Chapter Two — Andrew

Jarring pain radiated from my leg up to every hair follicle on my head. Moaning, I twist in bed, wondering how the hell I ended up back home. Except the creaking of the frame told me I was anywhere but my nice, warm bed in Knoxville. Prying my eyes open took the strength of a thousand men, and I stared up at a dull and lifeless drop ceiling.

I was far from home indeed.

“Oh, you’re finally awake,” an overly chipper voice said from across the room. She held a dry erase marker in her hand poised over a whiteboard.

“Wh—,” I began but only coughed, as my throat felt like I spent last night drinking sand. Agitated, I began moving around in the bed, noticing now all the wires and tubes dangling from my limbs.

“Calm down. Let me get you some water,” the nurse, whose name tag read Betty , said. After setting down her marker, she skipped over and held the large water container’s straw to my mouth. I was embarrassed that I couldn’t even lift my arm to hold the clear bottle.

“There. Is that better?”

“Yeah.” My voice was still scratchy, but at least I could speak now without the searing pain. “Where am I?”

“You’re at Atlanta Memorial Hospital. You’ve been out of it for the last three days. We’re glad to see you’re awake.”

As her words registered, I panicked as I looked around the room. My eyes immediately landed on the whiteboard with the Day space filled in as Friday . I would have been brought in late Monday evening.

“Do you… uh… know why I’m here?”

Betty pulled over a computer and started typing away. For an older woman, I was quite impressed with her speed.

“Well, I wasn’t on shift, but you were brought in around 11:30 p.m. on Monday by an unknown party. You sustained both a back and knee injury, and we’re assuming a concussion along with your head injury. You’ve been in a coma since then.”

“Oh.”

“Well, Mr. Renfield, now that you’re awake, I’ll go grab the doctor so he can go over your injuries and surgeries with you.”

Renfield? The name bounced around my head like a rubber ball.

“In the meantime, is there anyone I can call for you? Unfortunately, no one has come by looking for you since you’ve been here,” she added with a frown.

“Renfield?” I repeated aloud this time, and the nurse cocked her head.

“Yes, Wyatt Renfield. It was the only identification we could find.” She squinted as she read something on her screen. “You had a ticket of some sort and listed the name. Is that not correct?”

“I… I don’t know,” I admitted, trying to fetch something from the darkness of my mind.

The nurse smiled, but I could sense it was forced. “Well, that’s okay. We can figure it out later. There is a chance of some memory loss with head injuries, but the doctor can assess and discuss that with you in a few minutes when he comes in.”

Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long for the doctor to arrive. He went over the series of injuries. A bruised spinal disc, a dislocated right patella, and torn ligaments along my back and right leg.

With a description of each surgery and its recovery time, I became more agitated. The frustration grew when I couldn’t recall what sent me to the hospital in the first place. Let alone my name. The last memory I had was riding my horse around my family’s farm after promising my youngest sister I’d take it over so our father could retire and so she could travel with her professional-baseball-playing boyfriend.

It wasn’t the actual ride I remembered. It was how I felt the dichotomy between my fear of letting my family down and happiness on the back of the horse.

The doctor’s words began to jumble together until he sounded like the teacher in The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show . In the distance, the beeping of the heart rate monitor increased until it became deafening. My body tensed as the nurse stepped forward and pointed the doctor toward the screen, where the peaks of my heartbeat were popping up closer and closer together.

Their voices were muffled, and then the nurse darted out of the room. I tried speaking, to ask what was going on, but no sound came out.

“It’s okay,” the doctor said as the nurse returned with a prefilled syringe. “We’re just going to help you relax a bit.”

As the medication was plunged into the IV in my arm, I felt my muscles gently relaxing. Soon, I felt my gaze dim until I was lost in the blackness.

The growing crowd shouted my name as I settled onto the bronco. This was one of the largest events I’d participated in, and for the first time, my nerves were getting the better of me. It was so unlike the improvised stands and corrals I was used to. I had been invited to join the rodeo in a small town outside of Atlanta, and after second guessing my choice to take over my family’s farm, I agreed.

I didn’t know the team who put on this event, but I was friendly with a couple of the competitors, and they said it was legit and well put together. So far, I concurred. The stable hands had been nothing but kind and generous when I arrived. I even agreed to bunk with one of them instead of driving back to Ashfield after the event.

