His rugged voice hit my ears like waves crashing against the rocks. My soul was desperately dry, and he was wetting my existence. My eyes felt heavy, but his hand descending over mine felt warm and comforting, and I didn’t want to fall back asleep and risk having this moment with him.
“Fl-... -ynn?”
My vision was pounding with my headache, and my shoulder was burning and itching. What the hell was Flynn doing here? I felt something dance along my lips as my eyes fluttered closed, and then I heard that same low voice in my ear.
“Drink. You’ve gotta be thirsty.”
I leaned my head into those pillowy lips, and when Flynn pressed a light kiss to my temple, I knew everything was going to be alright. I wasn’t sure where I was, or how I’d gotten there-- I think-- but Flynn was here, and that always told me everything was going to be alright.
Then, I heard a stampede of people flood the room. It reminded me of those times at the rodeo when the horses came out and competed in the racing tournaments. People were poking me and prodding me, a doctor was peeling my eyes open, and someone else was sticking my feet with something sharp. I heard the beeping in the background speed up, and I felt the vomit rising in my throat.
“Back off,” I heard a voice in the distance.
“Chelsea…?”
“Oh my God, my little girl!”
All the voices melded together, and my ears started to burn. Someone was massaging my aching shoulder, and another person was toggling with something at the back of my head, and when I felt a pinch at the base of my neck, I reared up and heaved all over the side of whatever it was I was laying in.
“I said, ‘back off’!”
I’d know that roar anywhere. Over all the chaos of a place I didn’t recognize and above all the motions that were frightening and foreign, there rose one particular voice I’d always latched onto. I always heard him when he shouted from the rodeo pin, and he always heard me when I would shout back. I felt someone slick my hair back as I continued to vomit all over the side of my bed, and when I was finally done all I could do was sob.
“What's... ha-... happening, Flynn?”
I felt panic waft into my system and, slowly but surely, things began to fall back into place. I remember a horse in a beautiful pasture, and I watched that horse get spooked. I tried to run over to the horse, in my mind, but all of a sudden, I was lying on the ground under the horse.
“Oreo…” I whispered.
“Chelsea, latch onto the sound of my voice.”
I felt a light kiss on the temple of my head, and all of a sudden, a pair of fingers interlaced with mine. I felt someone take my other hand, but the poking and the prodding had stopped, and the beeping I had heard in the distance was just a slow, rhythmic dot in the barrage of sounds that were slowly disappearing.
“You remember Oreo?” Flynn asked, and all I did was nod against his lips.
“Do you remember the pasture?”
And again, I nodded into his touch.
“Good girl. Do you… remember th-”
He couldn’t say it. For as strong and stubborn as Flynn had always been, there were times when his words alluded him. Flynn played up a strong and unwavering facade, but deep down he cared with a burning passion about anyone who wriggled their way into his heart and soul. He’d open his doors for anyone who needed a place to stay, and he’d give his own shirt off his back if it meant someone else would be better off.
Hearing the catch in his voice scared me while bits and pieces of the accident slowly came flooding back to the forefront of my mind. I felt small circles being drawn on my other hand by someone while a hand descended onto my leg, and when my searing headache ricocheted across my vision, that’s when I remembered.
The snake.
“Snake…” I whispered.
“Yes,” Flynn managed to choke out, “there was a snake. You, uh… fell off Oreo when he began to buck because-”
“-he was spooked by the snake,” I croaked.
“The snake bit you while you were lying on the ground, and the shock of the bite paralyzed you long enough for Oreo’s hoof to come down onto your shoulder.”
Holy god, I could’ve been killed. By all accounts, I honestly should be dead.
“Oh God. Bradley,” I groaned.