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He shrugs again, and my chest squeezes. He seems so unsure of himself, even though I know his mind is set. “Yeah.”
“Yeah,” I agree.
“You don’t think this is a massive mistake?”
“Absolutely not.”
“And you’re okay with me leaving for college? It’s close enough to come home on the weekends, and I promise I can still come and help with Garrett if you ever need me…”
I hold back my sigh. My family already holdsmeback; it doesn’t need to hold him back, too. “Case. This is important. This is yourlife. Of course I’m okay with it. I’m over the moon for you! Have you once told me I should stay back from touring so I can be closer to you?”
“I would be furious if you did.”
I wave my hand. “There you go. If you don’t go to college and fulfill your dreams of helping sick kids, I will be furious with you.”
“Unflinching.”
“Unflinching,” I repeat and press my lips to his.
Twenty-SevenCASE
The hardest shit seems to hit on Tuesdays. I don’t know why. Walker’s double pneumonia diagnosis was on a Tuesday in August. He died a month later on a Tuesday in September. Because of some fluke of planning at the funeral home, his viewing and funeral were an entire week after on yet another Tuesday.
I’m not a superstitious person, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been wary of Tuesdays ever since. Today has confirmed why.
I never used to collect the mail. Nothing ever comes for me, and after misplacing some important something or other meant for my dad back in the fourth grade, I’ve never craved the responsibility. However, that was before I applied and was accepted to a university. The acceptance process itself was online, but that hasn’t stopped the onslaught of marketing mailers I’ve received since. Not to mention a recruitment letter for the rodeo team. I’m still getting every email, too, but it’s as if Texas Tech is activelytryingto out me by doubling down on the spam.
Which means it’s way past time to let my dad know mycollege plans, but things have been pretty quiet the last few months. I don’t feel like rocking the wagon and reminding him I’m not making choices he’d approve of.
I’m living my life the way I want, but I don’t feel like explaining myself yet.
I’m thinking after July 31. That’s a good deadline that’s still a few weeks off but is also plenty of time before the first day of school.
It’s just ever since Winnie and I became official, we’ve been busy. Work, obviously, and training whenever we’re not working, but also, it’s as though that first kiss in my car set off a fuse between us. Either I’m tugging her into the tack room, or she’s pulling me behind the barn, or on one extra memorable night last weekend, Winnie stayed late after work and agreed to go night fishing with me down by the creek.
I’ve always had this fantasy of skinny dipping after dark with the crickets calling and fireflies sparking up the sky. Like Nitty Gritty Dirt Band–style. The reality wasn’t as great. Lots of mosquitos, actually. And Winnie refused to get in the water if she couldn’t see the bottom, which was fair. So reality was more like kissing in the grass under the light of the moon, which was still one of the greatest moments of my life so far.
I’m off track. The mail. I was talking about the mail and fucking cursed Tuesdays. I saw the dust trail of the mail truck while exercising Moses in the closest pasture, daydreaming about the way my girl glows in twilight. After cleaning Moses up and stowing him away, I went to retrieve the mail and grab some lunch from Kerry. Resting on top of the stack I’d retrieved from our giant rust bucket of a mailbox was an envelope with my name on it with a return address from a ticket vendor. Which was weird because I haven’t bought tickets to anything maybeever. Rodeo has taken up most of my free time the last decade. Curious, I’d walked over to a bench outside the stables and tore it open.
Inside, waiting for me, was a gut punch from my late best friend.
Two tickets to Headbangers Ball this coming weekend in Austin.
I sank to the bench, staring unseeing at the paper in my hands, blurring out my surroundings.
And that’s where I’ve stayed.
Walker bought them a year ago. I remember the conversation—can still see him clearly in my mind. We were driving in my car after a run-of-the-mill field party. Walker was drunk as fuck, and some old Guns N’ Roses song came on the radio, so he cranked it up. That was one of the hallmarks of Drunk Walker. I wouldn’t let him listen to the radio in my car, because he always turned on his ’80s arena rock garbage. “Thunderstruck” and AC/DC was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to Walker’s obsession. But it was late, and I was sober and tired, so I didn’t fight him on it. Thinking back, I’m glad I didn’t.
The windows were down, and the night smelled like fresh-cut hayfields. This was months before he got sick. Not like Walker was ever healthy, in the strictest sense of the term, but he wasn’t alwaysdying. He was in this in-between period, borrowing years, perpetually waiting for the other boot to drop. Live fast, die young, that kind of thing. But back then, “die young” was mostly hyperbole. If things went well, he could live a happy life for a long time. But then the world went to hell, and people like Walker, who depended on everyone else to take precautions, found themselves constantly at risk.
Anyway, that night after Guns N’ Roses squealed their last,the DJ announced a concert that following weekend in Austin called Headbangers Ball. They were a touring cover band of ’80s arena rock. It was sold out, so Walker went and signed up for the mailing list. He was determinedthiswould be our year.
Case, he’d pleaded with me, his eyes wild and animated under thick black brows.We have to do this. I’ll make the arrangements. But we have to go.
I’d assumed that was the ramblings of Drunk Walker. He’d just lost his girlfriend to a yearslong battle with leukemia, and I was on this mission to make him forget for a while. I went along with it at the time, assuming in the hungover light of morning, he wouldn’t remember.
Except he did. The fucker had actually done it. He’d reserved two tickets for this weekend, and then he went and died on me. What am I supposed to do with these? I don’t want to go. I hate this shit.
