gonna get better. You have to deal with this. I’m telling you—you get down off a horse the wrong way or your bike slips out from under you, and your ankle? It could shatter.”

  I look up on instinct, because that’s just freaking scary, and it doesn’t help that she’s always right and probably is this time, too.

  “What’s Frank say?”

  I clear my throat, tugging on the brim of my hat and trying to think of something. Anything. But my arsenal of ready-to-go excuses is bone dry. “Hi?”

  Her eyes flare, that temper of hers right back to blazing. “Billy!”

  I scowl at the parking lot. “I hate when you say my name like it’s a damn curse word.”

  “I cannot believe that after everything you’ve gone through these past two years, with the surgeries and the specialists and the physical therapists and the second surgery because you didn’t listen to anyone after the first, that once again, you haven’t told him you’re hurt. Did you tell him that you—”

  “No, I did not,” I snap at her, Taryn’s spine going ramrod straight because I hardly raise my voice at her, ever. I may egg her on, but I really try not to yell. “You know I can’t do that.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not gonna live my life as another damn borrower, Taryn! They’ve taken my ropes, and they’re already trying to take my bike, too. But I’ll be damned if I have to crawl on my belly when I should be man enough to help myself. I want my things to be mine, for Gidget to be mine. And I can’t bring home a horse with no land to put him on, and I can’t buy us our dream ranch if I lose my damn job. No.”

  She drops her face into her hands, shaking her head slowly before she tosses her hair, looking up at me. “When push comes to shove, it’s not gonna matter what your job is, what people think of you—your father included—or how much money you got in your wallet. You’re never gonna get anywhere unless you can figure how to start standing up for yourself, start telling the truth, and start making some apologies. And…buy some new damn boots!”

  “All I’ve done is apologize, but you won’t forgive me!”

  “Because you’re still not—you know what? No. Get off my truck.” She grabs the first aid kit and my abominable boot, shoving both at my chest and shoving me until I’m toppling off her tailgate, wobbling to catch my balance on my one good foot.

  “Okay, I’m down!”

  She slams her tailgate shut, snatching the first aid kit from my hands and hurling it into the bed. “Go home, Billy. You’re not my problem anymore.”

  I rock backward in everything I thought I knew, something in my chest splitting wide apart and leaving me scraped raw as she stomps toward her driver’s door, yanking it open.

  We’ve had our fights, and I know we’re going through something right now, but…

  “Is that what I was? Your problem?”

  She stops with her hand on the door, her hair shimmering down her back.

  The winter wind is raging like a storm’s coming in, music pouring from the bar and a jacked-up diesel rolling by with high school kids hollering out the back. But all I can hear is those words.

  Not my problem anymore.

  They’re louder than the pack of Harley cruisers creeping by on the road, their engines throaty and crackling. And the longer Taryn keeps her back to me, the more something starts to change in the space between where we’re standing. Memories of all the times I spent racing home to her flash through my mind, flying far away from my fans and my career and my future.

  I look away from her, the bikers pulling in and parking one by one in a long row. And under the call of their horsepower, it builds and builds—the pain, the betrayal, the embarrassment and the shame—until it comes blasting out of me.

  “That’s a damn fine thing to say to someone you said you loved! Christ, Taryn. I don’t care how mad you are. That isn’t right!”

  Her head hangs, but she still doesn’t turn to tell me she’s sorry, and I can barely stand to look at her, I’m so hurt by what she said.

  She knows damn well how it’s been for me in my life. That it never seems to matter to anyone that I do my best not to complain, not wanting to cause stress for people who already have plenty to stress about. She used to say it wasn’t being honest, keeping that stuff to myself, that it was important to share it with her because it was part of being together. But here we are now, and the truth comes out.

  Nine months, and I was nothing but a problem.

  That ends today.

  “You know what?” I say. “You win. It’s over!”