The pot was also significantly larger than others I’d won, which rattled my nerves more than it should’ve.

Beneath me, the horse’s lungs expanded against my thighs, and I worked to steady my breath to mimic his. Closing my eyes, I settled my mind, focusing on the smell of the arena.

Adrenaline coursed through me as my name was announced on a bullhorn.

Leaning back, I shifted my hold on the harness.

Arm free. Spurs in and up. Lean back.

My eyes popped open just as the gate did. The horse moved around like a chaotic tornado that was searching for the nearest town to destroy. I held on like my life depended on it, maneuvering my legs and spurs with each buck.

The end of the countdown neared, and I held my breath, knowing I gave the performance of a lifetime. Hopefully, my score reflected the flair and precision of my show.

Just as the buzzer sounded, I settled up on the horse while he continued to rear and kick. The pickup men struggled to grab his flank strap, and without a saddle, I had to work to safely remove myself from the bronco’s back.

Just as I tried to slip free, the horse twisted, and my right leg tangled between his. Pain radiated through my leg as his hoof hit my knee. After a few rounds of being tossed about, I was able to release my hand from the harness, and I fell to the ground with a thud. Searing agony spiraled up my back as I worked to catch my breath. I watched in horror as the pickup men continued to grapple with the flank strap, one of them taking a kick to the chest as the horse spun around.

I worked to try to stand, but my leg and back refused to follow my mind’s orders. The horse twisted and focused his angry gaze upon me. Thankfully, one of the pickup men jumped from his horse and lifted me. He tried to walk with me assisting, but my entire body collapsed once again.

“Shit,” the guy mumbled, then he called out for help.

Suddenly, I was hoisted high into the air and thrown onto the back of a horse, only to slide off the other side.

That’s when everything went black.

“Ah, fuck,” I moaned as I came to, the memories flooding back with the dream. The rodeo, the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that something could go wrong, the pain.

“Oh, are you hurting?” Betty asked as she adjusted one of the drips above my bed.

“I… I remember.”

“Remember what?” she asked as she was busy making adjustments to the IV and typing on her computer.

“How I got here, what happened, my name….”

“That’s wonderful news. Let me update your chart.”

After a few taps, she looked at me expectantly.

“My name is Andrew Philip Keyes.” I followed up with my birthdate and address.

“Well now, that should ease your mind some. I’m going to reach out to the doctor and let him know your memory has returned.”

“Okay.”

“While I go do that, is there anyone you want to call?”

At first, I insisted I didn’t, until I realized that my best friend was probably worried. He was the only one who knew what I did in my spare time, and I always made it a point to let him know what event I was going to. After a fall when I was in college, Nate made me promise I’d always let someone know what I was up to.

“Was my cell phone damaged? There is someone I need to reach out to.”

“Unfortunately, we didn’t find any devices on you.”

Realizing it was probably still sitting in the center console of my truck, I asked if there was a phone I could use. Betty pulled over a landline that was hooked up in the far corner of the room.

It took me a minute to recall Nate’s number, since he had been programmed into my favorites for years. After a few frustrating failed attempts—and one nice woman who invited me to dinner—I got ahold of Nate’s voicemail. I contemplated leaving a detailed message but opted for something short instead.

Nurse Betty watched me curiously as I asked him to call me back at the number scrawled across the top of the phone’s cradle. If it was Friday, he was likely with his twin daughters and his wife—my sister, Alex—at her cake shop. But I also knew Nate didn’t answer his phone for unknown numbers. As a tech genius and billionaire, he received phishy calls on a daily basis.

“He’ll call back soon,” I explained to the frowning nurse as she fluffed my pillow before leaving the room. Glancing down at my immobile leg wrapped in a brace, I realized I had no way home. Not only could I barely sit up straight without experiencing excruciating pain, but I wouldn’t be able to drive with the bum leg.

“Fuck,” I groaned as I used the remote attached to the bed to turn on the television. If Nate didn’t call, I was going to need to reach out to one of my siblings… or worse, my mom. The fear of hearing the disappointment in their voices left me sweating.

