Page 26 of Worth the Fight

When I got home from the Marines, my mom and grandma couldn’t stop with the hugs. I spent too many months letting them hug me without wrapping my arms fully around them in return. Without offering them that comfort back. It was too much back then, too much human contact, and I couldn’t handle it. I had spent the last four years hardening myself, detaching myself from affection, trying to snub out the emotions I had felt because of all the loss.

That feeling stayed with me once I was discharged and returned home. When it became too much, when I felt like I was suffocating from the affection, I’d find an excuse to pull away early, and after a while, they stopped trying. I’d come out here, lock myself away in the horse barn and sit with my anger. I’d stare at the tack room where Mags first asked me if I liked her. The main hall where I kissed her for the first time.

God, I was so nervous that night. So embarrassingly in love with the coolest girl in Copper Ridge. And there she was, asking me if I had a crush on her, and I was almost too nervous to say yes.

When the nights got bad, when I couldn’t sleep because of the nightmares and it was too quiet on the farm, I started keeping a bottle of whiskey out here. And the nights where it would get real bad, I’d come out here, park my ass on a hay bale, and lean against the wooden boards of the horse pen. I’d crack the bottle and drink away my thoughts. After a few nights, Bailey started coming to stand on the other side of the wall. I could hear her quiet movements as she stood, swaying side to side. Her big body would brush against the wall at my back every now and then, the subtle noise reminding me that I wasn’t alone.

One night, when it got particularly bad, when I couldn’t sleep without seeing Collins’s face over and over again, I ran out here, searched for my stash, and found my bottle empty. I threw the glass, letting it shatter against the wall, then crumpled on a pile of hay bales.

I blubbered and cried by myself, then felt the soft whiskers of her nose as she stretched her neck over the wooden wall to find me. I tried to ignore her, and she’d push a little more, teeth nipping at the side of my sweatshirt for attention. When I finally gave in, I looked up and couldn’t help but laugh at those big nearly alien-like eyes staring down at me with such concern.

I went into her stall and we stared off, and when I raised one arm to rest on her neck, she took a step forward. I put my other arm up, and she leaned into me. She was my first real hug, the first vulnerable hug I let anyone get since Mags, and it felt damn good to have someone.

I pull away from Bailey, scratching the coarse hair that falls between her ears once as I clear my throat. “I guess, I can let you go, huh?” Her nostrils flare once, her side eye telling me she needs to make sure I’m all right.

I chuckle, smoothing my hand down her back and patting her on the side. “I’m good, girl, you go run off.” I jut my chin out toward the back field where we can see the rest of the horses grazing on the horizon. “Go on, I’m good, I swear.”

She turns to trot off, but not before she turns once more, as if she’s really making sure that I’m all right. And something about that has my throat stinging.

We don’t deserve animals.

I’m about to turn toward the main house to go find my mom and give her a real hug, a hug that’s long overdue, when my phone rings from my back pocket.

Pulling it out, I’m surprised to see an unknown number with a generic healthcare name scrolling across the front.

“Hello?”

“Lukas.”

“Nana?” I turn back into the horse barn, carefully stepping over the piles I haven’t picked up yet, and move to the front door where I’ll have the best cell reception.

“You all right? Where are you?”

“It’s not me you need to worry about,” she says. “It’s these nurses. Lukas, I need you to come down here and show these girls who’s boss.”

I chuckle at the sound of her ornery voice, relieved that she isn’t calling from the hospital, or calling because something else bad has happened.

“When I was there yesterday it seemed like they all knew what they were doing.” Nana did end up fracturing her hip, just as I suspected. Thankfully, it was able to be fixed with surgery. She was in the hospital overnight and discharged the next day to a rehab facility that sits just outside of town.

She wasn’t happy about that, as one would imagine. She insisted she could go home and that a home health nurse stopping in once a day would be sufficient. It was a fight between her and Mags’s dad, and she begrudgingly agreed to go to a rehab facility, warning us that if the food was shit, she would take a taxi back home.

“Well, that was yesterday,” she bites out. “My morning medications were fifteen minutes late today, and I’ve asked for fresh water three times, and you know what? They haven’t brought it yet.”

I cock my brow at that. “They won’t bring you fresh water?” I start toward my truck, ready to hop in and head there immediately if they truly aren’t taking care of her. “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Not today,” she says. “What about tomorrow? Can you come and see me tomorrow?”

I had just tucked the keys into the ignition and was about to fire up the engine when I pause. “Nana,” I say sternly. “If they aren’t giving you water to drink, I’m coming down there right now to take care of it.”

“It’s fine, Lukas. You know I’ll whip them into shape. How about you come and see me tomorrow? About two o’clock?”

“Tomorrow, what?” My hand falls to my lap, keys still sitting in the ignition. “Are you sure I can’t come today? It’s no bother, seriously.”

“I said tomorrow, and I would like to see you tomorrow. Can you do that?”

I chuckle, swiping a hand across my face, feeling the scruff of my beard against my palm. “Yes, ma’am. Two o’clock tomorrow. Promise I won’t be late. Anything you want me to bring?”

“Just yourself. Make sure to shower, so you don’t smell like horse shit.”