Brave as It (Hellions Ride On #7)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

WESSON

The Tail of the Dragon, Deals Gap, North Carolina.

The air in the space is thick today or maybe it’s just the tension in my head. Whatever the case may be, this doesn’t feel like I once expected it to. Maybe it’s one of those great mysteries in life where I’ve built this up so much in mind it will never reach my expectations.

There aren’t as many times now that things are such an ‘in the face’ moment of what my accident cost me. Not like in the beginning.

When I first woke up in the hospital and Boomer told me the extent of my injuries … every single task was raw. It was a constant reminder of all that would never be once again. I fight the natural instinct to dwell even now when I know my realities far too well.

Today though, the differences exist in every second of the passing time.

This isn’t how it is supposed to be.

At all.

While everyone shares in the jubilee of the ride, I find myself longing. If I had my legs, I would be on my bike. I would hug every curve and feel the shit from top to toe. To ride is to live, to breathe, to fucking feel deep, it’s like nothing a person can ever experience again. It’s not an adrenaline rush, it is existing in a way where every inch of the body experiences.

Kick, my brother,Colton(his actual name), he will feel that vibration. He will have every inch of his body and every part of his mind engaged in the ride before him. To be one with his bike and the pavement, Kick will have the full ride.

When we were kids, we dreamed about this day. The day we would have the same cut as our dad, Nathan “Boomer” Vaughn. After everything Boomer and the Hellions gave Colt and me, it’s more than an honor to join the brotherhood. They are family in the ways that count. They are the family we never imagined having. Family isn’t blood. It’s loyalty, trust, and commitment to each other.

This is not at all what I thought today would be.

I will not get the real experience.

Never again.

No invention, no improved technology, nothing can bring my limbs back. There isn’t a single thing anyone can do to give me back what life took from me that day. Everyone says be grateful I’m alive … some days I am and some days I wish the accident was my last day. It’s hard to explain. Unless someone has experienced the struggles I have, I don’t think it’s fair to judge.

Laying in the bed with my eyes staring up to the popcorn ceiling of the run-down hotel, my mind is stuck. This void of in between. What should have been versus what is.

All of this is familiar and different at the same time. This hotel, a place I’ve stayed many times before is the same. Hell, I’ve probably slept in this very room at some point in time. The feeling in the pit of my stomach is very different.

This is a Hellions rite-of-passage. This is the day where I take the ride, I’ve been waiting my entire life for.

Except it’s not at all like I dreamed it would be.

Closing my eyes, I can pretend. Here in this room, alone, I can feel my legs. I am whole once again. No more ghost pains of limbs that are long gone. Right here, right now, I can be the man I was before. If I just shut out the world around me and let myself go back, I can be put back together in my mind.

I still remember. Vividly actually. For whatever reason, my mind refuses to let go of what is no longer my world. More times than I care to admit, I go back to before, reliving the memories of when my legs carried me through every ride.

The machine under me.

The power.

The vibration.

Every twist of the throttle pressing harder, faster, as the pavement glides under me. Sliding my foot under the clutch to click into the next gear, I press on. The tires roll smoothly as my body takes in every sensation. The wind hits my face as I breathe deep. The sun kisses my skin as I inhale the air around me.

This is peace.

All the shit I’ve done, none of it matters. I am man and machine. The wide-open road is a freedom like no other. The lives I have taken in the name of serving my country can’t haunt me. The shit that was my childhood doesn’t hang over my head. Everything goes into a neat little box where my thoughts no longer invade and overtake me. No, on my Harley, it’s just me and the curves in the road. The sun rays shine down on me dancing over my exposed flesh. The heat is a reminder I can feel. So much of my life has to be pushed down. I have to compartmentalize to survive. Emotions have no place in war. The more I twist the throttle, the faster the beast under me goes, and the harder the wind hits my cheeks. It’s a reminder I breathe. I made it out of another mission, another jump I came back from.

The thing about riding a motorcycle is the simple beauty found in the open highway. There is no better calm for my tortured soul than turning off my radio and just listening to the bike as the miles roll under me. The focus required to remain upright and out of the way of bad drivers allows me to shut out all of the thoughts that crowd my mind constantly.

