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“No problem, Boone. I just want you to be happy and to stop growling at people.”
We laugh and I realize it’s the first time I’ve laughed in over a week.
Now I just need to figure out what I’m going to say to Georgia when I beg for her forgiveness.
12
Georgia
One week. I’ve been home one week, and he hasn’t come back. I don’t know why I thought he would, but every day I’ve waited.
This is what I get for risking my heart. I vaguely remember telling him that I loved him when I woke up, but he never mentioned it again, so I didn’t either. I meant it, but he probably just thought it was the drugs talking.
Yesterday I gave myself a day of grieving. I laid in bed all day, crying and sleeping. I didn’t eat and I just grieved.
Today, I will try to move on. I am up and dressed in sweats by nine. I pick up my phone and call my oldest brother, Chris.
“Hey, Georgie.”
“Hey, can you come get me and take me to my office?” I ask.
“Um, is that a good idea?”
“Chris, I’m going a little stir-crazy, but I can’t drive myself. I thought I would go to work for a couple of hours and then have one of you bring me home. I can manage it, I promise.”
I can hear him doing something with his phone, probably sending a family-wide text message. I discovered they have a group chat about me last week when I snooped through my brother, Guy’s phone.
“Okay, I will come get you under one condition.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll stay at the big house tonight and have dinner with Mother and Dad.”
“Sure.” It might be nice to be spoiled by my mother for a night and being alone is overrated. Without Boone, my house is very quiet. I was excited to leave the hospital, but it was because I thought he would be here with me.
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”
We hang up and I quickly, or as quickly as I can with my leg in a cast and my body bruised and beat up, pack an overnight bag. I pack my comfiest pajamas, the stuffed horse I’ve slept with since childhood, and my Kindle.
I’m sitting on the porch waiting for Chris when he drives up exactly fifteen minutes later. He jumps out of his truck and grabs my bag.
“Don’t move, baby sister.”
Chris opens the door to his enormous farm truck and puts my bag in the back. “I’m gonna have to lift you into the truck and kind of turn you a little sideways to get your leg in. Is there a certain way that will hurt you less?”
Maybe I didn’t think this through all the way. “Just keep to my lower back or shoulders. My ribs are still bad.”
He picks me up and I hiss in pain. It’s been three weeks since the accident. You would think that I wouldn’t hurt like this anymore, but shattered bones don’t heal quickly. Chris gets me into the truck, with some colorful cussing from both of us.
“I don’t want to do that ever again. I don’t like hurting you, Georgie.”
“I’m fine, Chris. Stronger than everyone thinks.” I watch out the window as we drive to the other side of the ranch where my parents live. We all have homes on the land. Mine is the smallest, but also the furthest away. I claimed it when I was four and everyone humored me. When Dylan was ready to move out, he tried to move into my house. I threw an epic fit and the house became mine for real.
I can almost make out the Iron H across the plain if I squint and use my imagination. Is he out there riding his horse or is he at our spot by the pond? Ugh! Today is move-on day so it doesn’t matter what the asshole is doing.
“Are you okay?” Chris asks when I sigh for the fourth or fifth time.
“Yes, I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
