“So.” She tucks her hands into her pockets, then pulls one back out and rests it lightly on my arm. “Big day.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Heard about your promotion.”
Her eyes light up. “Creative Director. I—I still can’t believe it. It’s everything I wanted. Bigger budget, bigger campaigns, more say in the direction of the department. I’ll be leading all the holiday accounts next year. Can you imagine? We could make the Chimney Gorge campaign an annual thing. Follow up. Summer. Fall. Holiday.”
I picture her in some glass building, windows full of city instead of pines, stacked with storyboards and calendars and clients all wanting a piece of her. I picture her phone buzzing nonstop, her laptop always open.
I picture her up in my cabin trying to answer emails on a spotty connection while I check fences and pretend I don’t hear the frustration in her voice when a file won’t send.
“Congratulations,” I say again.
She searches my face. “It’s a lot,” she admits. “Longer hours. More travel. I’ll have to be in the office more days. But—” She breathes out, a little laugh. “I felt like my dad was there today. Cheering me on. I don’t know. It feels right.”
“It is right,” I say.
And that’s the problem.
“You don’t sound happy,” she says quietly.
I keep my eyes on the road. On the way the runners hiss over the snow. On the birches, their white trunks glowing in the moonlight. “I am.”
“You’re lying,” she says.
She’s not wrong.
I pull the horses to a slow stop in the middle of the lane. The world narrows to white and shadow and the soft exhale of two patient animals.
“Ivy,” I say, feeling the words like stones in my mouth. “I need to say something.”
Her hand tightens on my arm. “Okay.”
I let the reins rest, my fingers curling around the worn leather for something to hold onto. My heartbeat is too loud. My chest feels too tight.
It would be so easy to say the opposite of what I’m about to say. To tell her I’ll drive down every weekend. That she can come up whenever her schedule allows. That we’ll figure it out. That love—whatever we’re growing toward—conquers logistics.
But I know better.
“I was…wrong,” I say.
I feel her go still beside me. “About what?”
“About starting something with you,” I say, each word scraping. “About thinking I could make a future work with someone whose life looks like yours.”
Silence.
Cold.
“You mean…because of work?” she asks slowly.
“Because of everything,” I say. “You’re going to be in offices and airports and meetings. You’re going to be running teams and chasing campaigns and living in a world that…doesn’t look anything like this.”
“And you’re going to be up here,” she says, voice tight. “With your horses. With your bells. With your cabin.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“And?” she demands.
“And that’s what I want,” I force out. “My quiet. My mountain. My routine. I spent years wanting nothing but noise and action, and it broke things in me I still don’t know how to fix. I’m not built for long-distance. For half a relationship stuffed into weekends and spotty phone calls. I don’t have it in me to…split my life like that.”
