Page 66 of Josephine and Clay

Boone glances up from his coffee. “Doctor said six weeks before they reevaluate.”

Six weeks.

The words slam down hard.

Wyatt wrinkles his nose. “That’s forever.”

“Yep,” I say. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

Rose shoots Boone a look that says maybe don’t phrase things like a prison sentence in front of your wounded brother and children at the same time. Boone ignores it.

That’s one of his gifts.

After breakfast, they all try in their own way.

Boone brings me ranch accounts and says if I’m gonna sit around, I might as well make myself useful.

I stare at the ledger in his hands. “You trying to kill me faster?”

“It’s numbers, not poison.”

“Debatable.”

Dallas offers to sit out on the porch with me and have a beer later, then remembers the painkillers and changes it to coffee. As if that’s an even trade.

Nash asks if I wanna help him brainstorm ideas for the guest ranch because “you’re good with people when you’re not being an ass.”

“That the official sales pitch?”

“Pretty much.”

Faith drops by with a sandwich I didn’t ask for and a lecture about not taking meds on an empty stomach. Rose brings Ellie and Wyatt to say hi, which really means Wyatt climbs onto my bed while Ellie hovers nearby with a shy little smile and asks if I want to see the frog she found by the horse trough.

Tessa just sits for a while in the armchair with Hailey asleep against her, talking soft about nothing much. Baby things. Ranch things. The weather. It should be annoying. Instead it’s almost worse than the others because she’s gentle about it.

Nobody’s trying to drag me into a better mood; they’re just… there, and none of it works.

Not really.

Because every good thing they offer’s a reminder.

You’re here because you can’t leave.

You’re sitting because you can’t stand.

You’re surrounded because everyone else kept building lives while you kept running in circles.

By nightfall, my skin feels too tight for my body.

I stop taking the pills as often just to feel more myself, which is a stupid decision and I know it. But pain at least is clean. Pain doesn’t fog everything over. Pain doesn’t make me trapped inside someone softer and slower and easier to handle.

Pain just hurts. I can work with hurt. Mood’s another thing.

It settles mean in me by the third night. Low and dark and restless. I snap at Nash when he knocks my crutch over by accident. Tell Boone to quit looking at me as a problem he has to solve. Tell Mom I can get my own damn water, which is technically true if by “get” you mean wage war against a set of stairs and lose.

She doesn’t fight me on it.

That’s how I know I’ve crossed a line.