The one he’d had nightmares about, the one that had kept him away from the arena for eighteen months. He’d told Sophia about the ride and a bit about the injuries he’d suffered. But he hadn’t told her everything. As he stood in the barn after his mother had left, Luke leaned against the mechanical bull, reliving the past he’d tried hard to forget. It was eight days before he’d even known what had happened. Although he knew he had been hurt and, after some prompting, could vaguely remember the ride, he’d had no idea how close he’d come to dying. He’d had no idea that in addition to fracturing his skull, the bull had cracked his C1 vertebra and that his brain had swelled with blood. He hadn’t told Sophia that they didn’t reset the bones in his face for almost a month, for fear of causing additional trauma. Nor had he mentioned that the doctors had returned to his bedside to tell him that he’d never completely recover from the head injury – and that in a section of his skull, there was now a small titanium plate.