Like my job as a Paratrooper in the 82 nd Airborne, I have to focus on the jump, the wind, the direction, and when to pull my chute as I watch the area below preparing for attack. From the moment I release from the aircraft to the moment my boots hit the ground, I have to focus on the air, my breathing, and the steps that get me to the action. Then I can worry about the enemy and mission. In the air, it’s all about controlling the float and landing. While the seconds pass slowly, the feeling of my heart racing and adrenaline pumping for what’s to come never gets old. Those jumps are mere moments.

Riding, I have a different level of control and I can spend hours on the open road. Freedom from the games my mind plays on what I’ve done and what I have yet to do is the ultimate feeling. One I can only find on my bike.

As I press on, I simply relax further into the ride.

Fear is for pussies. It’s why I jump. I fear no man. I fear no woman. I fear nothing but God himself. The day I meet my maker, I’ll have plenty to atone for, but in the here and now, I have not one fear.

The bike doesn’t miss a beat, each tick of the engine enticing me to accelerate just a little more and a little more.

Faster and faster, I press on.

I ride and ride.

The day passes as do the miles as I finally find myself getting closer to Haywood’s Landing from Fort Liberty in Fayetteville, North Carolina. While the day is monumental this ride still feels like everything. I can’t say it’s in my blood because my life on a bike has nothing to do with my DNA.

I bought a house today. I didn’t think I would be doing this, but I’m not leaving the 82 nd or the Army. I’m going to do this for the full twenty or longer if they let me. I finally have this place where I fit.

My father Nathan “Boomer” Vaughn was in the Army. He saw more combat than I can ever imagine. First as an explosives specialist then as a green beret. He is the badass living through all those top-secret missions. I am proud to carry on his name as both my brother, Colton, and I have both joined the United States Army. There isn’t a time in my life where I didn’t want to follow in Boomer’s footsteps. The same can be said for my brother.

Colt is in Ranger school. He’s making his own mark in the Army. In the beginning, I wasn’t sure I would want to do the full career thing. I thought I can join and see how it goes. That first jump, I was hooked. Adrenaline and focus blend together making my heartbeat faster and my vision clear in an instant. I live for it.

Until Boomer, we didn’t have a home that was ours. Buying my house today, I can’t wait to get back to Haywood’s Landing to give my mom a key to something that is all mine. She will understand more than anyone how good this all feels. Boomer gave her this, gave us this. I am proud of where I came from because of his love for our family. Making this ride home to give her this gift is all consuming.

I have a job I fucking love.

A house of my own at twenty-two. Life is fucking good and mine for the taking.

That day wasn’t about the house. It was about making my own place in this world. Today is me making my own place in the Hellions. Even now, this is as much about being with Boomer as it is being in the Hellions. I blink taking in the reality of everything once again. I don’t talk about it, ever.

My childhood before Boomer is never something I will discuss with anyone. My thoughts live alone in my head and that is where they will stay.

I let them all think I forgot the formative years with Dennis Williams. I didn’t forget a single second. Even though I was young, too young, I remember feeling afraid. Not of my mom, of him specifically. More than anything, I remember living with our grandmother tucked away trying to keep safe. The months in between visits with our mom because she couldn’t risk him finding us. I remember far more than I care to.

Which is why whenever any hint of it is ever brought up, I play dumb. I know nothing.

Why?

Because I don’t want to remember those times. They were dark. There is nothing good that will come from going there. I don’t need my mom feeling guilty for the years before Boomer. I don’t need my brother feeling like he didn’t protect me from the scars. And I don’t want Boomer to ever feel like he hasn’t given his all to taking away our pain.

The same thing is relevant to my accident. There are things I remember. A lot of memories, actually. I don’t want to talk about it. Therefore, it is better for everyone around me to think I don’t remember. Some things are truly better left unsaid.

In the beginning, I didn’t know what happened. It was like this mental block I couldn’t push past. Only as time went on, those moments all came back. Some days I wish they hadn’t.

That is a big thing for me, not dragging anyone else down with me. This misery in my mind, it’s my own to battle. I know my accident has affected my family. If they knew what went on in my head, there is no doubt it would hurt everyone closest to me.

I won’t do that.

They have had enough trouble and change because of me and this accident.