I must have dozed a bit as I watched an old western film, because the room was bathed in the orange glow of the setting sun when I opened my eyes again. As I readjusted myself on the bed, the phone rang. I hesitated as I lifted the receiver, wondering how my best friend was going to react if it was him.

“Hello?” My voice cracked as I greeted the caller.

“Andrew? Man, what’s going on? I got your message. I’ve been trying to reach you for days,” Nate said frantically. The worry in his voice was palpable.

I quickly explained that I was in the hospital after sustaining injuries after a nasty ride at the rodeo. Nate cursed and then quickly said a muffled apology. I suspect he was in the room with his daughters and Alex sent him one of her nasty glares.

“All right, what do you need me to do?” he asked without any other question. Nate was the only friend I had growing up that I knew would give his life for me, and I would do the same for him. He wasn’t just my brother by marriage; he was my brother in soul.

“I need to have my truck picked up, and I need to find a way back home. The doctor said he would discharge me tomorrow if I have a ride.”

“Done. I’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning. As for your truck, I’ll send a tow out tonight if you can remember where it’s parked.”

I quickly rattled off the name of the local arena where I parked. There was a good chance it had already been towed somewhere else since the night I arrived at the hospital.

“Thanks.”

“You… uh… know I have to tell your sister, right?” Nate added.

Unfortunately, I did know that. I had a feeling my entire family was going to descend upon me the moment I arrived back in Ashfield. And not with the kind of greeting I was used to. Instead of the warm fuzzies, they were going to put me through the ringer. Not something I was looking forward to.

“Yeah. Just like… ask them to go easy on me. I am injured, after all.” Just then, something the nurse said popped into my head. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“I’m going to need a live-in nurse for a couple of weeks while my ligaments and spine heal. And I need to find a local physical therapist.”

“You could always stay with your parents. I know Marisol would be over the moon to look after you.”

“I can’t do that to them. They have that trip to Europe coming up, now that Dad has recovered from the heart attack. Shit, who is going to take care of the farm?”

“We can all chip in, Andrew. We’ll make sure things are running smoothly. Aspen is home for the fall and can help with the harvest. This doesn’t have to all fall on you.”

He was right, but that didn’t lessen the guilt I felt. Running Sunny Brook Farms—my stepfather’s family legacy—already felt like I was a wolf hiding in sheep’s clothing. The farm was a moneymaker and kept my family well off in our small town, but I always felt like a phony. Like the operations and ownership should go down to one of my half-siblings, his true bloodline, not to me—the kid he was saddled with when he married my mom.

Even with Nate’s reassurance, I knew I was going to have to figure out a way to speed through my recovery. None of my siblings wanted to spend their time working the farm, which was why I had to take over. I didn’t want to put this all on them, nor my parents.

“Hey, Andrew, it will all work out. You may want to work on toughening yourself up. Your family is going to give you hell when you get home.”

“Yeah, they are,” I said warmly. I loved my family, and though I knew they were going to imagine a hundred different ways to kill me for this, I knew it was all out of love.

A yawn escaped during the conversation, and Nate chuckled.

“I’ll let you go, but, man, are you sure you’re okay? Really?”

“Every part of me hurts, but the doctor said my injuries could have been much worse.”

I waited for him to force my hand, beg me to stop the rodeos, something any normal person would have done, but not my best friend. He knew how much I loved it.

“Did you at least win?”

“I think so, but I was out of it before they announced my score.”

“Shit, okay. Well, I’ll see what I can find out.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Sure, it is. It’s important to you.”

After a long pause, I thanked Nate, and we ended the call.

Nurse Betty introduced me to the overnight nurse, and the doctor popped in one last time to go over a few things before I could be discharged the next day. He sat me up and asked me to twist my body in both directions. And though it was one of the worst pains I’d ever experienced, he seemed pleased. The older man actually smiled when he removed my knee brace to look over my knee.

After adjusting the brace back into place, he left the room with both nurses following behind. But not before the new nurse injected some pain medication into my IV drip. I’d already requested that they no longer pump me full of medications, but she said it would help me sleep. And after the way the doctor probed my body, I wasn’t as upset to feel the pain slip away thanks to the meds.

Despite the pain I felt, I knew the worst was yet to come when I made my way back to Ashfield. My family may love me, but they were going to be royally pissed.

I fell asleep with that thought running through my mind and a small grin on my lips.