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Skye just smiled and stepped back. ‘You’re in there, TJ. We’ve just got to dig you out.’

The nurse came back out. ‘This is Ralph,’ she said, introducing the male nurse at her side. ‘He’s going to help you get out of the vehicle. Ma’am, if you’d like to come with us, the valet can park your truck.’

‘Thank you.’ Skye took her keys to the valet desk, then silently followed the nurses and TJ, in a wheelchair, as they entered the ER.

The lobby was quiet just then. A little girl with a cut on her cheek and blood on her shirt slept in her mother’s arms, her face still red and puffy from crying. A teenage boy with a split lip sat sullenly in one of the badly upholstered chairs, his arms crossed protectively over his ribs in a posture Skye knew all too well. When the boy saw Skye and TJ, he lifted his hoodie up and angled his face away, hiding his bruises.

When they came to the exam cubicle, the nurse closed them inside. She pointed to the gown on the bed. ‘Let me help you—’

‘I’ve got it,’ TJ said, his tone leaving no room for further argument.

‘We’ll manage,’ Skye assured the nurse. ‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll be back in a few minutes to take your vitals, and then the doctor will follow shortly.’ She took the clipboard from Skye, scanned over the form. Her eyebrows rose as she read, and Skye could only imagine that she was at the Physical and Behavioural Conditions section, under which Skye had written Spinal cord injury from bull-riding accident – March 2025.

The moment the nurse was gone, TJ untucked his shirt. He looked at Skye over his shoulder. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Yeah, I’m not going anywhere until I hear what the doctor says with my own ears,’ Skye countered.

‘Suit yourself.’ TJ raised his hands to his buttons. He didn’t lift the shirt up and off as anyone else might have, just opened it up one button at a time and then painstakingly slipped it off his shoulders to reveal his back.

Skye had expected a scar, of course, but not the long, deep line that ran the entire length of his notched spine, cutting his bull skull tattoo unequally into two and rebalancing that scale, so that Die hovered slightly lower than Live now. Where he’d once been muscular and tanned, his back, still undeniably broad, was pale, his spine and ribcage defined through his skin.

Tears slipped uselessly over her lashes. A warbled sob left her lips.

TJ heard it. His spine went rigid. But he didn’t turn around.

‘TJ …’

He didn’t even acknowledge her, so Skye closed that distance. She didn’t say anything, just wrapped her arms around him and rested her face against his hot skin as her tears streamed unchecked. TJ froze at the touch, but Skye just whispered, ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I thought we agreed you weren’t going to apologize for that,’ he said, but his tone was cautious and gentle, and he raised his forearm to cover both of hers against his chest. He sighed deeply, so that she felt his chest decompress as the air left his lungs.

‘I wish I had been confident enough to ignore you, to stay anyway.’

‘You couldn’t have done anything for me, Skye. You still can’t.’

She stepped back and swiped her eyes, said, ‘We’ll see.’

Unlike TJ, Skye had been born into a world of fear and helplessness. She had learned, year by year, abuse by abuse, that the only way out was to fight. It hadn’t been easy. It had taken her years. But maybe that was something she could teach TJ.

‘Are you really going to make me strip in front of you?’ TJ asked.

‘It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,’ Skye commented. ‘But if you want, I can turn my back.’

TJ just shook his head. ‘Don’t even bother; I need help taking off my boots.’ He hobbled to the hospital bed and sat down gingerly.

Skye knelt on the floor. She grabbed his right boot by the heel and gently articulated his ankle so that she could yank the boot off. By the time she’d removed the second one, TJ was panting lightly.

First order of business, Skye thought. Buy lace-up work boots.

She pushed to a stand and lifted the gown off the bed, held it out so that he could thread his arms through the sleeves. Once it was on, she tied it and then stepped out of the room while he took off his jeans. Not because she was embarrassed or sensitive to how TJ’s body had changed; she would have found him attractive irrespective. She left because it was too intimate to watch him undress completely.

And Skye didn’t know what to do with that truth.

TJ sat on the bed and waited for the doctor to come. His back was pulled as tight as a violin string, his muscles spasming, his right leg burning in a river of nerve pain. But for the first time in a long while, it didn’t steal all his attention. He was stuck on Skye, on the way she’d stood up to him and refused to listen when he’d insisted he was fine. The way she’d kissed him, the way she’d hugged him, her hot tears falling on his skin.

TJ had stopped grieving for himself a long time ago, maybe even on the day that Skye had left. It had been easy to stop caring when he’d looked at his life and seen nothing worth fighting for. His sister had Sly and Luke. Even his parents had the farm and each other. On days where he felt good enough to help, only a few hours of work were enough to set him back completely, so they’d gotten to the point where all he and his parents did was fight about what he could and couldn’t do.