Page 187 of Josephine and Clay

I sit upright too fast and pain flares through my leg. “Okay. Nope. Forget that entirely.”

Excellent recovery. Absolutely nailed that one.

I scrub both hands over my face.

“I’m tired, and I’ve mixed whiskey with pain meds, which you’d probably classify as medically irresponsible.”

Silence fills the motel room.

“She’s definitely judging me right now,” I mutter.

Can't really argue with that.

I exhale slowly through my nose.

“I just wanted to hear your voice for a minute.”

There’s more lodged in my chest trying to get out.

I hope you're okay. I hope work's keeping you busy. I hope you're eating better than toast over the sink. Most of all, I hope leaving didn't hurt you as badly as I think it did.

But the words stay where they are because I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one night.

Movement sounds outside my room. Boots on gravel. Somebody arguing about rodeo payouts.

Awareness slams back into me hard enough to clear the whiskey fog.

What the hell am I doing?

I yank the phone away from my ear and stare at the screen.

Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds of emotional self-destruction recorded permanently for future humiliation.

“Oh, you absolute idiot.”

I hang up immediately.

Then freeze.

The voicemail already sent.

Panic arrives fast and complete.

“No. No, no, no.”

I call back instantly, trying to delete it, only to realize it's too late. My fingers fumble badly enough that I somehow start leaving a second voicemail that consists mostly of breathing and, “Wait... hold on...”

I disconnect so violently I nearly throw the phone across the room.

Silence crashes down afterward.

I fall backward onto the mattress and cover my face with my forearm.

This is how I finally lose the last scraps of dignity I had left.

Not under a bull or wrapped around a fence post at eighty miles an hour. Destroyed by my own drunken voicemail in a roadside motel outside Twin Falls.