“Fuck, Maverick!” Clay yells, startling me from my thoughts. “When you think back to what it was like growing up here, really fuckin’ think about it, I want you to see it clear. Yeah, he was a son of a bitch, but he didn’t treat Quinn or me like he did you. You were the closest to Mom, never cared about the ranch, and when she left, he held some sort of blame on you for always having her love . . . what little she was capable of giving. When he found out you were ridin’, all that did was remind him that his wife ran off with a rider. Everything you were, just bein’ you, set you up for his hatred and fury. He was a sorry fuckin’ drunk back then, but he only put his hands on you. I didn’t need to leave because by the time you were gone, he didn’t do anything but drink himself to the grave until it finally came to collect. Ten years is a long time, Maverick, and by the time he was too sick to turn it around, the guilt of his mistake-filled life killed him faster than the bottle did.”
I take a deep breath, my head swirling with my brother’s words. “You forgave him?”
He nods. “Had a lot of time to talk to him before he died. He wasn’t the same man, brother. When I tell you that regrets are a powerful thing, I say that knowing that they can very well be strong enough to kill you. Do what you can to make peace with yours.”
I throw up my hands. “What do you think I’m doin’? I left here with anger ridin’ my back and I came back with the same partner ridin’ along. I’m workin’ on it, but I’ve done a lot of harm and I’m not sure if it’s too late.”
He gives me a look of sympathy before pulling me into a hug. I wrap my arms around him. He pats my head like he used to when we were little and I’d come seeking his comfort and love. “It’s never too late, baby brother, long as you’re still breathin’.”
16
LEIGHTON
“Rise Up” by Andra Day
It was dark by the time I left the PieHole. After Quinn left, the only thing I could do was think.
And boy, did I think.
I thought about a little girl who would follow around an equally little boy imagining what would happen when they got older and had little kids of their own.
I smiled when I reminisced about that little girl, a few years later, realizing that when that little boy was hers, they would have everything.
I recalled the time that teenage girl, awkward and insecure in her own skin, thought she was the most beautiful thing on the earth when that boy, now a teenager too, would give her some attention.
I mourned the day that teenage boy stopped giving that teenage girl his smiles freely—until one day he stopped smiling altogether.
I remembered the day he stopped seeking her out to sit in the middle of the wildflowers behind her house to just look at the clouds. Holding her hand and talking about what his life would be like when he was a famous bull rider.
I laughed, humorously, when I thought about the dreams that teenage girl had about joining the teenage boy while he made those cloud-whispered dreams a reality.
I gasped with pain over the memory of the day that teenage girl witnessed why the teenage boy no longer stood with his shoulders stretched with pride and strength.
I relived the pain the day that teenage girl saw the teenage boy’s father hit him with a riding crop.
I felt the heartbreak like it had just happened when that teenage girl decided to throw caution to the wind and try to get those smiles back. The day she decided that she had to get him back before he left forever.
I cried remembering the words of the teenage boy when he broke and destroyed the teenage girl’s ability to believe in dreams.
I had to sit down when I remembered the loneliness the teenage girl felt long after the teenage boy had left.
I couldn’t breathe when I felt that loneliness amplify as the now young woman experienced when she lost both her parents, wishing and praying that the young man she missed deeply would return and help her heal.
I smiled through the tears when I thought about the young man’s family helping her heal instead—even as she continued to long for him.
I replayed the years the young woman spent building new dreams around her business. Opening her heart only a few times, but never letting another young man close enough to touch it.
I watched a slide show of years pass by as the young man and woman grew older. The woman now seeing him only at a distance, but feeling the void that the losses through the years created in her soul.
I looked at the woman’s reflection in the oven built by her new dreams with tears streaking down her face as she recalled the last month of her life. A turmoil of emotions since the man had returned to her and revealed things she never knew.
By the time I had climbed into my Jeep to head home, I knew that if I wanted to move on with my life—truly move on—I had to do it knowing that I had tried. All of the pain I had relived during the hours spent baking still raged strong, but when I remembered how I felt in that man’s arms, new hopes filled my heart.
I left feeling a sense of determination to move forward with a newfound strength that I found at the bottom of the barrel of my emotions.
I had nothing to lose but everything to gain.
With that in mind, I knew that the first thing I would do when the sun started to wake would be to go to him. Regardless of what happened after that, at least I would know that I tried, and gave it my all. I had let go of a lot of the pain I felt through the years in the course of a few days, and now it was all riding on what happened next. I would either be free of it all, or I would be using that residual pain to move on.
Either way, by tomorrow morning I would be facing Maverick again. I couldn’t tell if I was excited as hell, or terrified down to my bones.
Or a little bit of both.
When I get back to the house, I feed Earl and go directly into the shower to wash the clinging emotional weight off my body. I have no idea what might happen when I finally sit down and talk to Maverick. He said he felt something that night we were together, but I also know that the only reason that night even happened was because we were both riding high on our emotions and maybe a little of the power of feelings long suppressed. A small part of me couldn’t forget the fact that he didn’t even recognize me when he first saw me, so a little nagging part in my mind wonders if he even realized it was me that night we were together or if I was just another way to use something—someone—to forget.
I know it’s stupid, but I guess it’s part of me trying to set myself up for every possible situation that I might face tomorrow. Using the darkness of tonight to cast out my fears and concerns to better prepare me for whatever might come. I don’t want to go to him with my mind already set on failure, not when so much is riding on this.
Given what Quinn told me today, I know there is a lot about him and his life I don’t know. It breaks my heart that as close as I’ve been to the Davis family, I had no clue it was as bad as it was for them. Their mama’s departure was something that was wildly debated all over town, but I never knew the real reasons behind it. I knew Buford Davis was a hard man. With my own eyes I had witnessed him hit Maverick once, only once. Never did I even think it could have been so much worse than that—the reality, though, makes it so much worse than it had been and it had already been hard to stomach. I had heard him more times than I care to count emotionally throwing punches at everyone, but I never once saw the things she talked about.