own. With a deep breath, I opened my back door and stepped outside. I shut the door behind me, turned, and looked around. I wasn’t sure what I thought I’d find, but I did a cursory search of my backyard. I’d had to install a twelve-foot fence after adopting Channing because he was an escape artist who hops like a vampire from Twilight. He could clear fences that were six and eight feet tall, even without having a running start.
I’d been advised to put up a ten-footer, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry and gone for the twelve-footer. The privacy fence was just that. It was private.
The only way someone could see into the backyard was if they were looking out my bedroom or my brother’s bedroom window. Since his place had been vacant since he moved out, I knew that I had nothing to worry about.
No one could see me except God and the grass. So, without further ado, I took a deep breath and dropped my robe.
I expected to feel liberated. Instead, I felt cold.
Chapter 7
Holden
“The sun rises and sets every day whether ya feel like seein’ it or not.”
~ Maggie Calhoun
The alarm on my phone went off and I turned and shut it off. I didn’t know how long I’d been lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, but it felt like it had been hours. I couldn’t remember the last time the alarm had actually woken me up. Since my fall, sleep was hard to come by. It had been a little easier when I was taking the pain medication, but since I’d decided to stop, it had been more difficult.
I looked at my phone and saw that I had a message from Kurt. He’d set up a physical therapy appointment for me at noon in Parish Creek, which was about thirty minutes away. It was six a.m., which meant I had six hours to kill. Well, five and a half if I included drive time. The thought of getting into my truck again, even if it was only a short distance, sounded torturous. I figured that it might be worth it to take a hot shower and do some stretches before then.
But first, my thumb hovered over the icon of the video that I’d watched every morning since I woke up in the hospital. It was the video of my last ride. I’d seen it at least a hundred times in slow motion. I’d seen the millisecond that everything went wrong. I’d freeze framed on my expression the second I’d got in the chute, my gut told me to bail. But I’d never bailed my entire career. Pride. That’s what had caused me to give the nod. The nod that changed my life forever.
Everything would’ve been fine if I hadn’t got hung up. I would’ve been thrown, but it wouldn’t have caused the damage that had been done. My glove got stuck in the rope. I looked like one of those inflatable tube men as my body flew up in the air and flung down across the bull’s back. I bounced off his back two more times before my hand finally dislodged and I fell onto the ring floor.
Luckily, the bullfighters were able to distract Punisher long enough for the medics to take me out on a stretcher. If there’d been less experienced men working the event that day, there was a good chance I wouldn’t have survived.
Instead of pressing play and watching the wreck, I set my phone down. There was no point in looking backwards. That wasn’t my life anymore, and the sooner I put it behind me, the better. Today felt like a new start. The problem with that was, I didn’t want a new start.
I lifted my arms and ran my fingers through my hair. Even that small movement caused my back to seize up painfully in protest. I flinched as I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. Not able to move, I sat perfectly still, allowing myself a minute to breathe through the agony. As I did, I stared at the wall that Bentley had pointed out was shared by Olivia.
Was she lying in bed on the other side of it?
Growing up, she’d never been much of a morning person.
As I sat, trying to detach my brain from what I was feeling, I closed my eyes and a montage played in my memory of her walking into the