Page 81 of Josephine and Clay

Dad’s been gone long enough that most days the loss feels old. Settled. Then something small catches wrong, and it opens fresh all over again.

Mom turns then, softer now. “You don’t have to prove yourself by bleeding for strangers in an arena.”

I force out a laugh. “That’s not what it is.”

“Then what is it?”

I want to tell her she wouldn’t get it.

Want to tell her she never stood in that chute with all that violence under her hand, and that split second where the gate opens, and the whole world narrows down to whether you’re enough to stay on top of it.

But that’s not really the truth either.

The truth is worse.

Because part of me thinks if I can survive eight seconds on the meanest thing they put under me, maybe I can outride every other damn thing too.

The disappointment.

The restlessness.

The feeling that I was built wrong for this family and this town and any life that asks me to stay still long enough to belong to it.

I stare at the table. “It’s what I know.”

Mom’s gaze softens in a way that makes my chest feel carved out. “Maybe. But it can’t be all you know forever.”

I look up at her then, and there it is. She thinks if I leave again, one of these days I won’t come back. Or I’ll come back in pieces small enough nobody can fix.

I swallow hard against a feeling I don’t want to name. “I’m not made for this place.”

She comes over and takes the ruined peach from in front of me, setting it aside before bracing both hands on the table.

“Clay,” she says, and I have to meet her eyes to hear her properly. “Home isn't a trap. Slowing down isn't failure. And being loved isn't the same thing as being stuck.”

I hate that, because somewhere deep inside me, those things have always felt knotted together.

I push back from the table, grabbing for my crutches before the ache in my chest can settle. “I need air.”

Mom doesn’t stop me this time. She just says, “You need rest.”

“Same difference.”

“It isn’t.”

But I’m already out of the chair and halfway down the hall before she can say anything else.

The porch boards creak under the uneven rhythm of my steps.

Rusty is sprawled in the shade happily. He lifts his head when I come out, ears twitching, then hauls himself up with a grunt and limps over to lean against my good leg.

I lower myself onto the top step with a curse, cast stretched awkwardly out in front of me. The sun is lower now, turning the yard gold around the edges.

Rusty shoves his nose under my hand until I scratch behind his ears. “You’re persistent.”

He pants at me.

I stare out across the ranch and try to picture leaving.