  Nausea swarms my throat, shock hitting me when I realize what just came out of my mouth, and I already know: I can’t take it back.

  It’s the same bottomless feeling I had in North Carolina when I knew I’d crossed the line, the same emptiness that plagued me the whole ride home because I knew what I would be coming home to.

  The entire trip, I prayed she’d listen, that she’d understand how after getting so twisted up in the pressure of the moment that you do the worst possible option out of all of them. But Taryn never makes the wrong decision. Especially when she has to choose between what’s right and saving something really, really important. Even if it means possibly losing everything.

  Her shoulders slump even further toward the pavement, and I grit my teeth through tugging on my boot as best I can, limping toward Mason’s truck.

  “Billy, wait!”

  I don’t get far before Taryn comes running up and plants herself in front of me, looking so ashamed that I’m having a hard time reminding myself why I’ve never been so mad at her.

  “You were never my problem,” she says. And then the world turns upside down, or maybe it’s time that turns back, because she kisses me—her hands on my jaw tugging me down until she gets tired of waiting and takes what she wants, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling herself up, a sharp strike of her tongue stinging me to life.

  I find my arms and circle them around her waist, hugging her up into me and kissing her with all the longing that’s been plaguing my soul since the first time she said I’d never touch her again, filled to the brim with gratitude as she melts a little more, fully mine.

  God, I’ve been so scared, more scared than I’ve been letting on to anyone, especially her. For a moment there, I really thought I’d lost her. That we were over.

  I’m not ready for it when she slows me down, her breaths shaky when she pulls back. I press a kiss to her forehead, desperate to take her home and spend the rest of the night, the next three months—hell, my whole life—making all this up to her.

  “Billy, you were my everything.” Her voice cracks over the last word, her blue eyes lifting up to mine.

  I’ve still never gotten used to hearing her say that, and I brush a stray hair from her face, unable to ignore the goose bumps on her neck. I need to get her home, get her warm.

  “But I wasn’t yours.”

  The words hit like thunder, cracking apart the sky and the shaking the ground beneath my feet. “Honey, no! That’s not
—”

  “Your ankle says it all, Billy. I wasn’t enough.”

  Something, everything, in me just broke.

  My heart is leaping terrified in my chest, and I drop my hands from her shoulders to her belt loops, frantically tightening my grip on her because I can already tell, I’m losing her.

  It’s happening, again.

  “Taryn, I didn’t have a—”

  “You had a choice, Billy. It wasn’t easy, I’m sure. But you had a choice. And you knew what would happen, and you didn’t choose me.” Her voice is so calm at the end, so accepting, it sounds like death.

  I know it for sure when she pulls her hands from my chest and starts pulling mine from her. “Honey, please…”

  “Please don’t call me anymore,” she whispers. “I just…I can’t. And I wish it could be that simple, Billy. I really do—that I could just forgive you and we could go back to how it was. But it’s not…it’s just not.”

  I hate how much she looks like she means that. How much it’s killing her to say it. “What do you need? Tell me, and I’ll do it.”

  She shakes her head. “I need more time, I need…I need to feel safe.” She takes a broken breath, and I hate how much truth is in that, too. But she still reaches up and cups my cheek in her palm, and I cover her hand with mine, soaking her up while I still can. “Please always be careful, no matter what you’re doing.” I nod, not trusting my voice as Taryn stretches up and brushes a last kiss across my lips, trembling through her tears. It doesn’t last nearly long enough before she takes a step back, slipping all the way out of my touch. “Bye, Billy.”

  The words are barely more than a gasp before she turns and runs, and it’s like a fire burning up my chest and turning all of me to ash when she gets in her truck and drives away. I still see it, even though my eyes are prickling and my throat’s burning, my stomach rolling like I could puke at any second.

  A bunch of drunk cowboys laugh from the door of the bar as I stare after her exhaust and all the shining stars that just witnessed that, wondering how the fuck I’m supposed to fix things now.