Big Girl Boots

Thirty-Four

At the sound of my phone's shrill, old-fashioned ringtone I jumped, nearly falling out of bed in an effort to get to it.

I'd sent Wyatt a total of twelve texts and called him twice in the last hour since we got back from riding, all with no answer. Now my heart was pounding and I sent up another prayer for his grandpa before answering, unsure of who was actually calling me. "Hello?"

"Hi."

Relief surged through my body at the sound of Wyatt's boyish voice, although a sense of trepidation took over as soon as I noticed that it was muffled from tears. Most cowboys didn't even know the meaning of the word cry and he was no exception, meaning something really big had to be going on. I loved Bill and Anna almost as much as he did, which was saying a lot. My heart skipped a beat.

I had to fight to not straight up ask if his grandpa was still alive or something just as insensitive. "Hey, buddy. How's it going?"

The muffled sound of his trademark shrug met my ears and he sighed. "Fucking shitty, if I'm being honest."

I cursed under my breath. This was bad. "Oh yeah? Why's that?"

"Blake..." He whined mournfully, "Are you seriously gonna play dumb?"

"Well, I'm not totally playing," I defended, leaning back into the stack of pillows I'd been cuddling with before he called. "Tell me what's going on."

He sighed again. "Well, my grandpa's in the hospital, but you already knew that."

I nodded, forgetting he couldn't see me through the phone. "Yeah, I heard. Is he okay though? I haven't heard anything about how he's actually doing, just that he had a stroke."

A long scraping noise sounded from the other end of the line and Wyatt cleared his throat. "He's stable, I guess." 

"That's good, right?" I had zero knowledge of medical terms aside from what I'd learned through my own multiple broken bones, and now the stitches incident. As a matter of fact, my hand was hurting like a bitch from being so active. Glancing down, I realized it was even more swollen than the day it happened. My suspension had kept me out of school so nobody has seen the injury yet. I definitely wasn't looking forward to Monday.

"Yeah," he spoke slowly, as if the way he worded his explanation would change his grandpa's condition. "It's good that he's stable. It seems like his whole body is functioning, too, but he's sleeping a lot."

"Wyatt," I chided, "he just had a stroke. Let him rest so he can get healed up!"

"Blake, you don't get it, do you."

For the second time in a week, I felt like I'd just been slapped directly across the face by one of my best friends, making it hurt that much worse. It took everything I had to not completely snap. "What are you talking about?"

His sigh was followed my a crackling on the line. Knowing Wyatt as well as I did, I guessed he was running his hand down his face. "I haven't seen him in over a month, which is a long time for us. And every time I was up here before that I didn't really spend a lot of time with him... I guess I was too busy chasing Coda like a puppy on a string to realize she wasn't the one that should matter to me."

My heart ached at the hollowness in his voice. Obviously he'd done a good deal of thinking about that and subsequently kicking himself for his poor choice.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you, Blake. I'm just really struggling."

The tension that had begun to build up when he snapped at me dissipated with his apology and I reminded myself of my aunt's words. I don't think she really wants to hurt anyone but she just needs a punching bag, and you're the only one who can handle it.

All too often, I was treated as a punching bag, and normally I could take it. But having blows come at you from all three of the people you're closest to can really do some damage.

"It's okay," I murmured, trying my best to convince myself that it was. I could handle this shit, just like I always did.

I heard him breathe, followed by a few seconds of silence. "Is she okay?"

My head snapped back in surprise, bumping against the wall. That was about the last thing I expected to come out of the dumpee's mouth, especially in such a caring tone. If I was him I would have been absolutely pissed and telling her to go to hell, but Wyatt and I weren't the same type of person. No matter how hard he tried to act carefree, he was still one of those amazing, sensitive people. That's one reason I thought him and Coda made such a good match; he could always tell when something was wrong and find a sweet, fun way to make her feel better. God, I missed having him around, sometimes just for that reason. With Wyatt, she was happy. I loved seeing her happy.

"Well, she's alive, I guess," I replied at long last, thinking back to the way our day had gone. "Mama Callie talked her into trying barrels for the first time today."

"Barrels? Really? How did she do?" I could have laughed at the surprise and then interest in his voice but chose not to.

"Pretty well, actually. I was even a little bit surprised."

"Isn't that kind of a fast event for her? She told me she hated timed events."

I chuckled. "Then I guess rodeo isn't the sport for her. We didn't time any of the runs, but she did well. Didn't fall off a single time and seemed like she really had the horse under control."

"Did your aunt let her run on Winston? He's awful big for a barrel horse."

I grinned, thinking of how tiny Coda always looked when mounted on the blue roan she'd basically adopted as her own. "No, we put her on a little guy. They seemed to get along pretty good."

"She seems to have a way with horses," he commented, tone surprisingly void of emotion.

I was silent for a beat and he continued. "Blake, can I tell you something?"

"Sure, what's up?" I leaned back again to stare at the ceiling and waited patiently.

"You know, I've never fallen this hard for anyone. Like it was totally stupid how damn in love I was with her. I should've known it was too good to be true."

I felt my eyebrows scrunch together but waited for him to go on.

His voice was barely above a whisper as he continued. "I wish I hadn't let myself fall that far. I should've been spending the time with my grandparents instead of with her. Honestly it feel like I just wasted about six months of my life."

"Wyatt," I sat up in bed, suddenly determined, "I don't care what you think, you didn't waste anything. Dude, if it wasn't for you she'd still be holed up in her room, refusing to go to rodeos, and living every second of her life in fear with no good memories to look back on and smile about. I'm sorry if you feel like you should've been spending more time with your grandparents but all I can say is hindsight's twenty-twenty. And honestly, you gave her a gift that none of the rest of us seemed to, and that was a reason to smile and forget that she was miserable, at least for a little while. I hope one of these days you can realize that and be glad you were able to help her, because you did something amazing for that girl."

The other end was silent for a moment, and then came the muffled cries I knew he was trying to hold in. I had no idea where Wyatt was right then, but I assumed it was the hospital. It broke my heart to picture my best friend sitting in a hard hospital chair, probably hunched over with one hand holding the phone to his ear and the other pressed over his mouth to silence the sobs that tried to shake his skinny frame. I hoped for his sake that he at least had his cowboy hat on to hide the tears and salvage some of his dignity.