Page 53 of Josephine and Clay

Penny watches me carefully. “Josie⁠—”

“I’m serious.” I push to my feet too fast and have to steady myself against the side of the couch. “I’m tired. I'm stressed. I've been working nonstop, and I'm not about to let one bad afternoon turn into…” I gesture helplessly. “That.”

My chest's too tight. My skin feels wrong.

Penny stands too, slower this time. “Alright. Then don’t decide anything tonight.”

I look at her.

“We get you through the evening,” she says. “We make you eat something bland and boring. We let you rest. And tomorrow, if you still feel like this, we deal with it then.”

Deal with it then.

As if that’s possible. As if there's any version of tomorrow that feels normal now.

I fold my arms tightly across my stomach, as though I can hold myself together by force.

“It’s just stress,” I say again.

Penny doesn’t argue, but she doesn’t agree either, and somehow that’s worse.

CHAPTER NINE

Clay

JUNE 16TH

I haven’t slept right in four nights.

Maybe five.

At a certain point it all starts blurring together, one motel ceiling bleeding into the next, one too thin pillow and one flickering digital clock and one long stretch of dark where my body feels tired enough to drop dead but my head just won’t shut the hell up.

It’s this restless hum under my skin. Something’s wrong, and my body knows it before my mind does. I keep rolling over. Throwing an arm over my eyes. Kicking the sheets down and dragging them back up ten minutes later. Listening to the air conditioner rattle because it’s held together by spite and duct tape.

Every time I start to drift, I jerk awake again for no reason.

Just that same sharp pull in my chest, that same feeling of being half a second behind a sensation I can’t name.

By the fifth night, I stop pretending I’m gonna get real sleep and start living on coffee, bad gas station breakfast sandwiches, and whatever adrenaline’s left in me. Men have ridden in worse shape. Hell, I’ve ridden in worse shape. Hungover, bruised, bleeding, pissed off enough to be reckless.

This should be nothing.

That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

The morning of the ride, my reflection in the motel mirror is a man I wouldn’t trust with anything fragile.

My eyes are bloodshot, my jaw rough with stubble, my skin drawn tighter than it ought to be.

I splash cold water over my face and brace my hands on either side of the sink.

“Get it together,” I mutter.

The guy in the mirror doesn’t look convinced.

The day is already hot. The kind of heat that bakes the dust into everything and makes men meaner by noon. Trucks and trailers crowd the lot near the arena, sunlight flashing off metal, country music thumping somewhere distant and badly tuned. A few riders stand around in clusters, hats low, coffee in hand, talking shit as always.

Normal.