Sitting here knowing what could have been, no what should have been, I’m struggling to maintain the bravado. The mind is a tricky place to be. Everyone talks about safe spaces. Well, my mind is not always my safe space.

When I go over that day, that ride, it turns into if only. My mind is a prison I can’t ever get released from. A death sentence all its own.

If only, I had reacted quicker.

If only, I stayed at the previous stop in the poker run a few minutes more.

If only, I had ridden to the outside of the lane.

If only, I had traded in my bike the week before like I was considering.

If only, I bought new tires when I decided not to trade it in.

If only, I changed to heavier bags it would have given more weight to the back end of my bike.

The list goes on and on. But not one if only changes my reality.

The reality that is very much a challenge as a man today.

From the moment Boomer came into our lives, my brother and I have been engulfed in the Hellions motorcycle club world. When I came too from the accident, they were all crowded around. Not one of them or their family members have even considered not sticking by my side to see me through. Today is the day I’m not just Boomer’s son. Today I earn the final rocker. Today I’m his brother in a club that has been our family from the moment he accepted us as his own so did everyone in the club.

Needing to connect with something, needing to hold onto something from before the accident was this process. I always knew I would join. Granted, I expected it to be after retirement. When my career ended, I needed this. I lost my Army life, but I didn’t lose my family. I knew how to solidify my place. To belong again and to have this goal to work towards.

Prospecting.

After the accident, I didn’t just lose my legs. I lost my job as a Paratrooper in the Army getting an honorable discharge but knowing it was because I was no longer considered fit for duty was a whole different mind fuck. I lost the ability to walk, to ride my motorcycle, and to even drive a car without adaptations. I couldn’t get around my house with my wheelchair. When I bought it, I certainly didn’t expect to need handicapped accessible features. I definitely wasn’t jumping from aircrafts anymore. I wasn’t doing shit the easy way ever again. All the things I took for granted were suddenly a daily battle. Hell, I had to learn how to balance safely to wipe my ass. Literally almost everything in my life changed.

What stayed the same?

The Hellions and my place here amongst them.

Once I came out of rehab and figured out day to day life, I knew I was going to prospect. This is the only thing that has kept me going since the accident.

Scrubbing toilets after the parties, did that shit with a smile. Getting some crazy coffee order and delivering it one by one to each ol’ lady, did that shit too with a fucking smile. Anything and everything asked of me, I took care of with the same focus I did with every mission of my military career.

Why then am I struggling to smile today when it’s all right here about to happen?

Because I feel the weight of what could have been.

I can’t complain about the sidecar ride. I chose not to have prosthetics fitted to me. I’m eligible, but it hasn’t felt right. Fake legs don’t change a damn thing about what I’ve lost. Sure, it gives me back some options, but not without making adaptations of putting on the prosthesis. I can’t explain it, but in my gut, I am not that man, not yet, and I don’t know if I ever will be.

Boomer offered to outfit a trike for me to ride again. Since that doesn’t require me to balance it, I did consider it. Even now it still pops into my mind from time to time tempting me to give it a go.

Here is the thing, riding is beautiful.

Yeah, I said that shit.

Riding is this experience for me. It’s a whole body, every sense engaged, experience. Shit is almost better than sex.

Almost.

There is no better way to experience the full beauty of the United States than cross-country on a motorcycle. The views, the towns, the people, all of it is something I take in each and every time.

I can’t do that the same ever again and I don’t want those memories tainted.

Today is already challenging enough. I can get through this ride. I will get through this ride.

I’ll climb in the sidecar on my own. I’ve practiced the drop in and lift out. It’s not easy, but I’m going to do it my way. Colton will have control in the bike, but the sidecar, I’ll feel the curves and take this ride almost like everyone else.

From today until the end of time, legs or no legs, I’m a Hellion. I’m not defined by my wheelchair, I’m still part of this brotherhood.

That is what is going to carry me through today.

The final patch. The rocker complete and having a place in the club I’ve always wanted even though I’ll never ride again.

With courage I’ll get through today.

And the rest of my days will be filled with acceptance of my circumstance. No matter what comes I can face it because today marks the day I’m a Hellion.

Ride until I die … in my own way.